Cooperative Activities with Schools

Several ways in which libraries and schools work together were reported. Sixty percent of public libraries host class visits from schools to the library (Table 18). A much smaller percentage (40 percent) of libraries indicate that the librarian visits schools for book talks or to discuss or promote library use. Fifty-eight percent report resource-sharing activities such a inter-library loans for school on an occasional or frequent basis.

Public librarians are less likely to engage in information sharing meetings with faculty and staff (29 percent) and automation projects or shared online resources (17 percent).

More activities in terms of hosting and conducting,: visits between the library and the school were reported by libraries with a young adult or youth services specialist and those with larger numbers of patrons. No differences were found between libraries with and without specialists in terms of sharing resources such as inter-library loans with schools. However, libraries with a young adult or youth services specialist were almost twice as likely to participate in information-sharing meetings with school staff (41 percent for libraries with specialists compared with only 22 percent for libraries that did not have a young adult or youth services specialist) and were more likely to engage in automation projects or to share online resources with schools (23 percent for libraries with a specialist compared with 14 percent for libraries without a specialist).

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