A COOL SCHOOL LIBRARY

“An effective school library center is an active

 information center designed to meet the 

diverse learning needs of students and 

support the curriculum.” Linda J. Shirley
This mission statement is the essence of a      

good school library. Enhancing learning is 

one goal the school library has in the 

educational setting. For example, the first 

grade learning about the rain forest would 

benefit if a school library had a collection 

of non-fiction books and materials relating 

to the subject. The students could further 

learn about the animals, the plants, the 

people and the environment of the subject.

 Also they could entertain themselves with 

fiction books and materials, for example, 

they could see the animated video Fern 

Gully or read about a superhero who 

saved the rain forest from certain doom.

 The first grade could visit the rain forest 

via the Internet. There are several web 

sites that have live feeds from rain forests 

around the world. Another goal for the 

librarian is to teach literacy. Every type.

 The librarians responsibility is to at the

 least expose the students to every type

 of electronic medium and at the most 

have utilize the medium. The final goal is

 for the student to become a life long 

learner.

The first criteria for choosing materials for 

a library collection is answered by 

determining who the library is for. It 

would be ill conceived for the head 

librarian to pick books and “materials”

 (to use the term loosely) with out any 

thought for the population for which they 

will serve. This planning and for- thought 

does not only have to include the age or grade

 level of the students but it should also 

include the socio-economic and cultural 

background of the student demographics. 

Dr. Seuss is not an author that would be 

appropriate for a high school library, just as 

J.D Salinger would not be an author 

appropriate for a primary school library.

Another criteria for choosing the materials 

would be: how to organize and display the 

collection to entice the student to become

 literate or research some interest they might 

have. For a primary school the child who is in 

the pre-reading stage or non fluent readers 

need context clues thus they have to see the 

cover of the books or materials in order to 

create meaning and make a decision based 

on interest. Rather than having bookshelves 

they would need book bins with a color 

coated system of organization. In this way, 

the child looks at the covers while flipping 

through the books in the bin. They wont 

have to pull books off of the shelf to look 

at the covers. The opposite is true for the 

middle and high school library. The child in 

the middle and high school is assumed to be 

a fluent reader and literate in several 

electronic media. This child could find 

books and materials employing reading 

skills and research methodology. This 

would not be the case for children with 

special needs or children who have not 

reached reading fluency because of a life 

situation. They would need to be 

accommodated in order to take full 

advantage of the library and further their 

literacy of all types.
This leads me to a criteria that is an 

intergraded part of the book/material 

selection process. This is the facility it self. 

We have to work with in the space that is 

allotted for the library. All too many 

schools were built 40 to 100 years ago. It 

would be impossible for a head librarian 

to put an electronic learning lab in a facility 

that doesn’t have the electrical 

infrastructure necessary to maintain several 

computer stations connected to the internet, 

or any other kind of electronic media. An 

open area with a soft rug and pillows would 

be a great incentive for a 5-year old to lie 

down and read The Hungry Caterpillar. 

This might not be a good idea for a 15-year 

old who might use the space to take a nap 

after a long night of Halo IIII.

The final criteria for choosing books

/materials for a library would be finance.

 What are the budget constraints of the 

librarian and the school system. It would 

be very beneficial for the teachers in the 

primary grades to have an IPOD docking 

station in their classroom with a main 

IPOD hub in the library to down children’s

 music. The same kind of main IPOD hub 

would enable middle and high school 

students to reap the educational benefits 

of pod casts. It is only a dream without the 

finances to achieve this goal.

The concrete aspects of creating a library 

have to be considered first before we can 

even think about what actual books/

materials which would be placed in the 

library. Then we can consider the abstract 

notions of intellectual freedom for the 

students and the staff, and how to protect 

the privacy of the students choosing the 

materials. Also at this point of the process 

we can consider aspects like censoring the 

books, materials and access to the Internet. 

Linda J. Shirley states, “Information Power 

defines the mission of the school library as 

ensuring that students and staff are 

effective users of ideas and information.”

To instill in the child a sense of Information 

Power our turns the how to organize a 

curriculum to take into account new forms 

of technological media. I agree with Lev 

Manovich in his article Post-media 

Aesthetics, their needs to be created a 

new form of organizational hierarchy for 

all the new media that has been created

since the inception of the Internet and 

the personal computer. Is the fact that I 

use Illustrator 10 and print out my 

artwork the same as when I paint with 

acrylics on a canvas? The process for me 

as an artist is the same. Also how would 

we organize the You Tube video by 

Franks Valli Close Up on Existentialism. 

This reminds be of a Platonic dialogue 

with each video having an implied 

question.  But how to organize it? 

These are the questions we need to 

answer in the coming years to be 

able to educate all the children in 

this the Information Age.