A study released this week (CNN) by the National Education Association revealed that half the 200 students surveyed said they had been been unable to finish homework because the assignment was too tough or they couldn't find anyone to help them. Four of 10 parents surveyed (500) said that their students have too much homework, and a quarter of them said the homework was too hard.
After looking for help from their parents, students turned most to the Internet and their teachers for assistance.
Putting aside the argument that kids have too much homework, why is there no mention of libraries? Do people not know about us? Are there too many barriers between student and library to make us a viable source of help? Are you just waiting for those kids to call or make a visit to the reference desk or are you meeting them where they are? Are you building relationships with teachers and school media specialists to help get the word out?
After last week's demoralizing discussion with local educators who said they never came up to 2nd floor because they thought they couldn't check out any of the books (keep in mind that, aside from new titles, all of our non-fiction collection is upstairs), I have been doing aggressive outreach, one person at a time. I'm doing it at the desk, on the floor, in the grocery store, with my barista. I find any opportunity to work the library into a discussion. On Thursday nights, we open up our tech training room for gaming. As word has gotten out, more kids are showing up. Since there are only eight computers, the kids have to take turns, so there are always a group of kids waiting. A couple of them came to the desk this week to ask for back issues of a gaming magazine. While they were thumbing through at the ref desk I chatted them up. I asked them where they went to school, what sorts of RPGs they played, were there any anime or manga clubs at school. They were clearly stunned that a middle-aged woman sitting behind a desk knew about any of this.
When I told them, "you know, we do homework help with IM," they said, "No way! They let you do IM here?" When I told them I was the boss and the one who had set up the IM accounts, they wanted to know how they could get jobs at the library! I had created a bookmark (Download info_to_go.pub) with all our IM information that was not quite ready yet, but figured, what the heck, I have a live audience. So I printed out a few on the fly and handed them out. In hindsight, I should have just added them to our Budddy list on the spot. Next week, I'll be more prepared.
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