Tag Archives: school libraries

Expanded library services in unsettled times

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While some journalists and government leaders struggle to realize that libraries do more than house books, I have been reporting on innovative, expanded library services for years. Most recently, I reported on how some public libraries have responded to the coronavirus pandemic. Now, libraries are starting to open their doors to the public again. It seems like a good idea to look at some more new library services that maintain community engagement. Most of them will likely continue even after normal services and programs return. A substantial majority of public libraries in the US have offered expanded library services. Common innovations include: leaving Wi-Fi on with the library closes and otherwise expanding its availability extending online renewal possibilities reallocating money budgeted for print resources to offer more ebooks and streaming services adding various kinds of virtual programming devising systems of virtual library cards so patrons need only copy and paste a barcode number into the online catalog offering services using social media, including promoting census participation

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School librarians revisited: grounds for hope?

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I wrote about the school librarian as an endangered species a few years ago. Has the trend started to change? In 2000, America’s public school faculties had more than 54, 000 librarians and media specialists. By 2015, that number had declined to fewer than 44,000, a drop of about 20%. About half of that decline has happened since the 2008 recession. The loss of school library positions eased somewhat in academic years 2012/13 and 2013/14, but then returned to the post-recession rate. Meanwhile, student enrollment has grown by 7%. Some districts have an even greater disparity. Denver, for example, saw a 25% increase in student enrollment at the same time it reduced the number of its school librarians by 60%. In general, schools that serve minorities and the less affluent have borne the brunt of the cuts. The schools, in other words, that have the most challenges with low reading scores and difficulties with information technology have shed the very people best prepared to help the efforts of classroom teachers. Some districts have had second thoughts.

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What’s a library without books? Some bookless libraries

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I read about a library without books sometime in the late 1990s, I don’t remember what college or university in New York  had no room in its library for a computer lab. So it opened one in another nearby building it owned and called it a branch library. Why? Because it was staffed with librarians. In principle, it’s not the presence of a book collection that defines a library. A library simply requires librarians. In recent years, however, libraries have experimented with bookless libraries based on digital technology. That is, they have books, just not printed books. How is that likely to work out?  I’m not much impressed by what I’ve read.

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Innovative library services: some kudos and a rant

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Libraries exist to serve the needs of their public. Traditionally they have existed to serve needs for information and entertainment. That accounts for the books, periodicals, computer resources, and audiovisual collections, but not necessarily every service or collection. The Helen Plum Library in Lombard, Illinois lends out paintings and sculptures. I found the sculptures handy when I was teaching a humanities course, but apparently most people borrow them just to redecorate their homes for a short time. In earlier posts 3 unusual and unexpected library services and 5 more unusual and unexpected library services I have called attention to unusual ways academic and public libraries have found to serve their patrons. Printing fish? Cooking classes in a professional kitchen?  Here are some more innovative  programs. School libraries, unfortunately, seem under attack. Too many of the articles I have read still seem to find it unusual that libraries can be anything more than book warehouses. How will today’s children get to know libraries any better if they are denied access to them now?

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Chicago Public Schools vs school libraries

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Harold Howe, the author of Thinking about Our Kids, has said, “What a school thinks about its library is a measure of what it thinks about education.” They must not think much about education in Chicago these days. They have taken school librarians out of the library and assigned them to classroom teaching. I learned of the problem from a report on National Public Radio. I lived in the Chicago area for more than 20 years, and during the last 15 years or so of that time, I was married to a suburban elementary school teacher. We lived through a strike. The news hit close to home, but I wouldn’t write about it if it had implications only for Chicago. Similar shenanigans appear all over the country, and not just with schools.

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