Everyone knows Mr. Schmalbach. Whenever you need to repair your Chromebook, you will always be sent down to the library. It is strange to think that you would go to librarian Robert Schmalbach instead of going straight to IT.

“Your screen breaks, it takes me four minutes to fix it,” Schmalbach said. “I’d rather you come in and take four minutes, than you have to wait three days to get something.”

Schmalbach has been working here for twenty-six years as a librarian and educator. While he teaches library sciences, he actually began here as a history teacher. That was his end goal. After four years of college, Schmalbach obtained his bachelor’s in history and minor in education. He was hired here as a substitute teacher in October of 1999. Schmalbach became a US history teacher in the summer of 2000.

After a year, Schmalbach decided to be a librarian because he does not like disciplining students.

While he loves his job, his least favorite part is having to remind students of the rules in the library. He chose to teach at a high school in the first place because he does not want to speak to anyone like a preschooler.

“My goal is to have an atmosphere where kids can be comfortable and do what they need in the library,” he said.

Schmalbach decided he didn’t want to teach traditionally while he attended the University of Pittsburgh. It was there that a friend who worked at a public library informed Schmalbach that the University of Pittsburgh has a great library science program. Schmalbach enrolled to major in Library and Informational Science. As he was about to get his Master’s degree, the previous librarian, Jan Pearce, wanted to retire, so Schmalbach took her place as librarian.

“She was right near the end of her career and we had talked. She was very excited about the idea of me taking over her job because she knew me as a student,” Schmalbach stated.

Now, he hosts an extracurricular activity called Spice, which creates and curates the NAHS yearbook. In 2003, the previous person in charge of running Spice was a reserved military personnel. She got called up for active duty one day. It was halfway through the year, she had to leave for six months.

Ironically, Schmalbach was telling her how he was happy that he was not in charge of the yearbook. He did not really want to work with Spice, but his love for preserving the history of the school made him change his mind. When she heard of this, she suggested Schmalbach to the principal because he was the only person she knew could do it.

He told himself he would “finish out this year only . . . and that was 23 yearbooks ago.”

Keeping up with extracurriculars was something Schmalbach himself did when he went to high school at Norristown, where he was the editor-in-chief of the school newspaper. During his whole high school year, the newspaper was actually called the Talon, and unlike The Wingspan today, it was a physical print paper.

“Although I’m a decent writer and I like writing alright, I actually liked the layout, the designed part of it a lot better than writing,” he said.

When he is not at school, our librarian naturally loves to read. Schmalbach is a fiction, mystery, and suspense fan more than anything. He is a major “Harry Potter” fan. He read the series at least 50 times. He also loves horror writer Stephen King.

“I read everything in his ‘Dark Tower’ series. That’s one of my all-time favorite books.”

Even though times have changed because of the internet, students still come to check out books.

“I try to bring in interesting things and know that when I get students in here. They come down and they go, like, oh, there’s cool stuff here.  So come down here and use it,” he said.

Schmalbach has a large influence on not only the students but the teachers here at NAHS as well.

“He really is somebody that if you want to see what being proud of this school is all about, go to the library,” AP Seminar teacher Steve Dinenno said.

Schmalbach’s family is also a big part of his life. He has two sons and a wife who also went to NAHS. He has a proud family and career. He is an irreplaceable member of this high school.