More Money, for Once

"It's a big deal for some of our schools, because some have had nothing," says Joyce Watson, librarian at Loftis Middle School.

It's difficult to determine exactly how much Hamilton County spends on library books. Even before the district eliminated its library supervisor two years ago, each of the district's 81 schools had been setting its own library budget. But $3,000 is clearly more than many district libraries have received in some time. Prior to the current site-based approach, the Chattanooga district spent $3 or $4 per student on library materials. (The Chattanooga and Hamilton County school districts merged in 1997.) With the average cost of a book now topping $17, it's not hard to see that that money won't stretch far.

Watson says she's one of the lucky media specialists, because she's in a new school where parents have rallied to support the library and the site management team has allocated $5,500 for library materials for the last two years. "But it may not always be that way," she says.

The $3,000 grants were proposed by board of education member Marty Puryear, who was disturbed when he saw the aging collection and lack of books at a local school. This year's grants, taken from reserve funds, went only to the district's roughly 70 elementary and middle schools.

Librarians are grateful for the one-time infusion of cash, but wish they could count on regular funding. Sandy Magnuson, librarian at the East Lake Academy of the Fine Arts, says that under the old method, funding was low, "but at least you knew you were getting it. Now it's like where you are in the pecking order of the school."--A. G.