Re: PARENTS IN THE LIBRARY SIGNING OUT BOOKS

[Anne T Knickerbocker <aknicker@TENET.EDU>]

I'm a strong believer in involving the community in the schools,
particularly the parents of students.  We encourage all parents of
students to come in and get library cards--right now I have about 100 on
file.  I began this system last year at Library Night during Children's
Book Week.  (We are a new school, in our third year of operation.)  The
interest and enthusiasm of the parents was unbelievable.  Besides
checking out books (limit 10), they requested that the library be open in
the evening sometimes so that they could make more use of the services.
We opened it once a month using teacher volunteers.  It's also open
between 7 A.M and 6 P.M, simply because I'm there....

I work in a depressed area with children who do not have many books in
the home.  Many of the parents are intimidated by the public library
(sorry, folks) and when they come into my library this is their first
experience with one.  They feel more comfortable because it's their
children's school, and I want them to feel it's their library too.  My
goal is to get as much reading material into the homes as possible,
whether it is parents or kids checking it out.

I can understand circumstances can change the picture drastically.  If
you don't have enough resources to satisfy the teachers on curriculum
(and if these are the types of books the parents are checking out), then
you have a problem that needs to be dealt with.  People who have no
relationship to the school at all have no right to be checking out
materials bought with school money.  But that "no relationship" has to be
pretty broad....I figure anyone in the immediate community is part of our
school community.

BTW, I only lost two books last year due to parent checkouts.

Anne Knickerbocker                           Cedar Brook Elementary
Librarian                                    2121 Ojeman
SBISD                                        Houston, Texas 77080
aknicker@tenet.edu                           (713) 365-5020