My original post asked if any of you have school libraries that offer
summer hours. I noted that one of our local elementary schools
offers this service and that it has been given high praise by many
parents. I further asked what hours you are open, if your
administrative folk are supportive of the effort (i.e., do you get
paid), and how you advertise the program.
As always, the replies I received were helpful and gave me much to
think about. An interesting "e-conversation" ensued regarding summer
hours at school libraries and potential impact on public libraries.
That text is included after the initial replies.
Ronda Y. Foust
School Media Specialist in Training, UTK
rstansb2@utk.edu
Oak Ridge, TN
LM_Netters' Response on Summer Hours at Our School Libraries
Our elementary school does.
Last summer was the first. We had about 30 children patrons over the
summer. Children checked out books, read and took Accelerated Reader
tests
on our computers over the summer. They received a certificate of summer
library participation from me in the Fall at an assembly.
For 6 weeks on Wednesdays, from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m.
PTA pays me a stipend to operate it.
When we can secure grant money to pay for this, yes, we are open in
summer. However, the powers that be don't get their act together
till SO late in spring that I have never been able to do the kind of
promo/programming job that I'd like. The pay is what is paid
teachers for after school / extra-curricular activities. Generally
we are open 2 afternoons each week, from noon to six. Unfortunately
the grant money was spent differently this year. Hope this helps.
Our upper/middle school library is usually open but we are getting
some much needed renovation done so we're closed. Our lower school
library is open on Wednesdays from 9 - 2. We went to a 1 day a week
schedule because we weren't getting enough business to warrent the 3
were used to be open.
We have summer school and are open from 9 to lunch time 4 days a
week. That's about it. Yes the administration is very supportive.
I don't have formal open hours during the summer, but I'm open when
I'm in and if someone comes by I will check out books. I get four
weeks off in the summer which I spread out over the ten week summer
break. I have told lots of kids and parents to call or drop by if
they need books. I haven't asked the administration - it's my call,
really - but I know I would get support for this.
The one I worked at did 2 days a week, for about 6 hours a day. It
was nice, kids from the neighborhood could come and check out, and
often times babysitters could walk the kids over. One day we had
activities planned for the older kids that didn't have a structured
summer school program, so that was fun. Good Luck!
We've had libraries open during summer school, but not otherwise. Of
course, we're in a different situation than most in that our
buildings are out in the country, so we have no one that would walk
or bike to the school (we're actually right on US 65, and traffic is
moving between 60 and 65 mph).
When the libraries were open during summer school the librarian was
paid from summer school funds. I'm on an extended contract so I'll be
around during the summer anyway, so I've arranged with the HS science
teacher that she can schedule (in advance, please) times for her
Forensics class to come to the library for research.
We are a private school and therefore open five days a week, from
8:30 -12:30 daily, and 5:30-7:30 on Wed. evening. No additional pay.
Last year right before school ended, my principal came to me and
asked if I would like to work on an extended contract to have summer
library hours. I told him I would let him know (because I was
getting married and wasn't sure I'd be able to get all the hours
required done in time). Then he came back and told me he was letting
the guidance counselor do summer library instead. She didn't use the
circulation system...she just wrote down who took what and marked
them out when they were returned. It wasn't advertised that I know
of...I think only the kids who come to summer day care at the school
participated and the hours changed as the guidance counselor's
schedule changed. He hasn't mentioned it at all this year, but
another teacher told me she hear we were having it, so I have no idea
who is running it.
We're trying something new with our high school library this summer.
We're open three morning a week for summer school and we'll be
allowing non-summer school students to visit us to check out books.
We'll see how it goes. We've never allowed student checkouts during
the summer months and thought this might be a nice way to reward our
kids who like to read...at least to encourage them to continue reading!
In the past I have always opened the library for a few hours a week
during the summer. I would pick a certain day, but I would alternate
morning and afternoon hours in an effort to make it more accessible
to everyone. In the middle school, there was not a whole lot of
students coming in, but I was glad to do it for even one that would
come. My principal allowed me to do this, and did give me courtesy
time (time that could be swapped out for non-mandatory workdays on a
one-for-one basis for the number of hours that I worked). However, I
am sorry to say that the library will not be open this year because I
have so much on my plate at this time.
I am trying it this summer for the first time - Wednesdays only, from
9:30 - 1:30. Our small town library closed this month so I thought
this might help. My principal is supported but I'll be an unpaid
volunteer. I've advertised on our newsblog, told all the students
several times, and today posted signs around the school.
Yes, we offer summer library service in ONE of our libraries. It is
for 2 hours, Monday - Thurs. for 7 weeks. The clerk is paid. We
advertise by flyers in the community, bookmarks to each child with
the times (we encourage them to put them on the refrigerator)
I sure hope noone is doing this without getting paid!!! Just had to
put my two cents worth in.
I'm in a small school system in TN. We have summer library in our
elementary schools. We're open 35 hours during the summer and we get
paid $500.00. We can set our own hours so I am open 3 1/2 hours on
Tuesdays and Thursdays (with adjustments for special events and my
trip to New Orleans for ALA). I will start June 1 (school is out this
Friday) and finish July 13. (school starts back for teachers on July
27!)
I've been the media specialist at a 5th-8th grade charter school for
three years. The media center is open August 1st through June 30th
and I am paid for all 11 months! However, school libraries with
summer hours is a fairly new concept in our area. We had no more
than 200 circulations last summer. I'm hoping that I'm doing a
better job of getting the word out to our families this year. A new
and improved school web page will help, I think.
