The Citizen, 2003-06-18, Page 21THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18, 2003. PAGE 21.
Six HPCDSB schools get trained librarians
By Stew Slater
Special to The Citizen
After about a decade during which
school boards across Ontario have
placed libraries near the bottom of a
continually diminished spending
priority list, the Huron-Perth
Catholic District School Board has
committed to placing trained
librarians in six of its elementary
schools, starting in September, 2003.
And there’s every indication the
board will expand the program into
its other facilities in the coming
years.
Funding for what’s being called
Phase 1 of the board’s Library
Revitalization Program was set aside
within the current (2002-03) budget
last month, thanks to an unexpected
surplus. Then, at the board’s regular
meeting Monday, June 9, details of
Phase 1 were explained during a
staff presentation, and money for
Phase 2 of the program was set aside
in a proposed 2003-04 budget.
The first trained librarians, to be
hired on a half-time basis, will begin
work in September in St. Mary’s
school in Goderich, St. Patrick’s
school in Kinkora, St. Columban, St.
Ambrose school in Stratford, and
Sacred Heart in Wingham.
According to director of education
Larry Langan, those schools were
chosen after consultations with
principals, because the principals
felt the communities served by those
schools showed an eagerness to
enhance library facilities.
“If you want to see a community
rally around a school, this is a great
rallying point — libraries and
playgrounds,” Langan said during a
presentation at the June 9 meeting.
“I wanted to start with communities
that were ready to go, and these
communities really seemed to be at
that point.”
The Phase 1 plan also includes
research into so-called “best
management practices” for libraries
in other school boards, an
examination of which types of books
are must-haves for elementary
school libraries, and a study of how
the book collections in school
libraries might be updated.
In the presentation, Langan
discussed the results from a 25-
question survey of the board’s
elementary principals. The director
of education was quick to praise the
fundraising and volunteer
supervision efforts of parents and
teachers, but he noted that, among
the survey’s highlights are the
feeling that libraries are “not staffed
by qualified people,” collections are
not properly catalogued and books
are frequently lost, many materials
are out-of-date and don’t reflect the
current Ontario curriculum, and
school libraries are regularly used
for purposes other than as a library.
In terms of spending, “schools
reported to us they spent between $0
and $3,000 in the last five years on
their libraries.”
Dawne Boerson, a one-time
elementary teacher who’s now
helping spearhead the Library
Revitalization Program, described
the types of books teachers have
recently found themselves
purchasing with their own money to
keep their classroom as up-to-date as
possible. She suggested that, ever
since the once-common teacher
librarians began falling victim to
provincial education funding
cutbacks in the early 1990s, no one
has been able to stand up for the
needs of school libraries when it
came time to decide where to spend
ever-dwindling school budget
dollars.
Boerson added that most schools
in the district are rural, so students
don’t have ready access to large,
well-stocked urban libraries. That
makes it essential to have up-to-date
resources available in the school
library.
The craziest of them all
It was wacky hair day last week at Blyth Public School and many children showed up to school
with unconventional hair styles. The winners are from left: Amelia Carter Brown, Vicki Cook,
Trevor Tyler, Tonia Ritchie, Matthew Van Wyk, Christina Eckert and Stephanie Root. (Sarah Mann
photo)
“In order to build up our
collections, we’re going to have to
invest significantly more,” she
commented.
North Perth/North Huron trustee
Vincent Mclnnes praised the
program, after recalling the time in
the early 1990s when the board was
forced to cut what had originally
been a multi-year plan to improve
libraries.
“I was really bugged by (the cuts
to libraries). And I think we have to
make a very strong commitment,”
Mclnnes said. “Because that is not a
luxury that we can afford to play
with when we come to hard times.
We have to make that commitment.”
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