The school library and the study hall: A conflict?

Abstract

The problem of housing the school library has become more acute in recent years, due to the increased need for a library in the modern program of education, as against the difficulty of maintaining one under present, and we might say, future, economic conditions. The question of whether there should be a separate room for the library or whether it should be combined with the study hall concerns the rural districts to a much larger extent than the urban, and is largely an economic question, and one that concerns the whole country, North and South, East and West. A glance at the rural situation reveals the fact that in 1928 more than three out of every four high schools were located in rural areas. The school term in such small high schools is often shorter than in the urban schools. Buses take the children to and from school, therefore there is often no opportunity to visit the library before or after school. Types of buildings, equipment, teaching staff, and curricula are often far below those found in large high schools. The small high school cannot rely upon the services of public libraries, for frequently the small high schools are located in places either without public libraries or with libraries whose resources are very limited. Miss Lathrop in her Study of Rural School Library Practices and Services, published in 1934, noted the fact that eighty-three per cent of the rural population is without public library service. Regarding the size of small high schools, one southern state reports that one-fifth of the high schools in the state have fewer than fifty pupils and nearly two-thirds have fewer than one hundred. In North Dakota twenty-one per cent of the classified high schools enroll less than fifty pupils, forty-three per cent between fifty and ninetynine pupils, and thirty per cent between one hundred and two hundred forty-nine, only six per cent have more than two hundred fifty. The rural districts are primarily areas with very small high schools. Consolidation has advanced very slowly. Extensive rurality and poverty should be kept in mind, since such conditions affect adversely the school and library situation. As a result, a part-time librarian or a teacher-librarian is a common practice among many small secondary schools. In North Dakota more