Full Shelves at Reach Academy, thanks to the Book Project!

We can’t claim credit for writing or arithmetic, but the East Bay Children’s Book Project is proud to say that it’s easier for students in a number of Oakland public schools to get books to read, thanks to an ongoing project with Ann Gallagher of the Oakland Unified School District and the Friends of the Oakland Public School Libraries.

In 2010, thirty-five of eighty-three Oakland public schools had no functioning school library.  “They were all in a deplorable situation due to neglect and age,” says OUSD’s Gallagher.  That sounded like just the right kind of challenge to Gallagher and to us at the East Bay Children’s Book Project.  Over the past year and a half, we’ve teamed up with Gallagher and the Friends of the Oakland Public School Libraries (FOPSL), and now the libraries are reopening with full shelves.

Gallagher and a group of dedicated volunteers have been on a crusade to renovate OUSD’s school libraries for four years.   In August 2011 FOPSL came into existence and, says Gallagher, even more regular volunteers joined the cause.   They have achieved amazing successes over the past year and a half, renovating and reopening libraries at Garfield, Frick, Madison, Howard, Hoover, Grass Valley, Reach Academy, and Marshall.  Current projects include PLACE at Prescott and Community United/Futures.  Although these projects aren’t finished and staff haven’t yet been hired, Gallagher says, “the students drop in and see the nice books on the shelves and we are hard-pressed to tell them they can’t have them” – so they allow some classes to come in  on the days that the volunteers are working on the collection.  To misquote “Field of Dreams”: If you give them books, they will come!

Garfield School Library

Says Gallagher about the East Bay Children’s Book Project: “We wouldn’t have felt so confident discarding those ratty old books unless we knew that we could get better books to replace them – and that means YOU!!  Your steady commitment to delivering books to people in need has made all of the difference to us.  We are forever grateful.”

This post is the first in a series about the crisis in school libraries in Oakland and California.  If you have thoughts on this subject, please feel free to leave a comment.

IN APPRECIATION

The East Bay Children’s Book Project has been a wonderful help to me during the last seven
years that I have been working in the Oakland Public School Libraries.

In order to stay reasonably up-to-date and keep the children engaged, a school library needs
a constant influx of new books.  Funding only comes at certain times, and even then must often
be used for things other than books.  The East Bay Children’s Book Project is a fabulous
source of free books.

Their well-organized and ever-changing collection goes from board books through middle
school, fiction and non-fiction, and they always have some books that are brand new.  I go
there almost every week and bring back an average of 30 books each time.  Five or six of
those are usually entered into the school library, and the rest are given as rewards and incentives
to the children to keep on reading and return their library books on time.

In an era of uncertain finances for schools and families, the gift of free books from the East Bay
Children’s Book Project is a godsend.

Ruth Harteneck
Librarian Aide
Burckhalter Elementary School
Oakland, CA

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We want to wish everyone a very happy holiday season. We will be closed the last two weeks in December. The last day to get books is Thursday, December 15th. We will reopen on Tuesday, January 3rd.