New and Larger School Library Sparks Students' Interest in Reading

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Link to December 25 nj.com article, "New Salem Middle School Library sparks a renewed interest in reading among students".

Excerpt: The new library in Salem Middle School has been in a constant process of adding books and resource material since it opened earlier this year.

While it’s been successful in providing children with regular access to a variety of educational material, it has also had an additional benefit — creating a new spark of interest in reading among students.

“Children have been really enjoying the new room and the change of scenery,” said Loretta Zink, library media specialist for the middle school. “We’re constantly enhancing our collection and expecting a lot of growth.”

And students have been seeing the benefits, according to the district’s superintendent.

Related articles.
The strong relationship between academic achievement and good school libraries.  (11/13/2010)
Cathe Olson advocates for school libraries.  (6/3/2009)
The value of school librarians.  (2/16/2009)

The Library Traveler: The Malatestiana Library in Italy

Photo source:  Wikipedia

Link to December 26 Boston Globe article, " A small library in Italy whose history rivals its volumes".

Excerpt: If you’re a lover of books and libraries like I am, you’ll get a rush stepping inside what is said to be the first public and monastic library in Europe, the Malatestiana Library. The experience is made even more remarkable when you learn that despite wars and natural disasters, the building, its furnishings, and manuscripts have all remained virtually untouched since the structure was built in the middle of the 15th century.

[snip]

The idea for the humanist library, which was built between 1447 and 1452, is attributed to the Friars of St. Francis, who wanted a study area annexed to their monastery. In what has been called the golden age of this city, Malatesta Novello agreed to finance the project. This entailed both building the structure and acquiring and commissioning the books. His team of “librarians’’ organized a two-decade-long effort to transcribe books they found elsewhere in Europe and return to Cesena with their contents. Six or seven Nordic writers were charged with copying the books into gothic or semi-gothic script; others were tasked to illustrate and bind them.

The library holdings, totaling 343 manuscripts, include legal, medical, scientific, literary, theological, and philosophical works as well as 14 Greek codices and seven Hebrew ones. While it was open to the public, it was not a lending library. The books remain attached to the wooden desks by heavy wrought iron chains as they were then, subdivided by subject and kept in precise order.

Avi Steinberg on Prison Libraries

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Link to December 26 Boston Globe article, "Escape route: the surprising potential of a prison library".

Excerpt: The problem with the public discussion about libraries in prison is that it’s the wrong discussion. For over a century now, the debate has centered on reading — on which books should, or more often should not, be included on the prison library’s shelves; which books are “harmful” or “helpful”; whether reading is a privilege or a right. In 1867, Wines argued that a book like “Robinson Crusoe” — at the time, the only secular novel permitted in prison — served the cause of criminal rehabilitation. Others fervently disagreed.

But the issue of reading is only one dimension of the question, and not necessarily the salient one. The crucial point of a prison library may not be its book catalog: The point is that it is a library.

The library is a shared public space, a hub, where people spend significant portions of their time, often daily. It is a place inmates work and, in some important ways, live. It is more purposeful and educational than a recreational yard, less formal than a classroom. The prison library gives inmates an organic way to connect to the world, to each other, to themselves as citizens. It’s a small democratic institution set deep within a prison, one they can choose to join.