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The Central Resource Group (CRG)

The idea of the Central Resource Group (CRG) emerged from the International Conference on School Libraries and Reading *(ICSL-2008)*. The CRG as a core group will be involved in implementing the School Library Project This group will work as a think-tank and engage itself in networking with individuals and organisations who are working for the development and improvement of school libraries. Its responsibility would be to plan activities and implement them. This would involve identification of quality children literature, their listing, and help in making them available to the school libraries or basti libraries in the form of hard copy or upload them on internet by taking due permission. Other activities would be like holding capacity building workshops for school librarians and field facilitators, organizing seminars, meetings etc. CRG would also try to provide inputs on regular basis for upgradation of the website.  The intervention of CRG would be at both logistic and academic level. The organizations who are part of the CRG can also volunteer to arrange field visits and sharing meeting of their field libraries for children. They can also share their in house developed children resources for wider access. Both individuals and organizations can be part of the CRG.. This group is likely to expand in future.

Report of the Ffirst CRG Meeting

The first meeting of the Central Resource Group (CRG) of School Library Programme was held at International Guest House, University of Delhi on January 19, 2009
The agenda of the meeting were:

  1. Setting priorities for school library program and assigning responsibilities;
  2. Discussion on issues related to the management of already created website and contributions;
  3. Other issues (if any)

Many issues cropped up during discussion. In continuation of the work done the purpose of the meeting was to explore the possible things that could be taken up. The following points of agreement emerged:

  1. The seminar threw up many different kinds of issues and brought together different kinds of people. It had helped share ideas and this needed to be carried forward.
  2. The libraries can be linked to the classroom for a small part but should have a wider purpose and be generally used for free and immersive exploration and reading.
  3. Library for small children should have the possibility of and opportunity for sharing. It should have something for all children to do. This is particularly important for out of school libraries that are run in the evening.
    There needs to be some kind of activity center linked to such libraries
  4. There is a need to have for small children structured and directed activities that help them enjoy books and make them capable of reading.
  5. Teachers need to be aware of the purpose of books, of reading and of the library.
  6. Library should not be impoverished and its use should not be episodic. It should be organic and linked to other processes.
  7. We discussed what would contribute to a library movement. It was felt that to promote a library movement there needs to be a partnership not just with teachers but also people outside the school system. People who run libraries must recognize that they (the librarians) are facilitators in the process of reading and not merely store keepers or service providers. In the seminar the participating group of librarians articulated this strongly and emphasized the need for library as an integral part of the school.
  8. As a group we do not support the notion of a poor library. It must have the possibility of a variety of materials for the child and any collection of books cannot be termed as 'being a library'. A collection of 10 books can not be called a library even though you can start with a small collection. It has to grow to provide a wider access. It is possible that we have networks of libraries where the resource library is rich and materials are rotated, such structures should be explored.
  9. The library area should be considered as a social entity for being together in an environment of books and readings. It is therefore, necessarily an open space not merely for curricular reading. Encouraging non-curricular reading in the development of the child has to be kept in mind. Members felt that we should ban formal curricular readings for the primary classes and think about curricular readings formally from classes 7th and 8th only and not before that.
  10. The use of the library should not be made examinable and there should be no pressure to articulate and explain what has been read on a regular basis. Certainly not every time. Reading should not be linked to performances and results.
  11. In the classrooms when books are provided as a classroom library, the teacher must interact to promote reading and this reading should not be an extension of the textbook. One of the ways of promoting books and readings is to read out stories to the children.
    Other issues that came up were
    1. Library for use in higher classes: The best way of promoting reading of books among children is to make the use of library somewhat integral to the whole program and viewed in the context of education for the higher classes.
      For this purpose both curricular and non curricular reading is essential. This would help in developing reading skills among children. For higher classes the following possibilities were pointed out.
      (i) Children can be given tasks that demand the use of library and bring out their understanding based on materials read.
      (ii) They need to analyse and summarise what is available and articulate their understanding on it.
    2. Virtual Library: Setting up of a virtual library or virtual children resource centre was also discussed. There were mixed opinion on this issue as it some felt that for children a paper environment is needed. The other view was that virtual environment is important and no library including the school library can be viewed in terms of books alone. There are lots of non-book resources available for children on internet and other means. These need to be explored as well. A concern that emerged was regarding the availability of technology in village schools. It was also agreed that in any case it may be better for children to go through books first and only then gradually look into e-books. A consensus emerged that there needs to be balanced view on all this.
    It was also pointed out that there are a lot of e-resources for children available on internet, which does not have copy right issues now. These materials can be downloaded at cluster level and disseminated in the schools in the paper or non-paper form.

Some immediate steps

We need to network all organizations working in the field of education share their resources. There are some resource websites already available but more are needed. We can set up one such using the library website already created. A home page could be created through which children resources can be uploaded and shared. There was consensus on interactive website development.
The following agreement emerged -

(a)        Web site development
The website already existing needs to be used more affectively.  We can share all the resources available and provide hyperlinks. The following decisions were taken: 

  1. The catalogues of different organization would be uploaded. All organisations will provide hyperlinks of its reports, children book list etc; other documents would also be made available and uploaded.
  2. For the management and development of interactive website; Eklavya will maintain the website on regular basis;
  3. Amitabha Mukherjee would be the webmaster and would find out about extension of the web domain and the space available.

(b)       Block & cluster training
One of the points that emerged was about the participation of teachers in libraries and setting up of a movement. It was felt that while we need to create network of organisations and through them promote the possibility of such an effort, it is not easy to set up such network as working with teachers at the block or cluster level requires a great effort. We cannot come up with a coordinated programme immediately. Vidya Bhawan Society and Centre for Science Education and Communication said that they would like to explore this idea and may start working in a cluster to promote use of libraries in schools. The other organisations said that they were already doing this in their programmes. It was, however, emphasized that we need to share experiences of such efforts and to find ways of improving our endeavour.

(c)        Joint programmes.
It was also felt that joint programmes on many of these are possible and the dialogue at library and its purpose needs to be carried forward. We should consider another interaction on some of the more specific issues and plan another conference where some of these things are taken forward. Coming together of people on this issue had a very positive impact and everyone felt benefited by the sharing.
The members felt that this committee should continue and meet regularly and members were requested to suggest other names who should be added to the committee. The Secretary would set up the next meeting soon.