The mission of the Ardenne High School Library is to maintain a physical and virtual environment that promotes learning, supports teaching and research, fosters lifelong intellectual growth and discovery by providing all members of the Ardenne Community with access to the needed information resources, research assistance, and guidance in developing skills for locating, evaluating and using information to solve problems and fully participate in the global community as informed citizens

Even though discussions for the school library began in 1938, it was not until 1958 that a classroom was designated the school’s library. The room had a collection of books with no classification system in place. In September 1963, the school library was properly organized by teachers, Mrs. Blake and Miss Miller. They were helped by sixth form students as well as Miss Eugenie Campbell, a past student to quickly catalogue and classify and the collection.

The collection was depleted over the years, however, through the instrumentality of the Rev. and Mrs. Ralph Little of the Jamaica Bible Institute, eighteen pounds (£18) was donated by the Vacation Bible School in America, in addition to which One Hundred and Fifty Pounds (£150) which was received from the Board of Governors. With these gifts and a highly successful Book Drive which involved competitions run among the school’s houses the school was successful in expanding the collection.

In 1981, the E. M Claire Gayle Library building was constructed. The building housed, in addition to the library, a music room, a geography room and a conference room. Books were donated by the Ardenne Alumni in the United States of America and Canada. At present it serves as a library in its entirety, the conference room remains and the other rooms converted to the e-Learning and Digital Media Labs.

The E.M. Claire Gayle Library currently serves 2038 students and a full staff compliment of 150 members. The library collection currently has over 6,000 books in circulation, ranging from Dewey class 000 (the generalities) to 900 (History and Geography), as well as a growing collection of periodicals that is widely used by students.

In October 2015 the fully computerized the 1st floor of the library with a total of 46 computers that is currently run on an N-Computing system was blessed and opened. The 1st floor of the library is also used to host a floating displaying of art works by past and present students. The first display was of works by Patrick Kitson, Black and White Artist. EBSCO, an online database with eBooks, is available as well as an online catalog system through the school’s management system RenWeb. In addition, our library offers printing and photocopying services to the school community, through our new Document Centre that was opened in January 2016.