Loud and Popular and Fun, It’s a School Library Success Story

Authorities descended recently on the South Gate Middle School library because it looked, sounded and acted nothing like a traditional library. From various corners of the room came the babble of rhinos and orangutans, the tones of Bach and Beethoven, and the pings and zaps of a computer game.

Suspect reading material included comic books, joke books, horror tales--and some books so simple that they appeared more appropriate for first-graders than teen-agers.

People talked and laughed openly, sometimes in loud voices, and nobody shushed them.

But the authorities did not restore order. Instead, they presented librarians Dale Buboltz and Ruby Ling-Louie with the Reader’s Digest American Heroes in Education Award for bringing books and reading to South Gate parents and children.

The librarians’ work demonstrates what a school library can be when you combine high-technology with an insistent sales pitch for reading.

The technology includes a bank of more than a dozen computers in a library about the size of two classrooms. At the south end, students play detective--snaring criminals by answering geography questions.

In the middle of the room, a student calls up a picture of Beethoven while listening to a symphony. Down the aisle, two students ask their computer to show them a rhino in action with full sound effects.

The technology includes videos, compact discs, electronic encyclopedias and microfilm indexes for hundreds of magazines and newspapers.

Buboltz, 51, is a reputed master at getting free or low-cost computers and other equipment from corporations and charities. He’s written numerous successful grants to assemble equipment worth more than $100,000.

All the razzle-dazzle has the same purpose as the simplest picture book on the shelf: to teach students how to find information and help them enjoy the quest.

The sales job for reading includes Ling-Louie going from class to class reading to students or promoting certain books. The librarians invite parents individually to tour the library, and they have participated in programs that distributed nearly 12,000 books to needy families. The librarians are making arrangements for another book distribution of about 50,000 volumes. Other donations include magazine subscriptions for families.

“They don’t just jump into reading like they used to because too many things in their lives grab them already,” said the 61-year-old Ling-Louie, a tireless promoter of reading. For South Gate students, the distractions start, but don’t end, with television. Of the school’s 3,650 students, 82% are from low-income families that receive government aid. They have little money to buy books and frequently live in cramped quarters with little solitude for reading.

About 1,200 students at the year-round school in the Los Angeles Unified School District speak limited English. The student body is 99% Latino. Two of every seven students are new to English, the country and/or the school, Ling-Louie said.

She added that not all Spanish-speakers read Spanish. That is why the library has invested in simple, colorful books in Spanish and English that are mostly pictures and simple words. This first-grade reading is just right for some of the school’s teen-agers. An arrow on the spine designates books that the library has in more than one language to help children move to English. They call the simple books “quick-reads,” and they have them in both fiction and nonfiction.

The nonfiction books include a section of books about foreign lands.

“You can always see that they’ve been here,” Ling-Louie said of the students as she gestured toward a bookshelf. “All of Latin America is missing.”

“That’s because they’re using them,” Buboltz explained.

Buboltz and Ling-Louie unabashedly pander to young tastes by stocking comic books, joke books and horror tales such as “The Mole People” and “House of Fear.”

“Most of this is pictures, but you lure them,” Ling-Louie said, as she flipped the pages of several books. “Then you give them a taste of Poe and language.”

Ling-Louie moved to a table of children. “Anybody for comic books?” she called out. Two student helpers, 12-year-olds Marco Giron and Sergio Alvarado, were already helping students get comics from the student-run comic book collection.

“It’s fun; you get to meet people and help and get out of class five minutes early,” Sergio said.

He and Marco became eligible to work after earning high marks on a library skills test that more than 2,200 students have passed. That passing score entitles students to visit the library without permission during free time. Such privileges are rare at other schools, where staff cutbacks sharply limit student access to the library.

Marco explained that he and Sergio often recommended reading selections, particularly from The Punisher and X-Men series.

The X-Men, said Sergio, “are a whole team of mutants, so it’s interesting, and they fight mutant aliens.”

Before Buboltz took over the library in 1985, Principal Peter Ferry said: “The collection and facilities were outdated. Multiple copies of classics filled the shelves of a collection that dated from the 1940s. No books in Spanish were offered for our sizable non-English speaking population. Our reading scores were low.”

Buboltz, a former classroom teacher, rebuilt the library--even the shelves, thanks to the industrial arts classes. Stuffed animals, battery-operated robots, fresh flowers and colorful displays arrived. Students streamed in to participate in contests, such as guessing the principal’s weight in ounces (4,560 to be exact).

Ling-Louie joined the show in 1989. She had been a driving force behind setting up the first public library in Chinatown 10 years ago.

“Library book circulation has grown from 300 books a month to over 5,000 in some current months,” Ferry said. “The library is the focal point of education in our school.”

The school’s dropout rate has declined from 10.7% in 1985 to about 2%, according to school officials. And though the school’s most recent reading scores remained well below the state average, they have risen more quickly than the state average since 1985. Of course, cause and effect is impossible to prove, and the school’s efforts to help students go beyond the library.

Even so, veteran teacher Sunny Armstrong said she has never seen a comparable school library in the 10 schools where she has taught. “If you sent a note to the library and said, ‘Help, it’s an emergency, I need a book on ants,’ you’ll get 10 books on ants.”

Fewer and fewer school librarians are around to provide such assistance. Recent years have already brought library staff reductions. And more cuts are contemplated to help Los Angeles Unified endure another tight budget year. Options on the table include eliminating library services in the district office entirely. Currently, seven librarians and 10 clerks coordinate the libraries of entire district, which has about 700,000 students.

The South Gate Middle School staff consists of the two librarians, one full-time and one part-time clerk, and four high school student volunteers. Two near-full-time teaching assistants were lost to budget cuts two years ago.

Library cutbacks are as bad or worse in other school systems. Numerous Los Angeles County schools have done away with librarians entirely, replacing them with part-time clerks or volunteers.

“You can have something that is called a library,” Buboltz said, “but unless you have an interpreter, unless you have a librarian, you just have a closet of books.”

Though the Reader’s Digest honor called attention to their efforts, the best reward may be during the students’ morning snack break or lunch, when dozens of students rush into the library, mostly just for fun, sometimes in lieu of a meal.

“It’s my kind of place,” said 14-year-old Aidee Gomez.

“If students get bored,” said library helper Sergio, “they come in here.”

School Library Staffing

Many school districts no longer keep trained librarians in every school. Instead, they use clerks who check out and shelve books, aides who help throughout the school and/or volunteers. Most of these libraries are open part time, limiting student access. Some districts have a librarian or two who travel from school to school.

Elementary Middle High District School School School ABC Unified clerks clerks clerks Bellflower clerks clerks clerks Unified Compton Unified volunteers/clerks librarians librarians Downey Unified volunteers librarians librarians East Whittier volunteers/aides clerks not applicable City El Rancho clerks clerks clerks Unified Little Lake clerks clerks not applicable City Long Beach librarians part time librarians librarians Unified Los Angeles volunteers/clerks librarians librarians Unified Los Nietos volunteers clerk not applicable Lowell Joint clerks clerk not applicable Lynwood Unified clerks librarian librarians Montebello clerks clerks clerks Unified Norwalk- clerks clerks clerks La Mirada Unified Paramount aides undetermined* clerks Unified South Whittier clerks clerk not applicable Whittier City clerks clerks not applicable Whittier Union not applicable not applicable librarians

Source: The school districts. Staffing levels planned for next year are used where available.

* Paramount officials have not decided how to staff middle school libraries. The board recently voted to eliminate librarian positions.

Compiled by CONNIE SIMONIAN and HOWARD BLUME