It’s a Saturday. The last bell has just gone off and I hear students descending the staircase. I have my fingers crossed – will anyone come to exchange a book today? It has been four months since I started issuing storybooks in a systematic way through the library. A few minutes lapse and there’s no sign of anyone turning up. I am disappointed but also irritated at the thought of having given up my Saturday morning to be with kids who may want to be with books. Just as I decide to wind up a couple of std X students rush in, they are followed by two girls from standard VIII and a student I recognize from my Std IX class but has never come to the library before. My heart almost skips a beat! My Saturday has been worth my while if I have old ones returning and a new one joining in.
Students doing a Book Talk at the Saturday Book Club
The school has always tried to nurture a love for story books. Since its inception, it has always had a space earmarked for the library even if it has been small and overcrowded. I remember, in the early years, it used to be a small room with cream-paneled cupboards and a long table with a cool green tile top. It was teachers who shuffled in and out of this space more than students. It was also a makeshift staffroom, a parents waiting room, an emergency meeting room and of course a punishment room for those who might have been troubling teachers. Over the years it began to overflow with storybooks and comic books as also answer sheets, textbooks and many, many specimen copies which no one referred to. Students over the years have been lucky to access storybooks which were often shipped from the library to their classrooms and distributed by teachers.
In the forty-fourth year of the school, we decided to move the library to a slightly bigger space. We got more cupboards and some more space for mobility. But the problem remained – we didn’t have enough good books. We tried to purchase new books every now and then but our collection wasn’t up to the mark. We had just about enough books to keep a basic reading program floating in some classes. The book circulation went on intermittently with other things often taking precedence over reading. What helped to an extent was having a library period timetabled for all classes. What didn’t help was not having a dedicated librarian and not having adequate budgets for purchasing books. We decided to change this in 2018-’19. We decided to make books, stories, reading, and our school library a priority.
Books displayed for borrowing
Books displayed for borrowing
It’s not as if this came about suddenly. Over the years, as a school, we have struggled to make the library a focus. There have been efforts. The first seeds for a rich library intervention were sown in 2013-‘14 when Bookworm collaborated with us to run the Library in Schools program. Recognizing our limited collection, Bookworm shipped some of their finest books all the way from Goa for our primary section students. Sujata, the brilliant library educator from Bookworm conducted professional development programs for our teachers on the story read aloud and kept replenishing us with interesting lesson plans for the rest of the year. In subsequent years we had the Karadi reading program which also didn’t take wings. Perhaps these were ill-timed or we didn’t give it our best. This year, we started our own school-based reading program for classes I-V where students participate in reading aloud and story extension activities in class.
Our journey as a school library perhaps also coincides with my own personal journey as a reader and a learner. First, in early June a dear friend announced on Facebook that she was selling her carefully, curated collection of children’s storybooks. Being a collector myself I understood how hard this decision to part with books might have been. I decided to buy these books on a whim for the school library. I came in possession of 200 odd story books and this triggered a chain of events in my life which suddenly led to the library becoming my focus in 2018.
In August 2018 I started a Saturday Book Club group with a bunch of 20 students – all school senate members and this mixed bag of books. I chose this bunch because I was itching to begin something but didn’t have any way of choosing or creating a niche group of readers. I soon realized not everyone was interested and that I didn’t have the right kind of books for older readers. I was also limited in my own understanding of young adult fiction. In a strange but fortuitous turn of event,s I was invited back to Bookworm in October 2018 to attend the Library Educators’ Course. This was another major turning point as it allowed me to be immersed in the world of books and it enabled me to think and understand the place of a library in a community. The Bookworm visit enriched me in many ways and pushed me in so many new directions, including new books.
A story Extension activity is done by students
When I came back from Goa I started a major weeding out process at the Sharon Library. Mahima and I pulled out hundreds of books which were just sitting in the cupboards wasting precious shelf space. We pulled out innumerable sample copies of textbooks and workbooks, many old and moth-eaten Readers’ Digests, National Geographics, Tinkles and Amar Chitra Kathas. We threw away old and tattered copies of Enid Blytons, R. L. Stines and Geronimo Stilton which were any way in excess. We proceeded to remove these from the library catalog even as we struggled to figure out a good system for record keeping. In November 2018, three months after our first big acquisition, we started cataloging the new books.
Old and new books being cataloged
Library shelves being rearranged
In November 2018, we had our second big acquisition when Sujata helped us handpick a great collection for young adults. When the second term began, Mahima and I were ready to open up the library for more students. With great support from Judith who runs the read-aloud program, we set out to start a book borrowing program. What was truly special about this was that for the first time students could come to the library, browse through books and choose a book on their own. This may not sound like a big deal, but if you are familiar with our space constraints you might agree this is an achievement of sorts.
Students browsing and borrowing books in the library
Students browsing and borrowing books in the library
So far we have managed to regularly give books to eight out of the twenty classes the school has, on a weekly basis. Since November, over five hundred students have borrowed books and over one thousand five hundred books have been issued and returned. But we’ve only covered less than fifty percent of our students. The demand from classes which haven’t yet got borrowing privileges has been mounting and we are struggling to keep pace. It is like we’ve opened up a faucet which was bursting to flow open and now there seems to be no stopping it. Luckily, we have found great support from the Principal and teachers who have cooperated and extended help at all times in the last three months.
All through this time, I have kept at my small Saturday Book Club effort. The club which first had twenty class IX & X students today stands at forty. Of these only five are std. X students as the others eventually dropped off with the onset of board exam fever. My motley group now has std. VIII, std. IX and a few std. X students. All of them joined the club with zero publicity effort on my part. Just like a good rumor, I guess a good storybook has a way of getting around.
We continue to struggle with many things but as a school,l we are happier knowing that we are enabling children to access books, take them home, read them and talk about them. Recently, one of my students borrowed Morpurgo’s Homecoming and came back to tell me how it reminded him of his hometown in Gujarat. He had a strange glow in his eyes when he said it was almost like the story of his village! The story moved him so much that he felt compelled to share it with others in his family and he made sure his mother, father, and sister read it before he returned it.
We will continue building this library. That’s the only way forward.
Contributed by Jennifer Thomas
Wonderfully documented and analysed. A must read for all librarians (existing and wannabes).
Great job done, Jennifer 🙂