I teach second grade at a large Texas school, and our library is rockin.' Tons of books, lots of new ones, something for everyone, all shelved Dewey Decimal style. Their circulation is tres busy.

fortunate to be able to visit him in his school library. Yes, it was rocking, and the kids were excited to be there picking out their books! Great enthusiasm!
I'm sorry that's been taken away from those kids.

there's a librarian, a book budget, and the PTA raises money for even more books. At the last PTA meeting, we talked about what we were going to buy to replace outdated books that were removed from the library. So, no, there are many places where books are a big deal!

Virtually the only gifts I give my 3 grandchildren, ages 1, 2 and 3, are books. My daughters often seek more shelf space for their books, and yesterday I found beautiful copies of Mother Goose and Classic Children's Poetry for them, 2d hand, total cost $1.00!!!

They have the most beautiful stories and each one teaches a great lesson.

I'm in a rural area (unless I go into town!) but fortunately have found a 2d hand shop which invariably has LOTS of variety.

They are out of print but just the sweetest children's books out there.

Wow. He moves swiftly.

school district.

"Take back our Library" There would need to be some volunteering with Teachers, Faculty/Staff and Students alike. This is if I were top dog running the show. Ya know what....TrekLuver for President.

might be willing to be involved as a "service project", and parents, local retirees, etc. might also volunteer if asked. I wouldn't let something as precious as a library go down without a fight!

and others have abandoned their libraries.

It seems to me that those schools that have good libraries are the ones that have the students' best interests at heart. They are the ones with the better administrators. Teachers are stressed everywhere but the teachers in those schools with the libraries are more supported and able to enjoy the children more, and the children feel it. It seems, too, that those schools that went through the work to get the grants for the libraries also seek grants for art and music.

In my limited experience, a library is a canary in the coal mine. If it is there, the school is going to be a better school.

Last edited Sat Jan 28, 2017, 07:52 AM - Edit history (1)

I when I see a beautiful one, it tends to be unused. if it looks like a mess, the kids are in there reading everything. I prefer the mess.

http://everylibrary.org/library-closures-defunding-2017/

School Libraries
2017 has kicked-off with more threats of closures, layoffs, and defunding of school libraries. Most notably, the Galesburg School District in Illinois has a budget agenda that includes a proposal to cut 7 of the 8 libraries in the district that will be discussed at a closed-door meeting on January 25th. We also continue to see cuts to school libraries in Chicago in some of the most impoverished schools and across Chicago only ¼ of the schools have school librarians. In Michigan, the state is currently fighting a lawsuit by seven Detroit schoolchildren who say their schools are horrible — by countering that “there is no fundamental right to literacy.” We fully expect attacks like this to continue throughout 2017 unless we start standing up to support our children and their education.

says libraries are dead and so are librarians. It's mostly due to most resources being online.

I'm in a wealthy county and libraries are a priority here.

The library science school where I got my undergraduate degree is now a school of information technology. They prepare the students to organize information online and make it accessible whether online or in brick and mortar libraries - something that is needed as information increasingly moves online. Librarians may not be called that anymore but people who can work with information are needed even more as the resources become more diverse and diffused.

which includes 11 elementary schools; 4 middle schools; 3 high schools.


I just checked the district website and found this statement:

The Chapel Hill Public Library operated by the Town of Chapel Hill is an extraordinary resource.

http://chapelhillpubliclibrary.org/

Find allies and keep working on the admin.

Many of the teachers made "reading corners" so it wasn't a complete catastrophe.

I practically lived in the school library as a kid. Not only did I love to read, I was safe from bullying there.

Uneducated and ignorant people are so much more easy to be manipulated. Books expand minds and can change the world. Of course, they are being relegated to the garbage dump. The Nazis burned books for a reason.

A great Scientific American article on how important the tactile feel of a book is to learning.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-reading-brain-in-the-digital-age-why-paper-still-beats-screens/


Also for science and engineering, I still think a textbook is better for learning. You can hold your page with your homework problem while skimming the book for examples.

