School Libraries: "Technology has changed the lay of the land"

Libraries in schools keeping up with times. (Boston Globe, 4/1/2012)

Excerpt: Back in the day, students stacked books onto numerous shelves that filled large, dusty rooms. Others sat at tables and took notes from huge volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Librarians flipped through card catalogs to find book titles that aided students’ research. 

This image of high school libraries is a familiar memory to anyone who attended high school before the age of computers. 

Today, students sit at computers, read Kindles, work on netbooks, and browse online databases for the information they need. The high school library is no longer just a room with books on a shelf. It is a multifunctional space meant to unite a community and aid the creative and innovative learning and teaching process. 

High school librarians have had to adapt to the changes and master resources an earlier generation of high school students never had. 

“Technology has changed the lay of the land,’’ said Susan Ballard, president of the American Association of School Librarians. “Libraries have morphed into a hybrid model that pulls resources from the traditional print format and the newer digital format.’’

A message from AASL President Carl Harvey II:  What You Can Do To Support School Libraries In Crisis, Huffington Post, 12/11/2011)