Target has a program called the Target School Library Makeover, in which they spend $200,000 to renovate a few chosen school's libraries. One recent school was Potter-Thomas Elementary in North Philadelphia. Potter-Thomas's 400+ students received a brand new library, about 2,000 new books, and each student got 7 books to take home.This is a fantastic gift from Target!
But unlike Potter-Thomas, hundreds of schools in this district are still struggling to teach reading and writing, help their students attain literacy, and instill a love of learning without school libraries or librarians.
As we at Library Build know, and as Philly.com says, "In the late 1990s, a time of huge budget deficits, the school district began eliminating librarian positions and failed to replace those who retired or found other jobs." Now schools don't have librarians, and they don't have libraries.
In some ways the Philadelphia School District is trying: they allowed Target to help out Potter-Thomas, they are spending money on the Promise Academies to increase standards and resources at 6 under-performing schools, and they are working with the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences to provide students at Drexel's School of Information Science with scholarships.
Of course, even with these plans in motion there is still a lot of work to be done.
Here's the two articles about Potter-Thomas's new library!:
Excited for School Library
Happy Ending
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Monday, October 18, 2010
No more books in 5 years?
Here we go again!
Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of the nonprofit One Laptop Per Child, was recently on CNN claiming that laptops containing digital books are better and more cost effective than physical books, and that physical books will be gone in 5 years. Hmmm....
First a sidenote, his nonprofit's goal is to ensure that every child in the world has a laptop. However, when I went on the webpage for One Laptop Per Child, it was very heavily focused on Africa - no surprise there. Not that children in Africa don't need or deserve laptops, but I'm tired of organizations claiming broad goals such as "all kids will have laptops!" and then not helping out US kids.
Anyway, will physical books be gone in 5 years?
I think I've already given my opinion on this one.
CNN: Will Physical Books be Gone in 5 Years?
One Laptop per Child - Negroponte's nonprofit
Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of the nonprofit One Laptop Per Child, was recently on CNN claiming that laptops containing digital books are better and more cost effective than physical books, and that physical books will be gone in 5 years. Hmmm....
First a sidenote, his nonprofit's goal is to ensure that every child in the world has a laptop. However, when I went on the webpage for One Laptop Per Child, it was very heavily focused on Africa - no surprise there. Not that children in Africa don't need or deserve laptops, but I'm tired of organizations claiming broad goals such as "all kids will have laptops!" and then not helping out US kids.
Anyway, will physical books be gone in 5 years?
I think I've already given my opinion on this one.
CNN: Will Physical Books be Gone in 5 Years?
One Laptop per Child - Negroponte's nonprofit
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Quick Update
The past few weeks have been extraordinarily busy.
Briefly, in the past few weeks Library Build has:
1) Continued talks with a school in Philly that we hope will be our pilot school for Working Libraries and Library Fellows. Stay tuned for an official announcement, which we hope to make by the end of the month!
2)Met with community building/revitalization/organizing nonprofit organizations in Philly. One of the organizations believes that it can meet our need for office space - an extremely pressing need at the moment!
3) Begun applying for grants. Unfortunately, it take the IRS 100 days (according to their website) to update their electronic database which lists organizations who have 501c3 status. This means that we are still ineligible for the majority of grants (particularly corporate) since most grant-makers use this database as an initial verification step.
4) Secured a pro-bono auditor and have begun the audit process for last fiscal year (an important step in order to qualify for grant money).
5) Suffered catastrophic laptop failure which is currently being resolved. Fortunately, we have been diligent about creating backups to store both on and off-site but unfortunately, the failure hit us during a particularly vulnerable period.
Tonight we are going to a see Waiting for Superman (playing at the Ritz East in Old City) which is a documentary about the state of the American education system. Geoffrey Canada, probably the most innovative and successful educator in the US right now, features prominently. The movie also covers the charter school movement and the lottery admission systems used by charter schools - similar material covered in the movie we recently wrote about, The Lottery. Later this week, we will do a post on the movie.
Geoffrey Canada was on The Late Show last night - great opportunity to raise awareness of the challenges facing education right now.
Philadelphia Reads was featured prominently in the Inquirer yesterday as they face funding challenges for one of their literacy programs that provides books for teachers' classroom libraries. The program is based at MLK High. Read about it here: http://www.philly.com/philly/news/pennsylvania/20101011_Teachers__book_bank_in_danger_of_closing.html
Briefly, in the past few weeks Library Build has:
1) Continued talks with a school in Philly that we hope will be our pilot school for Working Libraries and Library Fellows. Stay tuned for an official announcement, which we hope to make by the end of the month!
2)Met with community building/revitalization/organizing nonprofit organizations in Philly. One of the organizations believes that it can meet our need for office space - an extremely pressing need at the moment!
3) Begun applying for grants. Unfortunately, it take the IRS 100 days (according to their website) to update their electronic database which lists organizations who have 501c3 status. This means that we are still ineligible for the majority of grants (particularly corporate) since most grant-makers use this database as an initial verification step.
4) Secured a pro-bono auditor and have begun the audit process for last fiscal year (an important step in order to qualify for grant money).
5) Suffered catastrophic laptop failure which is currently being resolved. Fortunately, we have been diligent about creating backups to store both on and off-site but unfortunately, the failure hit us during a particularly vulnerable period.
Tonight we are going to a see Waiting for Superman (playing at the Ritz East in Old City) which is a documentary about the state of the American education system. Geoffrey Canada, probably the most innovative and successful educator in the US right now, features prominently. The movie also covers the charter school movement and the lottery admission systems used by charter schools - similar material covered in the movie we recently wrote about, The Lottery. Later this week, we will do a post on the movie.
Geoffrey Canada was on The Late Show last night - great opportunity to raise awareness of the challenges facing education right now.
Philadelphia Reads was featured prominently in the Inquirer yesterday as they face funding challenges for one of their literacy programs that provides books for teachers' classroom libraries. The program is based at MLK High. Read about it here: http://www.philly.com/philly/news/pennsylvania/20101011_Teachers__book_bank_in_danger_of_closing.html
Friday, October 8, 2010
A Whirlwind!
It seems like a common refrain at this point, but again I have been slow to post updates. Fortunately, that is not because there is nothing to talk about, but rather, because we have been extraordinarily busy!
In the past two weeks, we met with a potential school, met with a community development organization with whom we hope to partner, have come close to finishing our search for Library Build office space, began the process of our first audit (fun!) and have been working hard to identify the most promising sources of grant money.
Again, we expect to have multiple official major announcement by the end of the month! Stay tuned!
In the past two weeks, we met with a potential school, met with a community development organization with whom we hope to partner, have come close to finishing our search for Library Build office space, began the process of our first audit (fun!) and have been working hard to identify the most promising sources of grant money.
Again, we expect to have multiple official major announcement by the end of the month! Stay tuned!
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