[CALIBK12] Better libraries mean better readers.

[Stephen Krashen]

Better libraries mean better readers.

Sent to the New York Times, Dec 22, 2008

"Empty shelves, filled with imagination," (December 21) addresses one of the most crucial and most ignored issues in education: School library quality.

Study after study has shown that library holdings (number of books available) and staffing are related to reading achievement at the state, national, and international levels. Better libraries mean better readers.

This makes sense: Children become better readers by reading more, and studies confirm that the library is a major source of books for children. Studies also show that school librarians make important contributions by helping children find books and by collaborating with teachers.

In contrast to the national average (mean) of about $11.00 per student, NYC budgets only $6.25 per student for books. The difference can be made up by reducing testing, keeping only those tests that actually contribute to teaching and learning. 

Let's invest in promoting learning, not just measuring it.

Stephen Krashen



New York Times, December 21, 2008
Empty Shelves, Filled With Imagination
By JAMES ANGELOS

WHEN Geri Ellner began her job this school year as the librarian — or in the current parlance, as a library media specialist — at the Brooklyn Collegiate, a public school for Grades 6 through 12 in Ocean Hill, Brooklyn, she did not have much of a book collection.

Many of the shelves in the small library, illuminated by harsh fluorescent lights, were bare, and many books were outdated or not particularly age-appropriate, like a children’s volume titled “Now We Are Six.”

So Ms. Ellner, who has been working in the school library system for 10 years, did what she could to improve the library with a limited book budget of $3,244 for the school year.

First, she spaced out the books so that the library shelves looked fuller. She created a “Memory Lane” section for the children’s books and a magazine section using donations from her doctor and dentist on Long Island, where she lives.

“We have that nicely spread out so it looks like there are more books,” she said the other day, pointing to her fiction section, a row of half-empty shelves. “We don’t want to look too impoverished.” She then turned to her short story section, referring to it with a wry smile as the “short short story section.”

New York public school libraries are allotted $6.25 per student in state funding for the purchase of new books, an amount that librarians say is not always sufficient for keeping a library current.

The problem is often compounded by the opening of new schools. Brooklyn Collegiate opened in 2004, in a prisonlike, brown brick building with tiny windows. The building used to house Intermediate School 55, which was closed for poor performance, and the new school inherited the old library, which lacked books for high school students.

Like many school librarians, Ms. Ellner applies for private grants to purchase books, and this year, she used donated money to acquire SAT study books and college preparation guides.

Ms. Ellner likes to point out that even in an Internet age, teenagers still enjoy reading books, and there was evidence to support her assertion on this afternoon.

Javenia Harrigan, a seventh grader who had come by the library for her volunteer work shift (she hoped her service would help her get into Harvard Law School), stamped the library’s imprint on five new books, three of which Ms. Ellner originally bought for her teenage daughter.

As she placed the books on the shelves, Javenia talked about a library book she had read, a 1998 Newbery Medal winner called “Out of the Dust,” about a Dust Bowl-era girl whose mother is burned to death in an accident.

“It’s really sad,” Javenia said. “It’s a good story, though.”