The content of most of these magazines, especially the ads and the
"shocking" cover stories, as well as the duplication of my print magazines
that can be found through the full-text databases, are reasons why I'm
seriously considering dropping all of my print subscriptions for next year.
I have Teen People, GL, Seventeen, Sports Illustrated, Transworld SURF,
Transworld MOTOCROSS, and several other magazines that are either taken
(never checked out or returned) or abused from over-use. Most of the ads
that I've seen have been questionable and my 5th graders flock to the
periodicals immediately when someone finds an article or picture that is
risqué This causes some of our teachers to become hysterical.
My "scholarly" journals and more educational magazines (National Geographic,
Smithsonian, The Economist, Time, Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report) are
very seldom used by the students (but are checked out by teachers and often
never returned in a timely manner---as if anyone wanted them). I have one
or two teachers who request specific magazines but only THEY read
them....which means that they don't want to subscribe to them at home.
Therefore, I am seriously considering reducing the paperwork and eliminating
the print magazines. My kids are reading books, so getting them to read
isn't the issue. They use the databases to locate most of the magazines
that they use for research....all but National Geographic and the
Texas-related magazines are found online. (I do plan to continue
subscribing to in print those harder-to-find magazines--NG and the Texas
magazines--because we have a substantial collection for students to use
already. In fact, we recently received the entire National Geographic
collection of magazines dating from 1888 to the present...bound....yes, we
had to take them...long story...they take up about 15 shelves!)
I know that most universities are eliminating any duplications of print
magazine subscriptions if the magazines / journals are already online, so
I'm wondering how long it will be before school libraries follow in this
trend--especially at the high school level.
We keep our back issues of magazines for only 3 years, so in-depth research
sometimes comes from the databases anyway.
Is anyone else doing this? (Also, I've checked our accreditation standards
to see if eliminating these might cause a problem....we have no specific
guidelines "requiring" anything in our libraries---we're private and we're
accredited through the Independent Schools Association of the Southwest.
This fact alone bothers me....which is why I'm seriously considering and
weighing the options.)
Any ideas, comments, suggestions?
~Shonda Brisco
Trinity Valley MS / US Librarian
Fort Worth, TX
sbrisco021@charter.net
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chester Koza" <Chester.Koza@FPSMAIL.ORG>
To: <LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU>
Sent: Friday, March 26, 2004 12:26 PM
Subject: TARGET: Middle school magazines
> After all this discussion on magazines, especially those for young
> girls, I feel I need a little more guidance here.
>
> We are a 6-8 middle school and have received Seventeen ever since I
> have been here (33 yrs/23 as librarian). We did start out as a 7-9
> junior high and have been middle since 1996 or so.
>
> Seventeen did seem somewhat advanced, so one year we went to Teen and
> Teen People. Neither seemed a whole lot better, and the Teen People had
> some really questionable photos, so we stopped those and went back to
> Seventeen.
>
> We have been buying single copies of YM(Your Magazine) and GL(Girls
> Life) just to see how they would go and to sort of scope them out for
> content, etc. ever since the discussion here on the list some time ago.
>
> We were feeling pretty good about YM until the note just today about it
> being "slutty", so now we aren't sure again.
>
> We have not had questions or problems ever about our selections, and
> that really does not concern me. As a provider of quality information
> for students, however, we do feel responsible. There are some who argue
> that school libraries should provide only the material that advances the
> curriculum. Others would argue that we need to keep the students
> reading, and so they are willing to pander more to their interests.
>
> My concern is that some students may get ideas for inappropriate
> activities from some of these articles. While the wiser, more mature
> students will see this for what it is, the weaker students may not. I do
> not feel that library materials can be selected with only these weaker
> students in mind, but that is a concern. These same students probably
> have a weak parent(s) to go with their situation, so that makes it even
> more challenging.
>
> Quite frankly, I really don't know what kind of responses I expect to
> get back on this, but if any of you would care to share some thoughts, I
> would love having them. If anything comes along, I will share, unless it
> has already been posted to the list.
>
> Thanks for being there...
>
> Chester
>
>
> Chester A. Koza, Librarian
> Fremont Middle School
> 540 Johnson Rd
> Fremont, NE 68025-6439
> USA
>
> Phone: 402 727-3112
> Fax: 402 727-6535
> Email: chester.koza@fpsmail.org
>
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