yesterday i exercised my civic duty and went to vote in this year’s Provincial Election and it made me sad. Naw– i’m not going to talk about the Liberals or the NDP or those crazy-ass Conservatives– it is WHERE i went to vote that made me sad.
my voting poll was at the library at St. Rose Catholic School in Windsor, Ontario. i had heard about the Essex County Catholic School Board’s decision to close down the school libraries last year to save money but to actually see it– WOW! What an impact!
Seeing the library– which was my FAVOURITE place to be when i was a kid– empty of books and bustle was just depressing!! i know, the books are in the classrooms now but taking that daily trip to the library was always the best part of the day!!! hmmmmmm guess it is the end of an era! 🙁 i wonder how long before the Public Board follows suit??
a link on the new Indigo website (which launched today) had some interesting thoughts about closing school libraries in Canada as well…
GREAT post Jackie! Wow, that is visually very disturbing! And yes, the Catholic Board completely misses the mark when it thinks it’s suitable to move books “of age” in to the classrooms and taking away the one body/librarian in some effort of thinking it is saving money. Because like you said, the best and most fun of the day was making the “trip” to the library. Being able to go down the hall, outside of the classroom you sit in every day to browse the books was a major highlight. I’m against putting the books that are “of the class age” in to the classroom – what happens when you wanted to read “up” – you no longer have access to that? If I were a teacher I know I would be broke right now, because I probably would have supplied all my students with e-readers and taught them how to download from the library. For shame. For shame Windsor-Essex because although many schools are moving to a newer mode of libraries, they are most certainly not taking the books away from the kids and giving them this visual idea that libraries are “old” or “bad” or “not worth the investment”.
(and sorry, I slightly edited, you had Tories/Conservatives in there twice…I’m assuming you wanted to put those Liberals in there too??) 🙂 If not, please slap my hand when you see me next.
whoops!!! thanks for that– i was on a rant and was a typing maniac! i actually had to edit a couple of times!! it was just sad, sad, SAD!!!
looks like Windsor is not the only place according to http://www.loveloveofreading.org our poor, poor kids– only video games and iPhones to console them!!! 😉
and i LOVED the librarian at my old grade school (Ms. Locheart)!! it was wonderful to be greeted with “Well, hello there Bookbug!” whenever i went in there!!!