I have to admit I fall on the more liberal side of this argument. For years
now, both in my previous public elementary school position and in my present
grades 6-12 independent school position, I have allowed checkout until the
end of school and beyond. Checkouts wind down during the last few weeks of
school but never stop entirely, and I do check out a few books over the
summer. I don't advertise the fact, but I let students take books if they
ask. I do check to make sure there are no plans to move however, and I don't
do summer checkouts to students who already have lots of overdues. I get
four weeks off during the summer, which I spread out, and if students want
to come by when I'm working, again, I check out books. I figure I'm not in
the business of counting inventory - my job is to get kids reading any way I
can. Stopping checkout with weeks to go before school ends doesn't support
anything besides maintaining the inventory - a worthy goal perhaps but not
my primary objective.
I think it's important to note that there is no right or wrong in this
argument - we all have different needs. I do think that as a profession we
(the larger we) tend to err on the "maintain the warehouse" side a little
too often, so I try to avoid that thinking whenever I reasonably can.
Cathy
--
Cathy Rettberg, Head Librarian
Menlo School
Atherton, CA
http://library.menloschool.org
On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 7:46 AM, David Lininger <tigerlibrarian@gmail.com>wrote:
> SERENA HAYES wrote:
>
>> It would be awesome if I could send home bunches of books with low-income
>> kids to read but it is not practical. Perhaps I am opening a whole new can
>> of worms, (hope not) but what about teaching kids the good old-fashioned
>> character trait of taking responsibility for their actions. I am all for
>> forgiveness, at times it is necessary and the humane thing to do. Can we
>> justify, however, constantly sending books home with kids who just lose
>> them and then expect the school, or someone else to pay their bill. What
>> exactly does that behavior teach children, especially teenagers, about
>> taking responsibility for choices and actions?
>>
>>
>
> I wholeheartedly agree here! Rich or poor, kids need to learn personal
> responsibility, and we ought to exercise it, too. We are responsible for
> many tens of thousands of dollars worth of books that were purchased for
> school use. Yes, kids ought to read over the summer, and public libraries
> are open then. Many of them even have summer reading programs just for kids.
> We need to be pointing our kids to those programs, not creating our own
> competing ones.
>
> The reality is that summer is the main moving time for people in this
> country. Consider this scenario: I have a family with three kids who use my
> library, and if they stay here, all three will be back here in August.
> Suppose I check out four books to each of those kids. Twelve books at even
> $10/book means that I've loaned out $120 worth of books to one family. If
> they move this summer, how will those books come back? Most likely they
> won't. That means that in August the first thing I'm going to have to do is
> add those 12 books to my next book order.
>
> Yes, the family I just described might have to exert a bit of effort to go
> to the public library, but that's their job.
>
> I stopped all checkout last Wednesday, since we get out at 12:45 tomorrow.
> Right now there are four seniors who graduated on Sunday who have books
> still out. What do you think are my chances of getting those books back?
> I've done everything but visited their homes - and next year I'm going to do
> just that. There are 15 freshmen, sophomores, and juniors with 20 books
> out, and 16 middle-schoolers with 21 books out. I'm going around to the
> classrooms and interrupting class to get these books back. Even then, I
> won't get them all back before the kids leave tomorrow. However, when I go
> through the lockers I'm likely to find several of these missing books.
>
>
> --
> David Lininger, kb0zke
> MS/HS Librarian
> Skyline MS/HS
> Urbana, MO 65767
> (417) 993-4226
> t i g e r l i b r a r i a n at g m a i l dot c o m
>
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