Public Libraries and School Libraries:

How the twain might meet

Barriers

• battles over “turf”• no coordinating body at either the state or local levels• lack of funding for joint activities

• difference in personality and style between public and school

librarians.

Historical overview

In 1897, the president of the ALA called for a study that would focus on the role of public libraries as “auxiliaries to education”.

• In the 20s, more in-school libraries also began to emerge. At the same time, schools began to house some public libraries.

• In the 50s and 60s, elementary school libraries became more common, but public libraries still continued to provide bulk book collections to schools.

NY lays it on the line• By the 70s, public libraries began to move more aggressively

into youth services. Story hours, reading programs.

• In the late 1960’s the question of responsibility for library services to children gained national attention when New York’s commissioner of Education called for all students to be served solely by in-school libraries.

1980’s: the Reagan Years

• Budget cuts for social services, libraries, and schools.

• Block grants which forced some public libraries and school libraries to compete for book buying money.

1990s: Enter Bush and Clinton—and the personal computer

• 1990s were the decade of Education Reform—and eventually—the Curriculum Frameworks that now define what is taught in schools, and what will appear on Education Assessment tests like the MCAS.

• By the early 90s, there were several national initiatives aimed at invigorating school

and public library partnerships.

Resources

• Sample "materials request" list for classroom teachers

• "Homework alert" ideas for students, teachers, and librarians

• 14 real-life examples of winning school-library partnerships

• Inspiring historical tales such as:• The old fiddler in a 1902 Brooklyn school who

changed the course of public library service to schoolchildren.

• The self-proclaimed radical schoolteacher of 1880s Milwaukee who took three boys and six market baskets by horsecar to the public library to select two books for each of her 72 students.

• The contentious debate between Anne Carroll Moore of the New York Public Library and Lucy Sprague Mitchell, founder of the Bank Street School, that came to be known as the "Fairy Tale War" of the 1920s and 1930s.

Website

“Youth Services: Public Library / Local School Partnerships” Mid Hudson Library System

online resourcessample forms including homework assignment alerts, Cooperation

Projects, and a Copyright Handout and side by side newsletters put out jointly by schools and local public

libraries.

ALSA@http://www.ala.org/ala/alsc/alscresources/forlibrarians/SchoolPLCoopProgs.htm

MHLS@http://midhudson.org/funding/marketing/School_Library_Partnerships.htm

• National Historic Landmark; • Regional reference center for Massachusett’s South Shore• home to 600 thousand books, subscriptions, and audio-visual materials.• The Thomas Crane is part of a 28 member consortium called the Old Colony

Library Network--OCLN--that includes the libraries of Massasoit Community College and Eastern Nazarene College.

• The Thomas Crane has a staff of 34 professionals and paraprofessionals, 19 of whom hold a masters in Library Science, and 2 of whom are in the process of earning that degree.

Quincy population 90,000

REAL LIFE: THE THOMAS CRANE LIBRARY Quincy MA

You have something I want: KIDS

You can help me get kids to come to my library.

No, wait. You can help me get kids to CHOOSE to come to my Library

Because right now?

The biggest thing we have going

so far is… mySpace

What you can do for me

• Teen Advisory Board • Homework alerts• what kinds of library based activities and approaches to teens work • Collection development• Special projects using archival resources

What I can do for you

You tell me.

• Lend batches of books?• Summer reading incentives?• Collection development?• Library tours?• Access to unique resources?• New material alerts?• Volunteer and service opportunities for

your kids?• Professional support?

Hey! You speaka de English?

YA Library Talk:

40 assets

For Positive Youth

Development

Making it happen

• Start small• Think big

• Add it to your Management Notebook