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Show STUDENTS IN THE STACKS SPELL LIBRARY JAM SESSIONS By Paul H. Lefevor Superintendent, Beaver County Schools "Oh, we'll be rockin" in the reference room, And twistin' in the stacks, We'll change little old librarians To raving maniacs. If you want to have a ball The place where you should be, Is that gassin' teen-age night-club The public libraree." The new generation of learners, surging beyond school doors for the knowledge that sustains term papers, finds that it is the books, not the cards, that are stacked against it. Encouraged to do more independent study and hampered ham-pered by inadequate and unavailable school libraries, students stu-dents are creating enormous traffic jams at public libraries. li-braries. Generally, the librarians are glad to see them for, as one director expressed it, "it means better educated library patrons for the future." However, the nature and numbers of the young library patrons of today are taxing libraries and librarians to the point where they now refer to the new phenomenon as "the student problem." In the first place, the public libraries frequetly have little more to ofifer students than the school library system except availability at nights and on week ends. The American Library Li-brary Association estimates that 110 million Americans have inadequate in-adequate library service and that 130,000 additional librarians are needed to bring all libraries up to national standards of library li-brary service. (The public school situation is much worse according to a U. S. Office of Education survey, only 50 of public elementary and high schools have centralized libraries, li-braries, and only 42 have school librarians. The average annual expenditure for books is $1.60 per pupil, compared to the $4 to $6 recommended in the ALA standards). Secondly, the Influx of students stu-dents is pushing the adult user out of the reading room and presumably back to his own living room. Discouraging the adults are the curtailment of services to them because of the student demands made upon librarians; li-brarians; overcrowding caused by students; and the distractions distrac-tions of teen-agers who, by nature, na-ture, usually can study only to the accompaniment of giggles and get-togethers. Although they apologize for enforcing limits on students, many libraries out of necessity have curtailed their services to teen-agers. The number of reference material check-outs is limited; some are excluding all except college or high school seniors from using reference ref-erence materials; others have placed teen-agers in separate rooms or set up different hours for student and adult users of the library. In a special study of the student stu-dent problem by Doris Watts and Elaine Simpson, published in the Wilson Library Bulletin, 44 of the librarians surveyed reported an increase in discipline disci-pline problems due to the increased in-creased student use of libraries. Most of the discipline problems are not serious noise, socializing, social-izing, some horseplay; but one serious problem is that of book mutilation and theft. The researchers re-searchers write: "When 30 chidlren are simultaneously simul-taneously required to find the same piece of information from the same list of reference books and periodicals, the temptation is great for the student who reaches the library first to make sure that he, at least, is going to complete the assign, ment. Hence stolen books and periodicals, pages ripped from encyclopedias and increased frustration for the rest of the class." Rather than hang up a "No Students Allowed" sign on the door, many libraries are trying" to work out solutions that will not dilute student enthusiasm for library services, but at the same time allow for ; adequate service to all users. At Belling-ham, Belling-ham, Wash., high school and junior high teachers met with school and public library staffs to discuss mutual problems, Teachers are now preparing, groups more thoroughly for library li-brary assignments and stressing stress-ing use of school libraries first. Also, a school employee is now available to assist the public library reference staff as needed need-ed in the evenings. The Shaker Heights, Ohio, public library renovated a large basement room into ; a study hall and furnished it,1 with a duplicate set of reference and science books. Teachers are paid to be proctors in the study hall in the afternoons, evenings and week ends. When discipline problems in some of the branch' libraries of Seattle, Wash., became impossible im-possible to handle, the library system temporarily closed several sev-eral of the branches for evening eve-ning service. This brought the problem to the attention of Seattle Se-attle citizens quite dramatically and when the branches reopened re-opened a week later, student behavior was and remained exemplary, ex-emplary, subdued perhaps by the realization that the library can act decisively when need be. James E. Bryan, president of the ALA, lists four prerequisites pre-requisites for keeping public libraries useful and central to the education of children: Cooperation and mutual understanding un-derstanding between school and public libraries, to the end that the student is served constructively construc-tively and helpfully. A greater part in curriculum making by librarians. Until librarians take a greater part in the creation of educational materials, policies, and procedures, proced-ures, and until there is an ample supply of materials for realistic individual study projects, proj-ects, educational progress will be retarded. An effort by both public and school libraries to approach the ALA standards, individually individu-ally and in concert. Librarians taking the initiative initi-ative in gaining support and improvement of library services serv-ices to students in a forceful, well-documented way, to indicate indi-cate where the needs are. |