School Library: The pupil view

Abstract

The role of the school library has been of renewed interest after the introduction of the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) (DES, 1989; The Library Association, 1986 a, b, c; Heeks, 1988; Pain-Lewis et al., 1988; Phtiaka, 1991, 1992, 1993; Webb, 1987; Waite, 1988), but the perspective has in the main been that of the librarian or the teacher. With few exceptions (Shilling & Cousins, 1990, Phtiaka, 1993b) the pupils' views are not represented in the literature, and yet they are of major interest, particularly in the post-GCSE era which encourages resource based pupil enquiry. This paper attempts to redress the balance by giving tenth and eleventh year pupils a voice, and exploring their thinking on school and public libraries. Based on pupil interviews and diaries from a secondary school case study, it shows how pupils are discouraged from using the school library due to factors associated with the library itself and the wider school system. It also indicates how they learn to take advantage of public library facilities for school work. © 1994, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.