My recent trip to a school library was actually a bit of a shock and disappointment. I guess I should clarify that the school I visited has actually quite recently removed the library in it's physical sense. For the past few years the school has been undergoing major renovations and extensions and the library was shifted several times until finally it was decided to divide the physical resources to the appropriate areas of the school. In the leadership committees opinion, this seemed to be the way that libraries were shifting - and maybe so....time will tell.
What was sad though, was seeing rooms full of books that are just never looked at. And - I would have thought the next thing I'm about to say to be blasphemous in front of a TL - the children are free to take books from an open shelf at various points (often building entry /exit points) around the school without 'zapping' them!! My instant reaction was "How do you know if they come back? How do you track what you have-or now don't have - as the case will probably be?"
Is the print format of diminishing significance, in my most recent experience (admittedly just from the one school) the answer is unfortunately, yes.
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I just wanted to say that in a couple of schools I am working at we have pulled all resources back to the library area to make it the central place and all materials have to be 'zapped' out before leaving it (not that it always works that way and I'm sorry to say it is usually the teachers who are at fault here). We did have it where collections were stored in specific areas but with TLs on the rise in our primary schools the library is becoming a central place again.
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