Things We Think About At Work.

[silveradept]

Here's another random thought that waltzed into my head, gave me the finger, and then proceeded to Mosh Mosh Revolution out.

What's going on with school libraries? Their media specialists are being laid off, and it feels like the public library's collection is being relied on as an essential resource for completing assignments. Have schools decided that in the era of standardized testing that having a library is unimportant? Are school libraries being grouped with arts programs as the first things to go on the chopping block in case of budget cuts? (And in those places, what kind of favored status do the athletic programs have?)

Obviously, I'm biased when it comes to how important libraries are in public and school life. I'm just wondering if anything has changed in education thinking that diminishes the role and value of the school library. It would be a shame, because the library and research skills developed there will be way important in college or in life.

Comments

[ekmahal.livejournal.com]

My high school library pretty much sucked. I read the fiction there, and gave the finger to the reference books (exception: dictionaries) because they were under resourced and out of date, by a very, very, very long shot.

As far as book reviews, and such, the school did provide the 30-odd copies of Shakespeare and $NovelOfChoice for the year, but as far as I know that was separately budgeted from the library.

And I bought my own copies anyway, so that I could access them when studying for year-end exams. You weren't allowed access to the books after the X-week-long unit. And tough shit for you if the unit was in March and final exams were in November.

[silveradept]

Igh. That sounds really bad. I thought the problems with school libraries were localized and fairly recent. How very wrong I was.