Revolting librarians > Alternative libraries for alternative schools
Revolting librarians > Alternative libraries for alternative schools
"I am never coming here again." "Well, that's what happens when an institution isn't run by the business field." "Is there a line or something? What am I supposed to do to get this copied?" These were tidbits overheard in my own hour's wait to get something copied at the 42nd Street Library in New York. Public libraries have reached such a point that (in professional lingo) accessibility is becoming difficult, or, to be more realistic, impossible.
School libraries, which serve a smaller population, should be doing better, but six years in the secondary school system have convinced me they are not. School librarians are isolated and alone - separated from profesisonal colleagues, viewed by users as archaic, and pressured by the administration to be a showcase where everything looks good and nothing is heard. Not surprisingly, the school library is no exception to rules which ignore reality.
Classrooms are dedicated to the pursuit of non-useful knowledge because a faceless bureaucracy dictates a uniform code of practice known as The Curriculum. This channelling leaves the school an insipid, uninspiring place to be. Cuts, drop-outs, drugs and insolence and students' frustrated means of communicating to The Establishment that all is not well.
The school library I was in claimed to be serving the 4000 on the rollbooks despite a 60% drop-out rate before graduation. We were supposed to be ecstatic when there were over 50 students in the room. That was real cool, except most were present because the lunchroom was too crowded and there was no study hall. And we were not even giving FULL library service to any of those students. Usually we were helping write term papers for teachers who followed The Curriculum, while hoping to encourage some leisure reading along the way.
School librarians are bewildered by the lack of respect that students show our precious and quiet little haven. They rip off and rip up books. They refuse to pay fines, they talk back, they talk out loud or they do not talk to us at all. We librarians can agree with the system, reject it and leave, work as creatively as possible within it, or find an alternative.
I chose to do the latter. I wanted to find a place where I could give more of myself as a librarian, rather than being a clerk who occasionally related with students. I wanted a place where I could stock materials students wanted, rather than having to lend my own books.
Park East High School accepted my application. It was the first time that students, parents and staff had asked me what I thought library service should be. No one seemed interested before, and believe me, it was frightening. I was tempted to run back to my old security blanket - the little office in which I must have sat at my typewriter and accessioned and processed enough books to build a pathway to the moon.
Park East High School is an experimental school, governed by parents and other members of the multi-racial East Harlem and Yorkville communities in collaboration with the Board of Education. All of us at the school have a history, due to the marvelous conditioning of our society, of fear/failure, but we are trying anyway. We experiment and innovated and sometimes we are damn traditional. Many of us thought this school would be the panacea for education, and of course it is not. We are still part of the society which produces students like cars, although both seem mighty defective these days. We have changed one set of problems for another, but I groove on this set. It's rough and hard and depressing and wonderful and exhilarating and invigorating.
I had a lot of ideas about what I was going to do when I set up my library in September. Paperbacks all over the place, easily accessible for browsing and borrowing. Announcements, articles, magazines, flyers on What's Happening in New York. All kinds of newspapers. Only reference materials in the library - everything else housed throughout the school. Or no reference collection. Circulate everything. A tv and a stereo. A file on human resources to aid us in our school. Creating our own materials with writing and printing, video tapes, still and movie cameras, cassette recordings. Lending machinery and software to students to take home. Getting immediately any title a student wants by making arrangements with community bookstores. Teaching research skills to students involved in independent projects. Making reciprocal arrangements with other schools and the public libraries for free access. Giving each new student a collection of paperbacks for home use (about ten titles ranging from books for little sisters and brothers to how to books for the parents.) And on and on.
Unfortunately I came late instead of being on the job before school officially opened. This presented difficult problems for me. I had to spend time getting to know where everyone was at - not easy in an evolving structure more slippery than an eel in the hand.
Then the money problem. While an initial outlay from the Board was exceedingly helpful, I was not there in time to spend most of it. Now I have little, or better yet, no money.
The third problem was me. I was going to do this and I was going to do that. It has to be WE or not at all. So I had to stop reacting like a librarian concerned with control of people and materials and learn to react like a human being to other human beings.
It took an awful lot of thinking and groaning, but I have come up with a multi-process proposal that will take care of present needs while working toward future goals. I think my idea is exciting, but I am willing to accept that it may be a failure. I hope not. I think not.
Process I of this project is setting up a "course" with credit for students. We will meet four hours a week for eight weeks to discuss what a resource center is now, what it should be, what they want it to be, or if they want it to be. I would like to steer the first week of the course toward attitude-changing and problem-solving. For this I will rely on such works as Synergy, The Soft Revolution, Little Red Schoolbook, The Student as Nigger, The Abortion: an Historical Romance, Source Catalog, Rasberry Exercises: How to Start Your Own School (and Make a Book), School Library Journal, Wilson Library Bulletin, The New York Times and whatever else feels good.
I may ask them to complete such a sentence as "A LIBRARY IS ..." and we can discuss the outcome. I may ask them to draw a picture of a librarian they know and discuss the results. We may divide into committees and deal with certain problems. One example: Question. A plane from France crashes on the Canadian-U.S. border. Which country must bury the survivors? Answer. None, you don't bury survivors. Once they begin to understand that traditional mind-sets must go and traditional problem-solving will not work here, we will get into libary questions. They will discover the problems and they will deal with the solutions.
The fifth day of the week will be set aside for the implementation of ideas discussed the preceding days. So, if they want a check out system, they will have to devise one and administer it.
By Process II, the students should be familiar with the problems of establishing and managing a resource center. They will probably express a greater need for technical information and an increased desire to see how others operate. This will mean visiting other mini-schools, libraries and community agencies; discussions with our Early Learning Center and speaking with adults (parents, teachers) in the program to find out what they want. Possibly these contacts will lead to new information and referral services in such areas as the draft, dope, sex, etc.
Will students register for the course, or will they find the idea uninspiring since they have such an adverse reaction to libraries? In an attempt to find out, I put up a groovy flyer all around the school. It got a lot of reaction, but I still won't know 'til final registration.
However, as a result of the publicity, another teacher came to me with a suggestion. She is in charge of the school's institute for community affairs. Through the institute, a student can work on a project in the community and receive school credit. The connection for a library such as ours is obvious. Her group will collect and record information about the community. My group will organize and disseminate the material. Both groups will meet weekly to share respective techniques.
I am presently working out financial arrangements with the Director. Very little money is available. If the class comes up with an idea that will require an unusual outlay, they will have to deal with getting funds or making do without them.
How can the proposal be evaluated? It is not the concrete objective goal which interests me. That can look good to the eye and good on paper. There are a lot of big beautiful buildings, housing nothing but the books themselves. Humans dare not enter. I look for the students' awareness that information dissemination is essential to any society, that whoever controls it controls the minds of people. I want students to become more conscious of their information needs and hopefully more aware of how to meet them. If from there they go on to become resource people themselves, that is REAL REAL COOL.