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New Books --
Lots of Them!
Largely thanks to the California Public School Library Protection Act (last year's allocation--we have three years to spend it), a significant dent has been made in the massive job of beginning to bring our library collection out of the dark ages. So far this year we've ordered $11,000 of new outstanding young adult and adult fiction and $12,000 of new reference works and nonfiction (including $3,000 for titles specifically requested by our History / Social Studies teachers). The books aren't all here yet, but they will be!
Money
It seems lean times are ahead for public education. The Library Act will no doubt not be funded at all this year, and the regular District allocation for library books and magazines (out of which also must come any online subscriptions) will likely disappear as well. We're also wondering which, if any, new textbooks the District will be able to supply under the adoption process.
I'm also concerned about how we'll fund our subscription renewals to those amazing online databases. If you haven't taken a look, you should:
http://www.ljhs.sandi.net/departments/library/subscr_dbases.htm In the past they have been funded for our students, at almost $11,000 a year, from the Library Act money. School libraries, and the services they provide, are considered by many to be "auxiliary"… nice to have, but not essential to education. I'm hoping that enough people with enough
pull will understand that in our modern information society, the teaching of information literacy, which can effectively happen only through a well-funded, professionally-staffed library media center, is a key component to preparing our students for the future.
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