In many schools, you'll find computers instead of card catalogs and stacks of CD-ROMs where there used to be rows of encyclopedias. In Ohio, an ambitious school library network known as INFOhio provides online resources to nearly 2.1 million students in the state's public and private schools. In the late 1980s, a study of library services in New York City's public schools found that many schools had no libraries to speak of or libraries that were shabby and outdated. Libraries, the report concluded, were often underfunded or eliminated due to severe budget cuts. In many schools, the average copyright dates of books in the collections were in the 1950s and 1960s.
Similar conditions persist in many urban schools.
Kozol says the social order is turned upside down when students in poor schools do not have the same library services as students in middle-income and wealthy schools. In some poor schools, Kozol notes, teachers, librarians, and principals compensate by reaching into their own pockets to buy books. Reader's Digest fund that, since 1988, has helped some 700 elementary and middle school libraries in 19 communities nationwide improve their collections, refurbish facilities, increase student use, develop schoolwide curriculum, and provide technical training for school staff members. Libraries, she says, should give students opportunities to learn that go beyond classroom lectures and textbook assignments. With training, many librarians and teachers in Library Power schools work together to select books and other resource materials that are compatible with specific curriculum topics.