Comments on: Libraries…who needs ‘em? (Answer below)

By: Interior Design

Interior Design — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 03:19:00 +0000

Why no one posting comments here. No body cares about libraries.

By: christinanicolson

christinanicolson — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 23:52:36 +0000

In contemporary education we are blessed but not wise enough for using a wide range of media —not excluding the physical books.As curriculum designer and teacher for Belmont Enrichment classes and gifted students at Milton Academy's Saturday Course (ages 7-14), I have made the following observations over the past two years:
1) A reluctant reader with ADHD was inspired to make a replica of da Vinci's wings…enlisted his grandfather's engineering skills…found books he wanted to read with help…and lugged two bags to share at school. He became so knowledgeable about daVinci's work that he disputed the validity of some information on two websites.
2) For my course, “The Secret Life of Animals,” students have gravitated to books and magazines, when provided with a rich, annotated array for each class. Identifying the best books for study of their animal delights them, when they post their name on the front cover and mark the pages that answer their questions.study of adaptation of their favorite animal. My students seem used the Internet and DVDs as supplementary.
These two scenarios often indicate how valuable books are for kids with certain learning styles and apppreciative of adult guidance and personal connections.
WOW!!!!! That's happening in so many ways at Belmont Children's Library:
1) storytelling; 2)music sharing; 3) display cabinets for users; 4) children's evaluations of books;
5) turtles; 6) computer games and catalog; 7) smart librarians who know their users and help out;
book displays on relevant topics; 9) bulletin board around the corner; 10) reasonable policies, etc.

Let's integrate books with electronic media, activities, training in evaluation of websites, literature circles, and, of course, events like One Book One Belmont.

By: christinanicolson

christinanicolson — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:52:36 +0000

Let's integrate books with electronic media, activities, training in evaluation of websites, literature circles, and, of course, events like One Book One Belmont.

By: pjlooney

pjlooney — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 21:33:08 +0000

Paul,
I suspect more would benefit from my idea if the logistics and savings are there. It would require some DD so let me rephrase the idea in the form of 2 questions as I think you may have misread my first email.

Would you support closing the Belmont Public Library and transferring $1.6m from the Library budget to the School Department who would then offer limited Public Library Book services M-F from 4-7pm at the HS Library. The expected cost for the School Department to do this is less than $600k (wild guess) and the remaining $1.0m can be used as seen fit by the School Department to hire Teachers and reduce class size or activity fees that presently can exceed $1,000 per kid?

Would you support closing...... and transferring $200k from the Library budget to the Senior Center to help pay operational costs and make the Senior Center available for Public Internet and Computer access as well as occasional Community Talks and Children Book Hours hosted by Senior volunteers?

I know the Library costs $1.8m minimum to run this year. I have seen their listed service offerings and by offering internet/computer access, book access, and community talk space we maintain a semblance of the core services of the Library. What I don't know is the cost savings of doing this and if it's logistical. What I do know is relying on a positive Override vote is risky and not in the best interests of the Town and especially the School children who will suffer most. The time for sharing ideas is now.

BTW... one of the most popular items at the BPL is the Kindle.

PJ

By: pjlooney

pjlooney — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 18:33:08 +0000

By: bloggingbelmont

bloggingbelmont — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 12:36:12 +0000

You seem to take a dim view of the services the BPL offers, as you're suggesting basically that we can do away with it and replace it with “watered down” Library services at BHS without anyone being affected. My recent visits to BPL suggest that its actually being used incredibly heavily by residents across all its programming, so I don't think that the “nobody would miss it” argument holds much water. Beyond that, consolidating town and school libraries makes sense at the 10,000 foot level – a library is a library, after all – but would be very difficult to carry out in practice with our current HS library. At a minimum, relocating the town library to the HS would result in a continual traffic of folks in and out of BHS all day and into the night, which would create real problems for the staff at BHS. Beyond that, the BHS library is already quite full with students working and hanging out on free periods during normal school hours. There wouldn't be much room, if any, for The mezz level at BHS library is now occupied by the IT dept, if I'm not mistaken, taking that space out consideration. Were we to build a new high school, or substantially rennovate BHS, could there be an argument made to build a joint community-school library at that time and design it in such a way that its accessible to the public and the students without disrupting life on campus — I think that's something to consider, but obviously its a problem that's way down the road.

By: pjlooney

pjlooney — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 17:20:27 +0000

What if we did this....

Close the Public Library. Give 90% of the Library budget to the School Department and have them offer a significantly watered down Library service (books only/after school hours/no weekends etc) at the HS Library? Take the other 10% and direct it to the Senior Center to help offset operation costs and to open the Computer Center/Internet access to the general Public?

Anyone else have ideas to close the gap? The assumption being that their would be major cost savings by reducing the scale and sharing existing sites.

PJ

By: dr2chase

dr2chase — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 18:03:37 +0000

There are times when I wonder if we could use computers the other way, to help people find interesting books in town that might not be in the library system at all. So, if you needed a copy of “BCPL: the language and its compiler” or “The Loma Prieta, California, Earthquake of 17 October 1989 (Cal. Dept of Conservation)”, the search might tell you “no, we don't have that book, but you can get it from this guy here, and we will email him a request if you would like it” (neither book is in the MM library network).