[CALIBK12] UK Authors fight to preserve school library]

[Blanche Woolls]

Is this a good pattern for us to follow. We who attended CSLA had so many 
authors available to us. Do we to run a workshop on how to get authors and 
school librarians to work together save school libraries for our students?

Blanche

On Mon, 1 Dec 2008, Sandy Schuckett wrote:

> Interesting article from 'The Guardian' in Britain.....see below.
>
> ss
> Sandy Schuckett
> California School Library Assn.
> Liaison to CTA
> 2312 Claremont Avenue
> Los Angeles, CA 90027
> 323-665-9811
> aq061 at lafn.org
> ----- Original Message -----
> UK Authors fight to preserve school library]
>
>
>
>>
>> -------- Original Message --------
>> Subject:  UK Authors fight to preserve school
>> library
>>
>> Philip Pullman tells head her comprehensive will be a 'byword for
>> ignorance'
>> if closure goes ahead
>>
>> Guardian, UK: 2008 November 23
>>
>> Philip Pullman, the bestselling author, has warned a school that it
>> will
>> become a 'byword for philistinism and ignorance' if it goes ahead
>> with the
>> closure of its library.
>>
>> The comprehensive in Chesterfield has become the focus of an authors'
>> campaign since it announced that its librarian will be surplus to
>> requirements after Christmas, when the school is to become a 'virtual
>> learning environment'. Pupils will be encouraged to read at break
>> times and
>> at after-school clubs, but its traditional library will go.
>>
>> 'The idea that fiction is not worth looking after properly and does
>> not need
>> a qualified librarian runs contrary to every experience I have ever
>> had,'
>> Pullman wrote in a letter to Lynn Asquith, headteacher of the 759-
>> pupil
>> Meadows Community School. 'Are you going to relegate the whole
>> activity of
>> reading fiction to the status of a trivial and innocuous activity,
>> like
>> stamp collecting or playing with a Frisbee?'
>>
>> 'A library with a dedicated and professional staff should be at the
>> very
>> heart of any institution dedicated to learning,' he continued. 'I am
>> deeply
>> dismayed to hear of the decision, which cannot be in the best
>> interests of
>> the students. Nothing can replace a proper library, with its resources
>> centrally available and with the expertise of a qualified librarian
>> to guide
>> the students in the best and most productive ways of research.'
>>
>> The author has joined Michael Rosen, the Children's Laureate, and
>> children's
>> writer Alan Gibbons in a campaign to save school libraries, which
>> they say
>> are being eroded up and down the country. 'This school is the tip of
>> the
>> iceberg,' said Gibbons, who argued that without a librarian there
>> could be
>> no library. 'Forget the blather about virtual and interactive
>> learning. This
>> is cost-cutting, pure and simple.
>>
>> 'There's one secondary school, which shall be nameless, where the
>> headteacher was going to throw all the non-fiction books into a skip
>> to make
>> way for computers,' he said. 'We're witnessing a new wave of virtual
>> philistinism.'
>>
>> Rosen says he highlighted the cuts in library provision when he met
>> Children's Secretary Ed Balls and Schools Minister Jim Knight last
>> week.
>> 'The [Meadows] school is a local problem, but it is a national
>> tragedy,' he
>> says. 'Cuts are going on everywhere. I met Ed Balls and Jim Knight
>> and they
>> were saying that they were committed to supporting reading for
>> pleasure. But
>> on the ground there isn't the staff, the time or the money to
>> support it.'
>>
>> Public library spending on books fell by 1 per cent to £76.8m in the
>> year to
>> March 2008, or just 8.7% of overall library expenditure. Spending on
>> audio-visual materials such as DVDs rose 4.2% over the same period.
>> There
>> were 38 public library closures last year, up from 35 the previous
>> year.
>>
>> The campaign to save the library at Meadows Community School was
>> started by
>> its pupils, who began a petition when they heard that their
>> librarian, Clare
>> Broadbelt, had been told that her post was no longer required
>> because of 'a
>> move towards the relocation and redistribution of non-fiction and
>> fiction
>> resources in the light of the new developments in a virtual-learning
>> environment and interactive learning'.
>>
>> A string of famous authors have joined the battle since then.
>> Broadbelt was
>> told that the library was not being removed, but would be operated
>> in a
>> different way, with curriculum leaders managing the resources from the
>> internet. Fiction material would be maintained in a new reading
>> centre for
>> use in break times and at after-school clubs, but it would not need a
>> librarian.
>>
>> Asquith said little work had been done to improve the library since it
>> opened in 1991. 'It is not big enough to accommodate the number of
>> pupils
>> who want to use it during peak time and some areas are not
>> accessible for
>> all pupils,' she said. The school's governors had approved a £90,000
>> redevelopment programme, she explained. 'This is a great opportunity
>> to
>> develop a new learning resource centre for the benefit of all pupils.'
>>
>> Gibbons, who visits 150 schools a year, says that 25 local
>> authorities in
>> England spend less than 1 per cent of their library budgets on books
>> for
>> children. 'No amount of googling and copying and pasting can replace
>> the
>> intellectual flexibility developed by reading whole books,' he said.
>
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