When Bad Libraries Go Good

When Sara Stevenson arrived, the school library was a sleepy place. That didn't last long.

By Sara Stevenson -- School Library Journal, 5/1/2005

Sam is an ADHD poster child, an eighth-grade special-ed student who cannot keep still. But that didn't stop him from coming to the library for recommendations. He'd try something, like it, read 20 pages, and then lose interest. We'd try again. One day in late October he came running into the library. "Miss! Miss!" he called. "I finished Monster when I was in Saturday detention. It was great. It was the second book I've finished in my whole life!"

Because I was a high school English teacher for many years, I know how futile it is to try to predict what students are capable of. Two years as a librarian haven't changed my mind. Who would have guessed that a detention regular would become a frequent library user? Certainly not me. When you inherit a dead library and try to bring it to life, surprises like this are the reward.

I arrived at Austin's O. Henry Middle School in the fall of 2003, only months after receiving my library degree. Two challenges confronted me. The first was helping to get 800 apathetic tweens and teens from all socioeconomic groups interested in reading. The second was convincing them that the library was the heart of the school. I decided that the solution to both was to make the library a happening place.

Clearly, making teens feel welcome was key. I began with some interior decorating. I moved long-ignored vertical files into storage, pushed bookshelves against the walls, and scattered a few brightly colored beanbag chairs (Target, $16 each) throughout the room. Donated couches and armchairs let me create several comfy reading spots. I displayed hot new titles on book easels by the entrance.

Increasing access was important, too. I arranged it so students could come to the library any time during the day, as long as they had a pass from their teacher. We expanded our regular hours (7:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.) by adding an extra half hour on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons.

By being friendly and emphasizing personal service, I added a bit of human warmth to the equation. In order to learn students' names, I asked for names instead of for I.D. numbers when I checked out books. I also said hi to students in the halls, delivered their books, and greeted them when they entered the library.

Everything I did was an attempt to increase customer satisfaction. That meant service—and more service. Knowing that a service-based library creates a positive clientele, I made giving kids exactly what they wanted to read my number-one priority. Before coming to O. Henry, I was familiar with the literature taught in high school. But I knew precious little about the resources my middle schoolers wanted most—young adult books. Just as Linda Lum, my very experienced part-time assistant, taught me the nuts and bolts of running a library, the kids taught me everything I know about YA books.

When it became clear to students that the library was committed to serving their needs, they began stopping by and staying. Some mornings as many as 40 students would drop in before the first bell.

Once the library became a desirable destination, I launched an all-out PR campaign. Every chance I got, I reached out to another set of important customers—my colleagues. I stopped them in the hallways to find out what lessons they were teaching, walked them to class, and ate lunch with them every day. Whenever a teacher asked for help, I responded. When eighth graders were learning about the Holocaust in social studies, for example, we booktalked Maus (Pantheon, 1993) by Art Spiegelman.

I'm not a snob when it comes to what kids read. I'm a fan of every type of literature they like. Right now, that means sci-fi, fantasy, and chick lit—books about girls who "happen to like a certain guy who basically doesn't seem to know she's alive," author Meg Cabot said recently. Cabot's Princess Diaries series (HarperCollins) includes some of the most beloved books in the chick-lit canon.

My book-averse boys respond to nonfiction titles about cars, sports, and animals. Friday Night Lights (Da Capo Press, 2003) by H. G. Bissinger was a big hit last fall with the eighth-grade football players.

School libraries everywhere are starved for money, so I wasn't shocked last year to learn that I would be reinventing O. Henry's library with an instructional materials budget of $2 per student. At back-to-school night, the principal asked parents to adopt magazines to cover the annual periodicals bill of $700. We ran the program like a bridal registry, advertising prices and keeping track of adoptions on the PTA Web site. We thanked donors by placing their names on the plastic covers of "their" magazines. The program was a huge help.

We followed up the magazine program this year with an adopt-a-book fund-raiser, which we announced in the principal's weekly e-letter to parents. Students learned of the program from announcements over the school's PA system and from student-made hallway banners. Parents purchased $550 worth of titles in honor of their children, and we placed appropriate nameplates inside the books.

