Denmark Road losing library

[Mantaray]

I had heard rumours already, but today‘s email confirms what I had feared:
The school is losing its library to make room for classrooms.
My daughter is devastated, the library means a lot to
her and she spends many lunchtimes there.
I don’t understand it - the Sixth Form is not that big, why do they need all that space in the new building?

[DC17C]

I can certainly understand the devastation...what a strange thing to do...

[tulips]

Can you provide any further details? Is there a proposal for alternative provision?

[Mantaray]

I don’t know a lot more but then I don’t think the school really knows either. I just know that the library will be partioned into three classrooms, with no clear plan where the books will go. I don’t think there are any plans to establish a library elsewhere in the building, just to have a few books left in the original area and get rid of the rest?

[tulips]

And the librarian? Is she being retained?

[Mantaray]

I don’t know, yes as far as I‘ve heard.

[jearund]

Is this a sign of the times? Is the expectation that now we have Kindles, there's less need for a library? And why are they building new classrooms - did they increase their PAN?

[Mantaray]

They increased their PAN a few years ago but also now they’re moving the Sixth Form into the new block.

[PerpetualStudent]

Is this a sign of the times? Is the expectation that now we have Kindles, there's less need for a library? And why are they building new classrooms - did they increase their PAN?

DD’s school (in another region) took the ‘everything’s electronic now’ approach, 10 years ago, after a major building programme. No librarian and a few stacks of old books kept in a room dominated by computers. It was a major disappointment for DD, and a major concern for me.

I have seen university students trying to do all their research on the internet without using any library based/supported resources. I could only suppose they had never been taught library research skills at school. One masters student complained to me she couldn’t start to write her thesis because there was no research on her topic available via google scholar. She had never visited the university’s many libraries and was clueless about the vast research databases they facilitated. Needless to say, there was plenty of recent, and on point, research available.

DD’s school realised they had made a significant mistake and have since turned around, have a professional librarian, and lots of new books in a well-used library. It is a great resource, a place to study, and a refuge when you just need a place out of the fray.

I really hope Denmark Rd don’t run down their library.

[ToadMum]

A lovely new library is the main feature of the latest building work at DS2's school.

Back in 2015, when I accompanied DS1 on his Applicant Day at the University of Birmingham, our tour guide spoke with enthusiasm of the new library, under construction at the time. One of the parents actually asked why they were bothering, since surely students could stay in their rooms and access everything they needed electronically? To be told very firmly that the new library was one of the things that had been asked for by the student body. Certainly, DS1 found the library and its ancillary services very useful. Often at what a caring parent might describe as well past your bedtime .

(I have to say that the parent concerned did rather remind me of the father on the accommodation tour at a Leicester open day, who had expressed horror that the cleaners would have access to his precious DD's flat. While the rest of us were just thinking, 'Oh good, they get a cleaner' ).