Argument Analysis: Improving School Libraries

Beyond just the staff who work in the libraries, we also need to know how the content of the library affects a student. The absence of things such as bilingual books or audiovisual equipment can be a detriment to students who are not strong in English, whether they are an immigrant or simply struggling. A survey done by Scholastic Inc. and the Gates Foundation revealed that 83 percent of all students received their books from school libraries, 38 percent from public libraries and 20 percent from retailers (Scholastic Inc.). The numbers shouldn’t come as a surprise, school libraries tend to be the most convenient way for students to access books. The library is in the school they attend so there isn’t a need to travel out of their way to a public …show more content…
For various reasons there are opinions that school libraries are obsolete and thus a waste of money. For example, some believe that libraries, not just school libraries, are obsolete because of the introduction of internet. However, the main argument that people have against libraries is that our tax money can be used on better things. Although libraries provide internet access along with books and often use that as their selling point, it is not necessarily a benefit. Lankes argues “Yet rather than divert funding to rural libraries to provide Internet access, why not follow the model of rural electrification and take it to the home where it can be used?” (Lankes). It is a sincere concern, why spend money on improving library infrastructure when you can improve the infrastructure of homes? However, this concerns public libraries and cannot be applied to school libraries. School libraries are funded as part of a school budget and as such the money can only be used for the school. Lankes also has a response for this stating, “The money and time spent on libraries would be better spent on our schools and teachers.” (Lankes). Although it is possible that this may be true he also states, “This argument hinges on the belief that our public and school libraries are necessary to promote reading. That might have made sense when universal public education wasn’t so universal.” (Lankes). However this argument has been proven wrong. As we saw earlier, having libraries not only improve english test grades in areas without libraries, but in schools without adequate libraries too. Although it is important for us to improve funding for our teachers, there are clearly benefits from having a school library and improving it. The benefits from a school library are too beneficial to students to ignore. Lastly Lankes also argues that there is no