As a former public librarian and current school librarian, I am in a position to tell you about the impact libraries have on communities.
At the Carnegie Library, the staff and I helped elders learn how to use computers for the first time, taught them how to sign up for health care programs and how to use email, and gave free help with online tax returns. We taught expectant mothers the importance of reading to their babies, did storytimes for toddlers and school-age children, and provided a safe place for children from elementary through high school to participate in activities after schoolranging from science and math projects, to gaming, to cooking new kinds of foods.
Public libraries provide Wi-Fi, computers, books, movies and a safe place to be where your presence is welcomed without the need to purchase anything to be there. There is no other place in America where that is true.
School librarians enhance students’ reading fluency while supporting schools’ curricula. Many students do not live near a public library, or cannot walk safely to one, so checking out books at school is their only access to the books they need to keep reading.
We desperately need to increase the number of librarians and libraries in our schools. When schools have full football stadiums but an underfunded library, or no librarian, you know their priorities are completely out of whack.
Sheila May-Stein
Wilkins The writer is a librarian at Perry High School.