Almost half of GHS library books are obsolete and total number
available is far below the national average
Gilroy – Take a science or technology book from the 1970s and compare it to similar book published in 2004, and there are bound to be some significant differences.
Keeping books relevant and up to date is an uphill battle, one that Gilroy High School’s Cesar Chavez Library is losing. The problem is further complicated by there simply not being enough books on the shelves. The library has about eight books per student on campus, while the national average is roughly 16 books per student, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
“We had an analysis done, and of the books on our shelves, about 40 percent are obsolete, which means they were published before 1980,” said Pat Kelly, head librarian at GHS. “That means our numbers are probably closer to six books per student. The California School Library Association says our library is an ‘at-risk’ library. To be considered an exemplary library, we need about 25 books per student.”
To reach a goal of 25 books per student, the GHS library would need to increase its current collection of about 38,000 books to about 65,000 books, based on the current enrollment of approximately 2,600 students. But doing that is an expensive venture.
The areas most in need of updating and adding books are science, technology and philosophy – typically big, hardcover books costing far more than an $8 copy of a novel in the literature section. Kelly estimates the average cost of a book to be about $30. Increasing the collection by the needed 27,000 books would cost the school a whopping $810,000.
“It is not OK for a school with at-risk kids to have an at-risk library,” said James Maxwell, principal of GHS. “I didn’t know our library was in trouble until Pat Kelly came in with all of her experience and told us that a large percentage of our books were obsolete.”
In the face of such overwhelming numbers, the GHS Parent Club decided to make updating the school library its annual project.
“We’re still in the planning stages, trying to figure out the best approach to tackling this, but we’re hoping to organize a committee and get the community involved,” said Bob Heisey, president of the club. “We could do something like selling cookies and cakes to raise money, but we’re thinking on a grander scale. We don’t want to just put a drop in the bucket. We want to raise a lot of money for the library.”
Both Heisey and Kelly said they’re hoping local businesses will make donations to the library’s funds, as well as community members.
The preliminary plan, said Kelly, is to put a “This book was donated by …” plaque in books along with the name of any person that donates $30 – the cost of a book – or more. People who donated $1,000 – enough to buy about a shelf’s worth of books – would get their name on a brass plaque on a book shelf in the library. People who donated $5,000 or more may have a name plate on a table in the library, though those details haven’t been hammered out yet, Heisey said.
“My hope is that we can find a few stores or businesses to be our sugar daddy,” Heisey said. “If we get a bunch of donations for $25 or $30, I’m hoping someone will step up and say, ‘When you get $5,000, we’ll match it.'”
Though the Parent Club would have to vote on it each year, the library project may be a five-year project for the organization. Kelly said she hopes the fundraiser will bring in about $70,000 a year, bringing the five-year total to $350,000. Even if GHS is able to increase the number of books per student by just two or three books a year over five years, Maxwell said he’d be happy with the dent those additional books would make in their current deficit.
Kelly said she will also look into federal grants through the Improving Literacy Through School Libraries program, which gives an average grant of about $250,000. Last year, the Sonoma County Office of Education received about $166,000 from the LSL program.
