This week’s question:
This week’s musing asks…
The local Catholic school board is closing its school libraries, and parents and teachers –and even the students– are in an uproar. Budget cuts demanded that the board choose something to get rid of… they choose libraries. As such, many librarians have lost their jobs. And, the board is moving the books to the classrooms, instead. They feel that it is a good solution.
What do you think? Should the schools be without an actual “library” room? Is this a good solution?
My answer:
This is a hard question for me on so many levels. One my boys have been out of school for quite a few years, I understand the economy is hitting everyone hard, the new world of technology and what I consider, and this is my opinion only, common sense. My first reaction was my experience to “the library and it’s use” when I was in school and what my sons would tell me when they were in school. It was used as a “free period” to socialize. Any reference material was always done after school at the Public Library. And with my boys, once we had a PC, reference was done in the comfort of home. Access to books, again, was always through the Public Library.
I don’t know if removing libraries is a good move, but in this economy, I do feel budget cuts are necessary. And it’s not only libraries. My mother and sister resided in an assisted living facility subsidized by the Catholic Diocese, and due to the economy and costs had to close the doors. Some people had been living there for more than 10 years, it was their home and now had to find somewhere else to live. I had to find a new facility for my mother and sister, and unfortunately not one facility I looked at compared to where they were living.
Because of having to deal with something of that magnitude, a library to me, does not seem as important when there are other means of getting books and reference material.
The Hachette Book Group Doubleday
