School Libraries: A Solid
Mystery
You may
have heard the questions—or even asked them, yourself: What is going to
happen to school libraries now that computers abound and books are trending
toward becoming electronic creatures? Why would we even need to keep
school libraries open if we don’t need a place to maintain and share
collections of books? Exactly what’s going to happen
with libraries may well be a mystery; but they certainly won’t
be eliminated!
Consider the logistics
and the logic. Although the current, wonderful avalanche of 21st Century
information seems to come from the clouds (now more figuratively than ever!),
there are a number solids behind the vapor; and they must have a home.
There are extensive collections of both hardware and software which build our
new information systems, and they require stability for both their maintenance
and their operational activities. Then there are the people: Both
technology’s managers and users need a physical location from which to maintain
and to employ these new tools. Technology, simply, needs a “place;” and because
libraries have been society’s information centers for centuries, it is natural
that they should remain so.
Further, since librarians have
been the information conductors for ages, it makes sense that
they should continue to select, organize, manage, and share any new forms of
informational material—as well as become information experts who are adept at
guiding and educating all patrons on the dangers, methods, and possibilities of
our jumbled new wealth of information. There are great
changes in the information system, but with adaptations which are already being
implemented, the school library system and school librarian are far from
obsolete. In fact, more than ever, they are proving to be the essential
school hub of past, current, and future information systems.
When most of today’s
teachers were children, we visited our school libraries to check out books for
pleasure or to gather information from what we now call “hard copy.” We
might sit at a table with open reference material, taking notes which we would
probably take home to organize into a published piece. Our works were usually
hand-written, with an occasional typed term paper. We might also sit in
the library to quietly discuss our findings with other students, but we seldom
collaborated—not with the teachers’ blessings, anyway! Libraries
certainly had their place then; but, boy, do they have a place now!
Students who now visit
school libraries are required to discover, evaluate, digest, discuss, and
publish copious amounts of information. They must navigate a
technological world without precedent and produce printed work which looks
professional—no more handwritten essays! Students now expect—and are
expected—to be computer savvy. Our students must be adept with computers
for innumerable and disparate purposes: Researching, collaborating,
communicating, embracing areas of personal interest, publishing for pleasure
and “for business,” registering for colleges, taking on-line courses,
entertaining themselves with silly cat pictures or jokes about N00B’s, and even
reading an online book or short story. Although more and more students
are blessed with iPhones and personal computer systems at home, while at
school, these activities all occur in the library: Libraries have moved from
being essential for a good education to being imperatives.
Staff and others the in
community also find more frequent—and extended—need for the school library than
previously. Today’s teacher might need to “borrow a computer,” to “print something
out,” or to send a student in search of emergency copies of something.
Mostly, however—and more than ever before—they need a place to collaborate with
other teachers, with parents, with administrators, with clubs and other groups,
or with the librarian. In addition, parents, administrators, school
boards, and combinations of all shareholders utilize the benefits of a 21st Century
school library. They choose the library because it is welcoming,
comfortable, and convenient; and it is, the most
high-tech forum in the school—if not in the community!
Happily, not everything
about a school library has changed. It still maintains hard-copy research
material—although, perhaps to a lesser degree; it still offers wonderful and
current fiction and non-fiction selections for enjoyment, research, and
self-enlightenment; it still shares magazines and comfortable couches on which
to relax; but now each Internet-connected library houses more
information than anyone could have imagined available in one spot, even ten
years ago. While today's library hosts more information, today’s
librarian provides more in depth guidance for patrons in their searches for information
and literary enjoyment.
Libraries have
changed—and they are changing, still! We don’t know in what exact
ways change will happen or what new educational/informational treasures await
us; but we do know where and with whom the
excitement will occur: In the comfort of the library with the
knowledgeable librarian as leader and guide for each new, mysterious step as we
go further into this exciting 21st Century’s Age of
Information.
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