- The Librain "No, libraries are not dead yet!" 04/02/ 2011 [Librarian at The Dixie Grammar School, Market Bosworth, Leicestershire]
- Nicola McNee "School Libraries RIP? – an open reply to An Independent Head" 03/02/2011 [Librarian at Kingswood School, Bath, UK.]
Wednesday 9 February 2011
School Libraries RIP? Librarians speak out
I am grateful to colleagues who have taken the trouble to engage in this important debate. I would encourage all to read the following responses to my recent blogposts on school libraries.
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Just catching up on this after a hectic time preparing students for their Theory of Knowledge essays and the joys of referencing !
ReplyDeleteI do offer some support for Mark's idea on the lending issue. I have a very small library which I had to build up from scratch. It has only around 5000 volumes - a fifth of the size of my previous independent school library. We have a colour photocopier which is also a scanner in the library and we encourage students to use this for non fiction rather than borrowing the whole book. We also encourage them to scan pages or bibliographic details on to their phones - much handier and they always have the information with them. I also suggest using their phone voice recorder if they just need to summarise paragraphs they have read.
For fiction I can see a time coming when most reading will be done on a phone, ipad, kindle etc and ebooks and audio books are already loaned for free by Public Libraries. I am signing up all our students so they can access books in this way and also so they can use online resources and it does not cost me a penny! Then there is the concept of Lendle where Kindle users can swap books amongst themselves much in the same way you would loan a friend a print copy.
As I said in my previous post I do think the "unlibrary" idea has merit ie providing a space for people to discuss ideas, read and research, or to ask a library professional for help and advice but not necessarily having a huge print book collection. I am pleased Mark feels there is an important, yet changing role for the librarian and that we are not redundant quite yet!
I feel that we need to make new technology work for us and use all of its advantages - for me personally that means making education mobile - Viva the smart phone!
Sarah