(Author Terry Brooks lecturing in the Robert A. Long High School Library)These cute, articulate mothers said "no more!" when the elementary librarian that made an amazing impact on their children was laid off, even though the principal and teachers and students begged for her to stay.
These moms are the ones who lobbied for a 12 million infusion of funds for this school year to all school libraries in the state. The legislature did allocate a 4 million dollars bandaid. Our district is updating our antique library system for all our school with that money.
If you are from Washington state there are 3 things you can do to help them save school libraries.
1. Sign one of the petition. Your school librarians should have one. If you no longer have a school librarian, print one off at http://fundourfuturewashington.org.
2. Email your WA State congresswo/man thanking them for this year's funding your school's library.
3. Pass around a petition yourself at your work, among your friends, or among your family.
The petition is to " ensure that Washington students have full-time access to school libraries and a certified teacher librarian to provide a competitve education in information technology and literacy."
What the public does not know is that there are NO school library budgets in a school's budget. A school library's budget is at the discretion of the principal. If the principal is a pro-access person, loves reading, understands information literacy, and likes the teacher librarian, there is a library budget. Each year I must do extensive PR.
A great scientist once said that libraries are "the poor man's university." I see this phenomenum each day in my library: well-to-do students pruchase any book they want; the more financially strapped students flock to my library.
1 comment:
I do hope that we can preserve school libraries and librarians. While working on a project I discovered that half of the population of Cowlitz County is considered rural and of course is unable to access a library unless they pay a fee each year. If it were not for school libraries, I am not sure half of our county population would have access to books. I grew up in the 60's twenty miles from a library and had not only the service of a book mobile stopping at the end of our 1/4 mile driveway in the summer, but access to any book at the library in the city. Not only should something be done about school libraries in our state, but also about access to our "public" libraries. Cathy
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