Our High School library is open 9:00 to 1:00 on Wednesdays all
summer. We put 1000 books from the primary school, 1000 books from
the elementary school, and 1000 books from the junior high in the
high school library on rolling carts. So we are a library for all
ages every Wednesday in summer.
Our administration fully supports the summer library, and two
librarians are paid their daily rate for those hours in the summer.
We are a school district of about 2000 students k-12, and we usually
have about 100 people coming and going on those Wednesdays.
Ronda, I have not done summer hours before but am seriously thinking
of doing it this summer. Hope you get lots of helpful replies.
Please post a hit- I'm trying to convince my principal right now :)
My clerk and I work summer hours, but we're not open to the public.
Something I hadn’t thought about was the issue of how school
libraries offering summer hours might interrelate to public library
usage. The following is the “e-conversation” this topic fostered.
My first question is what about the public library? If you don't have
one then go for it. --Jean
We actually have a very good public library children's room and
children's room staff (she says with bias as she used to be one of
them!). That is part of why I was curious about school libraries
being open during the summer. So far, what I'm hearing is that there
is room for both. Our public library does not deal with AR, while
the school libraries seem to offer continued AR testing over the
summer, but does have an excellent summer reading program. Many of
my "regulars" at the public library also used their school library
during its summer hours. It was a way to keep in contact with
classmates and school staff and it was right in the neighborhood. I
think there is room for both, particularly if they are serving
somewhat different needs--and especially if they are getting kids
(and parents!) to read more! I'll be curious to see what the other
responses are. It's been interesting so far. --Ronda
Ah, the dreaded AR reason. While not OPPOSED to AR, I think there
should be another reason to provide this service to the students. It is
taking customers away from the Public library, which is where we want
our students to eventually become attached. Making the public library
something that is important to their lives!
We hear lots about students wishing they could read for fun, no tests,
or even teachers wishing that students would pick up a book because it
looked good, not because it is worth a boat load of points. Teaching
our students to become life long learners, seekers of information and
just reading for fun is our end goal.
What can you do, to support the public library? Show the students and
their parents the library is important and that supporting library
issues and funding drives is important to their lives.
If the public library is that close, I would take the library classes
over the last week of library; introduce the public library people, have
them give an orientation, hand-out card applications to the kids that
don't have one and get everybody signed up for the summer program; this
would give the kids a chance to feel comfortable there, know where
things are and MAYBE would mean that the parents would take them in over
the summer. If you give advance warning to the parents on this, you
could have the applications already filled out and kids with their
library cards so they could leave with a book.
My 4 cents. Four paragraphs, four cents ;)--Jean
I'm still not sure how to feel about AR. For some students, it seems
to inspire them to read more than they normally. However, for some
students, it seems to seriously damage their incentive to read. From
the little I've been able to observe, it seems that some of it
depends on how much import is placed on the program--by the teachers
and by the administration. My son's 2nd grade class enjoys AR and it
seems to be a good incentive toward getting them to move on to more
challenging titles. However, I've been disappointed (disgusted in
some cases) by some of the questions used in the AR tests. My big
complaint about AR, and this is from the point of view of a public
library children's room, is that too many times kids would come in
and be interested in a book but choose not to read it because it
either didn't offer enough AR points, or wasn't on the AR list for
their school. THAT really bugs me.
In my experience with the public library and the one elementary
school that was offering summer hours, the elementary school hours
did not take away from the public library usage. They simply offered
different things. Different titles, more audiovisual (at the public
library), the summer reading program (including events scheduled all
summer). I had parents who brought their children to both places. I
don't know if the school library here offered AR testing or not. I
think there's room for both public and school library summer access,
but would submit that the community at large would be best served if
there is some serious collaboration between the librarians. I think
that your idea of introducing students to the public library at the
end of the year is excellent--and actually is something that my son's
elementary school already does, at least with the 2nd grade. The
public librarian provided storytime and an intro to the summer
reading program and a copy of the summer reading program schedule. I
hope that more schools offer such collaborative efforts--after all,
to me, the end goal is to share with our students the joy of
reading. Would you mind if I included our discussion in my "hit"?
It's thought provoking and might stir further ideas for collaborative
efforts--or at the very least, just some really good discussion.--Ronda
After the discussion with Jean, I decided to ask one of the other
respondents about the summer hours vs. public library hours. Here’s
was Donna’s take on the issue at her location.
Our public library is probably not affected by our summer library.
Some of our "customers" go to the public library because they tell me
about it. Most of the others would never go downtown. We are just
much more convenient for them.
Pondering it, I would say that the school's library being open in the
summer will have no effect on the public library. Some people will
use both; some will use only the school--but they probably would not
have gone to the public library in any case; and some will keep going
only to the public library because they are tired of the school
collection and want something different.--Donna
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Please note: All LM_NET postings are protected by copyright law.
You can prevent most e-mail filters from deleting LM_NET postings
by adding LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU to your e-mail address book.
To change your LM_NET status, e-mail to: listserv@listserv.syr.edu
In the message write EITHER: 1) SIGNOFF LM_NET 2) SET LM_NET NOMAIL
3) SET LM_NET MAIL 4) SET LM_NET DIGEST * Allow for confirmation.
* LM_NET Help & Information: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/
* LM_NET Archive: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/archive/
* EL-Announce with LM_NET Select: http://elann.biglist.com/sub/
* LM_NET Supporters: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/ven.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------
LM_NET
Mailing List Home