By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
The Hays Public Library announced it will dedicate funds to each Hays USD 489 school library.
Vera Elwood, young adult librarian, announced the cooperative project at the USD 489 school board meeting Monday night. She said the first funds have already been requested.
“Our No. 1 goal at the Hays Public Library has always been is to get more books and more resources in the hands of more people, but particularly to the kids and students who need them most,” Elwood said. “We incredibly value working with schools and being able to work with USD 489 to reach out to those kids who are not always able come into our library for a lot of different reasons.”
The books that will be purchased with the HPL funds will stay at the schools and will not come back to the HPL unless they are no longer needed at the schools.
“The point of this was to empower and put that ability in the hands of staff that you have already determined to be so capable to make sure they have the resources they need to serve their students,” she said.
In addition, Elwood announced the HPL will be kicking off fundraising to purchase a book vending machine for Hays High School. She said the machine will be high tech and have many choices from which students can choose.
These two projects are just the latest developments in a partnership that has been growing over the last two years.
When schools in the district started its Reading Workshop program, teachers and school librarians realized they would need more books to accommodate the program than they had.
HPL checked out books to the schools in volume. It also offered books for temporary displays at the schools.
HPL staff helped students in groups and one on one to select books for book reports that were in line with teachers’ lesson plans.
Most recently, HPL conducted a library card drive. More than 650 students at HMS now have library cards. Students will not only be able to check out paper books, but be able to download ebooks.
Library staff will also be on hand at HMS and HHS for an upcoming teen book event.
Superintendent John Thissen thanked the library staff for their help.
“It is great to end up working with brilliant people. The brilliance of this is that we should have that collaboration — any community should have that collaboration between their library and schools’ libraries,” he said. “We have Individuals on the same page and it is the same book we are working from. We are really trying to do the same thing. …
“In the long run, who is going to benefits? It is going to be the children.”