Our PTA is fabulous. We have one large fund-raising carnival for the school every year, and some families, including our principal's, donate as much as $1,000. Thanks to the library's share of those donations, I was able to play catch-up. I bought a new World Book set, added to the Spanish-language collection, and bought more high-interest, low-readability books for special ed and more audio books. This year my principal managed to give the library program $6,500. I'll never know where he found the money. I'm just glad he did.

One way we tried to spread the joy of reading is with a schoolwide reading program, the type of incentive that we could never have afforded on our own. I chose Jeanne DuPrau's The City of Ember (Random, 2004) because of its appeal to all ages, genders, and genre subgroups. Then I persuaded Book People, an independent bookstore in Austin, to donate 100 copies—a gift worth $500. We repaid them, or tried to, by thanking them on the announcement billboard in front of the school.

Once we had a critical mass of copies, we encouraged the entire school community to check them out informally. (We didn't record circulation figures for The City of Ember in the computer, where they would have inflated our checkout rates.) We displayed the name of everyone who borrowed a copy on a bulletin board in the main hallway, held raffles based on questions only readers of the book could answer, and gave booktalks in the classrooms. Reading interest soared. Even the head custodian and the in-school suspension monitor enjoyed the novel. Both put their names on a waiting list for the sequel, The People of Sparks (Random, 2005).

My favorite time of day is after lunch when I host our book clubs. Monday is horror, Tuesday is fantasy, Wednesday is mystery, and Thursday is a club for eighth graders called Girls' Time Out. To help cover costs, I send flyers home to solicit—but not insist on—a yearly donation of $30 for each child. Donors get to keep their books. Only a fraction of the approximately 55 club members brought in money this year, but every dollar meant less of a drain on my activity fund.

Will these print-rich experiences make kids better students? I'm guessing they will. "We know that the more children read, the better their literacy development," said Stephen Krashen, the author of The Power of Reading: Insights from the Research (Libraries Unlimited, 2004), in a speech last fall. "There is now overwhelming research showing that free voluntary reading is the primary source of our reading ability, our writing style, much of our vocabulary and spelling knowledge, and our ability to handle complex grammatical constructions. It has also been confirmed that those who read more know more. They know more about history, literature, and even have more 'practical knowledge.'"

One measure of progress is immediate and quantifiable—a comparison of year-to-year circulation rates. Over the past two years, we've tripled the checkout rate, boosting it from an average of 241 books a month the year before I came to 744 through March of this year. It wasn't just fiction that spiked. Last year, nonfiction checkouts were more than double the previous year's—in part, I'm sure, because I added a couple of dozen graphic novels to the mix.

How were these gains achieved? I attribute them to several factors: a stimulating environment; personal service; letting kids choose what they wanted to read; and a continual roster of programs, book fairs, and events. I didn't do it alone. I couldn't have. Any library's success derives ultimately from the school itself, from the personal investment of teachers and administrators in a comprehensive reading program. I was fortunate that during the spring before I came, a faculty committee had hatched the idea of devoting two homeroom periods a week to free reading. These periods had a dramatic and positive effect on reading habits at O. Henry, and the circulation figures show it.

Students deserve credit, too. At orientation sessions, I ask, "How many of you have gotten into a book so deeply that you almost forgot who you were?" I raise my hand, along with about 10 or so brave souls in each class. "I want you all to have that experience," I explain. "So if you check out a book, and you're still looking at that clock, I want you to turn it in so I can find you a book that fits."

This year, many students actually took that advice to heart. A seventh-grade boy rushed into the library last fall with a look of frustration on his face. "Miss!" he said. "This is the third book I've checked out, and I'm still looking at the clock."

We learned later that he has a reading disability. But that didn't stop him this past March from checking out—and loving—In the Forests of the Night (Delacorte, 1999) by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes. The 20-year-old wunderkind author visited our school in early April to talk to the kids and sign books. We worked her hard, and she was wonderful. And you know what? So is my job.