The Demise of School Libraries

As information technology evolves with the needs of the users, the library space itself is changing too. I didn’t get to see much of it firsthand, myself: I matriculated from middle school to high school in the year 2000, which was an awkward time to be a student. The libraries at the elementary and middle schools I attended had been traditionally low-tech, with rows of wonderful old books and a barely used television set. As soon as I left them behind and went to high school, they started getting improvements like iMac computers and brand new books. My high school library had a modest, early computer lab, a small room with ten or so basic computers. In my years at that school it was mainly used to teach typing classes. I remember being assigned only a very simple research exercise and I hadn’t learned much of anything about information literacy.

     I’ve not returned to my high school since I graduated in 2004, so I can only guess as to any improvements the library’s gained since then. It doesn’t have its own website that I can find, but the high school directory lists two librarians. I hope that they’ve at least addressed some of the changes mentioned by Laura Wernick in her article “The School Library Space Is Changing.” Due to the rise of digital information formats, and the shift to adopt a more relaxed, social atmosphere for students to employ in individual- to group-sized projects, many school libraries across the country have redesigned their layouts to “include centralized access to specialists who can explain resource research and retrieval in a technologically complex world [and] complete integration of technology throughout the space, enabling students to work together for research and production…” (2011, 26). The following video shows an excellent example of such upgrades being employed at Turner Valley School in 2015:

Although funding is always a problem for libraries, they are suffering less of a demise and more of a metamorphosis. I hope my old high school library replaced its uncomfortable tables and chairs—and its stuffy little computer room—with a brighter, comfier space with sofas and media interfaces spread throughout the bookshelves. I hope the staff are readily available to all the students and teach them more thoroughly about trustworthy sources of information and how to find it. And I hope more classes allot library time more often to engage in collaborative activities and to access education digitally more easily than in the classroom.

Resources

Wernick, Laura. "The School Library Space Is Changing." American School & University, vol. 83, no. 9, 01 May 2011, pp. 24-28. EBSCOhost, ezproxy.palomar.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ935431&site=ehost-live&scope=site.