libraries | Where's My Eraser?

I wasn’t able to find a citation for this beauty, but easily my favorite comment on it was “For every action, there is an equal and opposite class action lawsuit.”

A place for people to learn how to file all of those class action lawsuits mentioned above.

In honor of National Library Week, CNN posted this article and accompanying photos of 27 libraries from around the world. I could sit and look at those pictures all day long. The article doesn’t include these photos of the University of Michigan Law Library, but I’m posting them because that building is near and dear to my heart. The place is basically a cathedral of books. Even undergrads are allowed to spend endless stressful hours in there.

Source: Lord, Aeck, Sargent Architecture

Next, I’m excited about the latest newsletter from the Family Learning Institute, an education nonprofit in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I did an internship there while I was studying for my master’s degree. FLI provides one-on-one after school tutoring to low income children in Washtenaw County. Students are paired with a volunteer math or literacy coach, and they work together for just one hour a week during the school year. Despite the small time frame, FLI’s model gets big results in terms of academic improvement. The organization also offers programs to combat summer learning loss and help rising 6th graders prepare for the social and academic challenges of middle school. And new this year, FLI is expanding its reach through an Algebra Academy, college prep workshops, and a community access television show for parents and families.

There is a ton of information and discourse about schools and colleges on the internet, but there’s comparatively little that addresses nonprofit education. I want to give people an opportunity to learn more about the really important contributions that nonprofits make to education. If you’re interested in learning more about FLI, here’s a link to their website.

Source: Aliza Eliazarov

This article from the Huffington Post details a brilliantly simple photo and interview series for photographer Aliza Eliazarov. The series, titled “See Me After School”, captures the appearance and emotions of NY teachers during the part of the day that few people but teachers think about. This is a diverse selection of people who work teach the gamut of subjects, but there’s a common thread: Just about everybody is exhausted at the end of the school day, and these educator’s days aren’t even over yet.

And finally this week, I absolutely had to include this gem of a video, or as The Huffington Post calls it, “The High School Lib Dub to End All Lip Dubs.” Students at Avon High School in Indiana put together this massive undertaking to raise money for a local children’s hospital. If you’re interested, you can donate through this link. I promise this will make your day.

Library workers aren’t just caretakers of books. They’re caretakers of the children who read them. I have such wonderful memories of my little school library when I was growing up. There was a nice soft carpet on the floor in the children’s corner, where we would sit while the librarian read books to us like The Stinky Cheese Man, a new crowd favorite. Every book had an orange card in the back, which I could write my name on as I looked at the names of the kids who had checked it out before me. The only computer in the room was used by the librarian for inventory, but with all those books, who needed a computer?

Working in a school library has changed quite a lot in the last 20 years, probably more than any other job in education. The orange cards have been replaced with bar codes. Card catalogues have been replaced with computers. The internet is just as ubiquitous as books and magazines. However, the mission of school libraries hasn’t changed: to expose children to ideas that are much bigger than themselves, and to connect children with the people who come up with those ideas. It’s a big world outside the school gate, and media has a way of making that world seem bigger and smaller at the same time. Throughout these technological advancements, library workers have been at the forefront of learning and implementing new educational technologies. They’re the ones helping kids put together their research projects on the Amazon rain forest. They’re the ones helping teachers experiment with math games on a new set of iPads. They’re the ones making sure that the whole school has access to the best online periodicals.

That said, they’re still the ones introducing a new class of kindergarteners to the newest, silliest books. Some things never change. When you’re a little kid, libraries can seem like magical places, but they’re not created through magic. People make them possible.

Want to support libraries in your schools and neighborhoods? Visit ilovelibraries.org and sign “The Declaration for the Right to Libraries.”