Libraries are worth saving

Libraries should not be on the chopping block when it comes to cutting costs at Ontario school boards.

Annie Kidder, Executive Director of People for Education, says it’s disturbing to see Windsor’s school board laying off its library technicians and dismantling its school libraries.

The board blames declining enrolment.

Kidder says libraries are as relevant as they’ve ever been because they continue to help users sort through vast stores of information. And she’s concerned by stats that show only 56 per cent of Ontario elementary schools have a teacher librarian, down from 80 per cent in the 1997-98 school year.

“There is this thing called information literacy and it has to do with knowing how to access information, how to use that information well and how to transform it, how to understand the context that it’s coming from,” Kidder says in defence of library technicians.

Kidder says the problem appears to be symptomatic of a narrowing view of education. If, for example, a school is told it needs to get its standardized test scores up, it may not recognize the importance of a library in achieving that goal.

Kidder believes that’s because we’re still stuck with antiquated notions of what libraries are as opposed to what they’ve become today.

“There is lots of activity, there is lots of collaboration. Often the computer lab is in the school library and the teacher-librarian is helping kids understand the vast array of information out there,” Kidder describes. “But (libraries) are also engendering in (students) a love of reading.”

Education Minister Leona Dombrowsky admits boards may need to analyze their operations in the face of declining enrolment but she’s adamant that libraries should not be looked at as a place for cuts.

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