To say that I was surprised was the least of it. While I had seen the girl before, to my knowledge she had never been in the library on her own. I didn't know her name, and I didn't think she'd ever checked out a book.
"You sound like you're a huge reader," I managed.
"Oh, yes, I read constantly, she smiled."
"Where do you get your books? And who gives you suggestions on what to read next?" I queried.
"I pretty much live at Barnes and Noble," she replied. "The people who work there know me by name."
Epic fail, as the kids say. We have kids in our school who love to read but never come to the library. Ouch.
So I set out to see what I could do about it. After talking to lots of teachers and kids, here's what I'm finding out:
Some Reasons MS/HS Readers Don't Come to the Library (in no particular order):
1. I'm too busy/my schedule doesn't allow time to come when I'm at school.
2. I didn't know the library had the books I wanted.
3. I thought checking out books was mostly for the younger kids.
4. I go to Barnes and Noble when I'm at the mall.
5. I get lots of Barnes and Noble gift cards for my birthday, etc.
6. I'm afraid I'll lose library books.
7. I thought you had fines in the library.
8. I thought you had to return library books in one week.
Stop back by next week for part two of this post about the things I'm doing to try to get more middle school and high school readers to check out books from the library.
Have you experienced something similar in your library? I'd love to hear about it here!
I pretty much have the opposite situation in my elementary library. I can't get a lot of copies, so popular stuff is always scarce. I'm always reminding kids that there's a great public library just a couple miles away!
ReplyDeleteThat's great, Jim! Here's hoping that I can turn it around and have that good problem with my high schoolers!
ReplyDeleteSounds exactly like my high school library. Work HARD to promote, promote, promote, but many of our avid readers get their material elsewhere. At least I know a good number of them go to our public library. I think part of problem is many are turned off by being forced to read in 9th and 10th grade (causing school library books to lose their luster) and then add to the mix Lexiles, groan, i dont even want to go there. We've had some success with setting up kiosks in the cafeteria with mobile displays, etc.
ReplyDeleteCathy,
ReplyDeleteYou make a good point that I haven't considered. Maybe kids to associate library books (even ones to read for pleasure) with assigned reading. I really like your idea about kiosks in the cafeteria and mobile displays. Keep the ideas coming, please!