Recently I finished the 3rd book in the Inheritance series. Written by Christopher Paolini, these huge books are a great fantasy story. As I was reading, one of the quotes really stood out to me as perfect for the field of librarianship. Jeod gave Eragon a very valuable book. When questioned by Eragon if Jeod should really give up the book he said:
“Book should go where they will be most appreciated, and not sit unread, gathering dust on a forgotten shelf, don’t you agree?”
Of course I agree! We keep our library media collections full of books that students want to read! We don’t want our materials gathering dust, but rather in the hands of our students. I think our library policies show we believe highly in that philosophy of getting materials in the hands of students.
- We have unlimited check out. Students are not limited to one or two items. We spent a great deal of time talking about checking out the number of items they can be responsible to handle. Most of our kids come multiple times a week to check out, so we use that to help teach them about making common sense choices in the number of items they check out, but we don’t limit them.
- If we have students with overdues, we let Mom or Dad write us a note and give permission for them to check out while they are looking for the lost item. Most of the time it comes back.
- Every year we have a few students who move away without returning their library books. We certainly try to get them back. But, if we don’t I take the attitude that the students leaving really must have needed those books. Likely it might have been the only books they might have had in their homes.
This year our circulation is up 3,000 items from this time last year. Can’t say that I know why exactly, but we’re excited and thrilled to see our students using the library media center even more. It certainly means less items will get a chance to collect dust.
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