My house is a small library. I hate parting with my favorites.

It doesn't even have to be learning something serious. I play a lot of tabletop games and even just learning the rules for those games is so much easier with a physical book than a PDF. I can't imagine trying to learn math from a PDF or other electronic format. I'd go mad.

I received it as a Christmas gift a couple of years ago. It's pretty much nothing more than the living room Pandora player. Give me a paperback. I'm old and set in my ways. I like the feel of an actual book in my hand. Yes, I know, dead trees and all that. Nonetheless, I prefer books made of paper and ink.

Have no children, but my county has an extensive network of around 8-10 public libraries, with a branch about ten minutes by car from any school. The library network also has a large young children's library at at the main branch. The book collection is pretty extensive and patrons can get electronic books via a staffed circulations desk. I live in a red-purple county in a purple state.

They also have community rooms in the branches - unless the branch is located next to one of the counties community centers.Either way, the libraries promote events and encourage local groups to meet at the branches. In fact next Saturday our needlework group will have an event at one of the branches as part of the Embroiderers' Guild of America Stitch in Public Day.

We're in a blue county in a mostly red state (Florida).

One of the amazing things about our public library is that it didn't start until the 1950s. The town turned down a Carnegie library grant in the early 1900s because everyone had to be admitted. Until the public library was started, there was a private subscription library, the state library, and the university libraries, none of which were open to the general public. It was ironic that one of the universities in this town had the only library science school in the state before the county finally began their own library!

I grew up in a smaller town that had its own public library in the back room of a shop in the 1870s and 1880s. When they needed a larger facility the town petitioned for a Carnegie grant and built a dedicated building for the public. When I was a kid they enlarged that building and then in the 1980s they built a new much larger building. That building is constantly in use, with events and meetings at least once a week, often more.

of this happening. The school district thought it more important for librarians to teach basic curricula classes instead of helping students with finding information and research. Most of the libraries in the major district, in the senior and middle schools, have no librarians and the room has been abandoned. Teachers are directing their students to iPads and laptops for research. It is so pathetic. What has happened to education? I believe in technological advances but sometimes it is to our own demise. Off topic, my grand daughter was told not write in cursive in the third grade because the rest of the students could not read cursive writing. She had transferred into the school from another state where they taught cursive writing.

to keep the library in working order.

When my children were in school, volunteers were incredibly important in many ways. I spent many hours in the school library at their elementary school simply re-shelving books, which I found tedious and boring, but I was glad enough to do.

In reality, we do not spend nearly enough money in this country on our public schools to maintain them as they deserve. In many school districts the volunteers make a huge difference. I know, because I've done that volunteering.

If we, as a society, truly valued our children's education, the schools would command the largest portion of our budget.

As a bit of an aside, I wound up sending my children to a secular private schools for very personal reasons. The older son was being bullied, so we moved him, and after a few months decided to move the younger son also. In that school I saw quit clearly how all of our schools should be. The public school they'd previously attended was, at the time, the very best in the state. It has since lost ground, mainly because of conservative Republican policies. But every single child deserves the kind of education my kids got. Period. No exceptions. And we all need to be prepared to pay for it.

When I was a mom at that private school, occasionally the topic of paying taxes for the local schools came up, and I always said that I should not be exempt from one penny of taxes for the public schools, just because I'd decided to send my kids to this private school. Oh, my, was I unpopular for those comments. And we were very much not any where near as rich as most of the families there. We had the extraordinarily good fortune to have grandparents who could underwrite the cost.

But back to my main theme. Public schools are incredibly important. They really can serve to bind us together. Which is not to say we should not allow private or parochial schools, but we all, every single one of us, even if we send our kids to a private or parochial school or home school, we all need to be paying for and supporting the public schools. No exceptions.

looking around my desk at books, books and more books. From the dictionary to Steven King horror, to outboard motor fix it books and more.

Thank you, librarians, for making reading "FUNdemental" in my growing up. (I'm dirt old now)