Our family has visited a few libraries through the years.  We have scoped out our favorites, and with gargantuan book check out lists and our sometimes unfortunate home tracking system, we pay our overdue fines without regret at those establishments.  (We’re already overflowing our bookshelves, so borrowing a good read for a bit makes great sense.)

We’ve also been in non-family friendly libraries.  The ones where the children’s librarians glare at those bodies under 5 feet who don’t speak in a “library whisper”.  Even as I hear more than I want to know about their personal lives while they chat away at the desk, and my kids are searching fruitlessly for a decent book about Henry the Fifth.  There’s that “teacher talk” too.  (That tends to raise my hackles, even if our kids can’t quite figure out why they’re having an uncomfortable conversation with the librarian.)

I don’t necessarily call those non-homeschooling friendly libraries, but they’re definitely unfriendly libraries.

Arkansas’ Weekly Vista had an article about one particular library board meeting, where a board member had concerns about the library family friendliness. The focus was on homeschoolers’ perceptions:

Families who homeschool their children don’t have a favorable impression of the library, a member of the Bella Vista Library Board reported on June 9.

“Their perception, whether it’s true or false, is the library is not a family friendly library,” board member Kate O’- Mara said.

One big problem for these families is the library only has four books that provide information about how parents can educate their children at home instead of sending them to public or private schools, she said.

Books on how parents should home educate are useful enough in basic guides, but they’re limiting for an individual family.  Maybe the unfriendliness perception was because of the library’s attitude towards homeschoolers? The lack of homeschooling acknowledgment in stocking only 4 books with “homeschool” in the title?  I don’t know, but personally, I recommend a lot of public school related books like John Gatto’s The Underground History of American Education.

I’ve also been a new homeschooler looking for that “Homeschool….” help guide. Now, I love to see rows and rows of non-fiction books for homeschooling research, as well as comfy places for parents to land with their kids to enjoy lovely picture books and easy readers.  I know I’m in library heaven when I find libraries like that.

So maybe the library director had it right noting the increased amount of non-fiction books.

Also, Farner reminded the board members, in November 2007, the library added 114 non-fiction books for children and 684 easy readers purchased with a grant from the Carl and Alleen McKinney Charitable Trust.

Hard to say if and what the problem is with this particular library, but homeschoolers (and other families) can spot and do avoid a non-friendly library. They’ll go to that next library down for the family friendly library where they spend lots of time (and in our case, lots of library fines).   It’s well worth librarians’ time and efforts to create family friendly libraries.

I am an author and homeschooler. My latest book is about homeschooling – The Homeschooler’ s Book of Lists. I have done programs and book signings at the local libraries for my other books and there was one scheduled next week for THIS book. Yesterday morning (Friday 2 Nov) the mayor called the library and told them that they must send an immediate notice to the newspaper canceling this program. The local school superintendent had called the mayor (and the mayor then told the librarian) that the library is a PUBLIC building paid for by PUBLIC taxes and they are not and would not ever be allowed to sponsor any sort of program related to homeschooling, even though all the other rules for scheduling a program/book signing were followed. They do sponsor other programs/book signings and this one was already publicized. The mayor said today to someone who actually got through to him that he didn’t care if the program was from a public school, private school, or a bunch of witches, they don’t steal money from the school system like homeschoolers do and he would not allow this program to take place.

After reading her letter, I checked for any news about the situation that may be posted online. I did find a video report from News Channel 11 here along with a brief text report, Library pulls program at request of county mayor.

Washington County Mayor George Jaynes was reported to have told the local librarian:

“He said she had to retract it and cancel the program because it’s a public building paid for with public taxes and they have an obligation to support the public school system and doing anything about home schooling was a conflict of interest,”

The Mayor would not appear on camera, but he told Channel 11 News by phone:

“I said it was not right to have a book signing promoting something against our schools,”

The County Lawyer is now involved as well and he was quoted as saying:

“The librarian has described it to me as a mis-communication. The employee felt like the mayor was telling her to cancel the program. The mayor told her that’s not what he intended. He wanted them to reconsider whether they were going to have these types of programs,” Rambo said.

Rambo discussed the issue with library staff.”County officials cannot influence their decisions in that regard, they have to run that library independently,” Rambo said.

Well, I’m certainly glad to hear that! I hope that Mayor remembers that homeschoolers do pay taxes and do vote, since his term appears to expire in 2010.

Sonya Haskins program is back on so if you are near the Washington County Jonesborough Public Library Thursday at 2:00 p.m and you would like to hear her share about homeschooling, stop by. I suspect you may want to arrive early as it may be a full house!

Perhaps the Mayor should attend the meeting? At the very least, he might want to read Ms. Haskins book.
Posted by Mary