We are now well and truly in the Age of Austerity and that means times are a-changing for our libraries, which could face cuts of 30 per cent or more. BOB MCKEE, the outgoing chairman of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, explains why libraries and librarians should be very much part of the future in our towns and schools….
I have a real concern about the future of libraries and librarians in schools but, equally, specialist librarians dealing with children and young people in public libraries. The new government has made it very clear that it will not move to make school libraries statutory or to put a requirement on schools to employ a qualified librarian, and the reality is that we are likely to face cuts in the order of 30 per cent.
If this is the case, schools will have fewer professional librarians. We’re already in the situation where half the secondary schools in the country don’t have a professional librarian and that situation will get worse.
If the school doesn’t have a library worth speaking of, what happens to the children who don’t have books at home? Most kids or parents don’t live in houses full of books so where are those children going to get that joy of reading or that habit of reading from? Reading is not just about enjoying a good, escapist story; it’s about developing the habit of learning and growing imaginatively.
A library is not just a room full of books and computers. It’s a gateway to knowledge and opportunity and freedom. That’s what you get from libraries. If you see it as a room full of books then it can be run by a volunteer but if you see it as something that gives access to knowledge – this is a fundamental life skill that some of us take for granted. There’s a real danger that we will lose all that.
There are two things a librarian can do with the child, the teacher or parents in either a school library or public library – give them access to knowledge and information literacy.
Access to knowledge – and by this I mean knowledge in all its forms (imaginative and intellectual) – is the first skill in connecting the child with the stuff they’re interested in, the stuff they’ll read.
When I was a school librarian, I had a group of year 10s and 11s who didn’t read – they weren’t interested in reading, and were vaguely disaffected teenagers. I put out a load of paperbacks on teenagers’ themes and presented them in an attractive way. I didn’t ask them to do all the library bureaucracy like stamping out but got all these kids reading books. You say, ‘Read this book and if you don’t like it bring it back and we’ll find you another one. I’m not going to ask you questions about the book afterwards – just have it if you want it.’
‘By providing the right reading materials you get kids reading for pleasure…’
By providing the right reading materials, which needs a degree of specialist knowledge about literature, and providing the right setting that is not intimidating, you get kids reading for pleasure.
The other skill is information literacy, which is about the huge rubbish bin called the internet and that information overload we get trying to make sense of it all.
Kids don’t know how to do it. Kids used to find it hard enough to merge information from two books into one essay but if you give them the internet they are baffled. It’s a complete information overload and they have difficulty distinguishing information with a degree of authority from information from Facebook. So how do you navigate through that so you can get the stuff you need? It’s a huge job around information literacy that is not provided for in the classroom.
These two things – access to resources and information literacy – sound dead easy but nobody in the school does them.
CILIP is supporting the Campaign for the Book driven by children’s author Alan Gibbons, The thrust of the campaign is to make school libraries a statutory requirement and be run by
skilled librarians. You can add your voice to the campaign at www.alangibbons.com
CILIP also now needs evidence for our campaign and we have funded a study about the state of school libraries, the state of school librarians, what is happening in those libraries and what value and impact these activities have.
So what more can teachers do? You can campaign for the value of three things – good libraries, good librarians and good literature for children. It is a really powerful message if said by the members of the teaching profession. We need people to say that all these things have a positive effect in the classroom and have an impact on educational attainment.
The other thing teachers can do is to think about how you could work in partnership with a librarian to create links to the English curriculum and how you can work with public librarians.
Let us know through www.cilip.org.uk or email our information team at info@cilip.org.uk
It matters more when spoken by teachers.
Did you know?
The Carnegie Medal
The medal is awarded by CILIP – the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals and is one of the most sought-after awards. It has been awarded to the very best writers from CS Lewis for The Last Battle, Penelope Lively for The Ghost of Thomas Kempe and Terry Pratchett for The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents.
The award was launched in 1936 to honour the writer of an outstanding book and to encourage excellence in writing for children.
The award was named after Andrew Carnegie, the Scottish philanthropist who helped to establish many public libraries.
The Youth Libraries Group (YLG) organises the selection process and the 40 to 50 titles are judged by 12 children’s librarians.
The winner of the 2010 Carnegie Award went to Neil Gaiman for The Graveyard Book. This is the tale of Bod, who lives in a graveyard and is being brought up by ghosts. The judges described it as ‘a fantastic story full of humour, humanity and wonderfully drawn characters, (Published by Bloomsbury ISBN: 9780747569015)
