Teetering on the Threshold

Having attended a Cape wide library in-service I was extremely hopeful that I would return to the school library with a clear answer. Alas, it is not to be. The conundrum is whether or not to continue to invest limited budgetary funds to very pricey reference books, or to put that money towards electronic subscription databases. Though I was inclined to invest in the databases because they do not out-date themselves, a colleague pointed out something I had not considered. She asked, “what will you do if in the future your budget is significantly cut”? Now of course, being the eternal optimist, I had not considered this occurrence. But, she is absolutely correct, if you are not updating your print reference collection your library would not be a resource to the school community. So, the question now is how to best distribute those funds amongst the electronic and print resources?

As a fiftyish school librarian, I ponder the implications of the convergence of two worlds and what the merge will ultimately look like in the school library. For sometime now, I have participated in both worlds and put off looking at the major ramifications of technology verses print. The reality of this convergence necessitates an action plan. At the forefront of that plan is… How will I address reference purchases? Do I subscribe to digital databases or continue to buy expensive reference volumes? Will I begin to establish a collection of E-books? What percentage of my limited budget will be used for technology? I will never forget the day that a patron in a public library said to me,  “in twenty years libraries would be extinct”. I was mortified, and told him that I absolutely disagreed with him. I would now say to that gentleman, having watched the evolution of libraries, and the inordinate amounts of information available, that without libraries and librarians, learning how to discern and manage that information, makes our jobs more essential than ever before. As I anticipate an upcoming, region wide, school library collaborative, I hope there is a forum to discuss the issues being raised as technology continues to reshape today’s libraries.