Needing school librarians

While I am a proponent of electronic book, that doesn't mean I have no feeling for printed book, I care for them too, after all I have my own print collection of a few thousand copies. I'm also a supporter of libraries; digital and brick & mortar. It's important to remember that libraries are more than just the collection or the building (or network space) it is also made up of an important group of people: librarians - those people who take care of the collection and do so much more. What some seem to forget amount school libraries though is that in a school the librarian does so much more than just shelve books, check out books, and cull the collection. There are the ones responsible for displays within the library to attract new readers or to new books, do book talks to get students in other books (book talks have shown major impacts on circulation of selected book) and there is the personal interaction with students, guiding them to books an authors, or assisting researchers. Then too there is the work that librarians do with teachers, from helping with classroom collections to assisting with literature circles and new literacy instruction. Be they in-person or digital, we all need Liberian support, so if we want to support reading, we need to support librarians to keep the students reading.

Fewer books checked out of Pa. district's libraries following budget cuts
Severe budget cuts has left the Allentown, Pa., school district with one librarian serving 15 elementary schools and two serving four middle schools. The librarians often are teaching library-skills classes, closing the library to students. At one middle school, circulation dropped 77% during the first four months of operations without a librarian, from the same months of the previous year. The Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.) (3/15)

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