Sarah left a comment on this blog post (about teens who don’t care about book banning — yay — because they don’t use their library — bad) asking:
I’d like to know more about what a highly functional school library advisory committee looks like. How do you start one? How do you keep it going? What kind of book budget is necessary if you hope to compete with Barnes and Noble? I’d love to hear about some success stories.
I did not have an advisory committee at my library (I was chastened not to ask teachers to take on one more thing, as we were a small school and everybody already had to take on lots of committee work), so I don’t feel I can answer that part.
As for the book budget part … of course, none of us can have the stock that Barnes and Noble does. But we have a few options that cost nothing: the attitude and tone of our library, the way we hand-sell or display interesting titles, the way we arrange our furniture into cozy (but not TOO cozy) arrangements, and the relationships and rapport we develop. We can arrange our collection so that high-interest materials (and not the dictionary stand) are most visible when students walk in. And we have two benefits that bookstores don’t have: we’re free and onsite. Maybe three. If you’re really lucky, we share our chocolate stash with you.
What do you think? Can you help her out with her question on a school library advisory committee?
