June 17, 2007

Dr Syed Jalal Haider deliberates on the despicable state of affairs in school libraries

THE provision of school libraries is a 20th-century phenomenon and the idea developed particularly after the First World War. In the subcontinent, school libraries began in the early years of the last century. Their primary function was, in the words of Watkins of Indian Education Service: “To give a thorough knowledge of English and the secondary function – the imparting of knowledge.” But they subsequently languished and it was some time in the 1930s that a determined effort was made to provide libraries in schools. Madras was perhaps the first province where the Director of Public Instruction made a library hour compulsory in schools in 1933. During the same period, finding expression was recognition of the fact that the management of library services should be in the hands of persons specially trained in this field. Accordingly, a series of lectures on school libraries were delivered in teacher training colleges of Madras for several years.

Since Independence

The report on the Commission on National Education (1959) may be identified as a temporal force for consciousness towards the school library movement in the country. The document categorically emphasised that “the academic heart of the school should be its library which should be specially stocked to meet educational requirements”.

The report, no doubt, recognised the importance of the school library in the educational system, but specific recommendations on how to achieve the desired programme were omitted. Nevertheless, the effect of this document was tremendous in respect of school library development; it revolutionised our consciousness and thinking towards the school library programme. Consequently, the establishment and development of libraries in schools has been the subject of much thought, talk and writing among individuals, including those responsible for educating our youth, besides librarians, throughout the 60s. Awareness of the school library programme resulted in a spate of meetings, workshops for training of teacher-librarians, projects in library schools and elsewhere, and publications pressing for the establishment of school libraries. The same trend continued in subsequent decades.

The role of library associations has always been significant in the development of school libraries in Pakistan, The Pakistan Library Association, through its conferences, has been an active player in the promotion of school libraries. Of other organisations which took a keen interest in this regard, mention may be made in particular of the Society for the Promotion and Improvement of Libraries (SPIL), primarily a citizen’s group, under the patronage of late Hakim Mohammad Saeed. For this purpose, the Society held seminars and conferences, organised workshops and brought out several publications. Another privately governed organisation, the Library Promotion Bureau has also been instrumental in school library development by bringing out some useful publications on the subject.

Towards the end of the 60s, education in general, and school education, in particular, attracted the attention of the private sector, resulting in the growth of quality schools on a large scale in big cities. In the wake of the denationalisation of educational institutions, investment in education was considered a safe investment. Along with the provision of other standard facilities in such institutions, the private school management also realised the need for fully equipped and professionally staffed libraries or media centres.

Current matters

The current school library scenario could not be termed satisfactory by any stretch of the imagination. Despite all the beautiful phrases used for the school library in government documents and the rhetoric of our education planners and educators on the eve of library seminars and conferences, the school library is yet to be recognised as a component of the school curriculum. This is best illustrated by the fact that a vast majority of the existing secondary schools, not to speak of primary and elementary schools, do not possess any sort of book collection.

With respect to library materials, a wide variation, both quantity and quality-wise, has been observed. It ranges from less than 100 to a few thousand books. A vast majority of school libraries do not follow any system for the arrangement of books on the shelves. In some libraries books are placed by broad subject areas, while others prefer to arrange books by accession number. In rare cases, books have been properly catalogued and classified following the established principles of librarianship. The abridged edition of Dewy Decimal Classification is mostly used. The sheaf-form catalogue is preferred in the absence of catalogue cabinets.

With respect to services, one could mention reading rooms and circulation. Reading room facilities are limited to some selected schools which have adequate space for this purpose. Observations show that this facility is very little used since library hours in most cases are the same as the school hours. Most libraries issue one book for a fortnight. Libraries use the ledger system for circulation. Open-access facilities are available in rare cases. It may seem strange to many that there are schools with book collections which are used occasionally and only by principals and teachers.

Very few schools in the public sector employ full-time professional librarians. Usually, some teacher is assigned responsibility for the library, along with having a full teaching load. There are schools without anyone at all to look after the library. However, there is a growing trend to appoint professionally qualified librarians in private schools.

With few exceptions, school libraries are small one-roomed facilities and are poorly equipped. Equipment in these libraries includes little more than a few shelves, reading tables and chairs. Issue counters and catalogue cabinets are found in exceptional cases.

There are no recurring budgets for this category of libraries. Under such circumstances, the question of book purchase does not arise at all. However, on the advice of the provincial department of education, the regional directorate of secondary and higher education occasionally makes bulk purchases of books from funds made available for this purpose, for distribution among schools located in its jurisdiction. Who selects the titles? How is selection made? These are the questions for which there are no answers. In the past, principals and headmasters also made use of union fees for the purchase of library books but this is no longer the practice.

Contrary to government schools, financial allocation for the library in private sector schools depends on the discretion of the principal and the personality of the librarian. It has been observed that a well-qualified, friendly and enlightened librarian always succeeds in obtaining the support of the management for school library development. A few librarians have also been instrumental in involving the parents in strengthening the library collection and for the betterment of library services. For this purpose, the librarians just need to be innovative.

Trends

What is the future of school libraries since the arrival of a multi-media culture in the country? Presently, there is an unprecedented emphasis on the use of information technology in all walks of national life and in both the private and public sectors. The digital culture has already penetrated the four walls of our private schools, middle class families and urban business centres. This development is likely to have an impact on information-seeking behaviour and habits of children and young adults; thus our school libraries would be affected in one way or other.

Apprehensions are being expressed in certain quarters that sooner or later, the digital culture will replace the print culture. In contrast, other groups, representing the educator and intellectuals, are of the opinion that children and young people, who are the first generation to grow up with the computer, will integrate the digital culture into their everyday culture. In other words, all three, namely the visual, digital and print cultures, will exist side by side with no fear of whatsoever of one being displaced by the other. Adopting a pragmatic approach, they also hold the view that the print culture will lose its present power in the course of time. For them, the media will occupy a central role in the years to come, as providers of intellectual and emotional experience for the young and as tools for action.

What to do

With these trends together, the existing school libraries will have to survive in dual culture, that is, both print and digital cultures. In order to upgrade the existing school libraries with digital media, the first generation of school librarians need to focus all their energies on maintaining a balance between computers, media and the print culture. What do they need to do? The librarians, on their part, need to develop into multimedia professionals to match the present generation users who will, in turn, will be the future generation of adult users. To do so, they need to enable themselves to assess and disseminate literary quality in visual and digital media. Such preparation is needed if demands are likely to be made in the selection and interpretation of mediated messages. A librarian’s professional guidance will, thus, be needed, perhaps somewhat more in the field of visual and digital media. Librarians could, thus, serve as a light house of quality.

The writer is a freelance contributor