Smrt Lernins

Care asks, “What do you think regarding using the library for materials? Is it worth going out and buying your own copy of all materials? Will the library (be likely to) have core texts and you can just use all their books? Is a blend a reasonable and feasible option?”

Many homeschoolers rely on public libraries for part or all of their materials. Public libraries can provide a perfectly valid way of cutting monetary cost while homeschooling. Depending on the size of your library system, the speed at which books can be ordered from other locations in the system, and your ability/willingness to travel frequently to the library to order, check out, and/or renew books (some systems allow online ordering and renewal), the library may be a useful part of your homeschool year…or it might be more trouble than it’s worth.

Adrienne Furness even wrote a book for librarians whose libraries see a high volume of homeschoolers, Helping Homeschoolers in the Library. Adrienne also has a website called Homeschooling and Libraries with great resources for both homeschoolers using the library and librarians assisting homeschoolers. Denise G. Masters also has some suggestions for ways library systems can become more accommodating to homeschoolers. If your library system doesn’t currently have any of these systems or protocols in place, find out if there’s someone you can speak with to start implementing some of these changes.

If your budget is significantly constrained, you have free and easy access to a great public library system, and your homeschooling philosophies/methods don’t call for a lot of consumable materials, the library may be just the ticket for you. My personal experiences have not made me into a huge library-for-homeschool enthusiast, however. I’m of the opinion that buying your own copies of materials is almost always worth it. Libraries aren’t my first choice for homeschool materials for many reasons, such as:

1. Time is money, especially with multiple children. Using the library as a source for all or most of your homeschool materials can greatly decrease the monetary cost of homeschooling, but the trade off is a potentially huge increase in the time cost of homeschooling. Every minute spent driving to and from the library is a minute that can’t be spent elsewhere. Every minute spent trying to locate the books on a library shelf (sometimes being thwarted when the book isn’t actually there) is a minute that isn’t going to actually reading the books in question. Can this time be well spent on these endeavors? Well, sure, if you can carefully plan your week around your library time. As each of my children begins homeschooling, however, I suspect our time is going to become an increasingly valuable resource, one that I can’t see spending on a lot of library back-’n-forth. I can order books online at night, during snack/lunch time, or when the kids are at outside lessons or playdates,  which makes that the more time-efficient one.

2. Library books are not meant to be consumable. If you’d like to keep checking books out from that system, you can’t mark in/on, tear pages from, or in other way “consume” a library book. Yes, I’m looking at you, Tank.  I enjoy making notes in my books. I like to be able to dog ear a page if I need to. While I discourage margin doodling (Captain Science is a notorious doodler), I want my children to be able to take a note, underline a word or passage, or work through a problem on the page if they need to. We do have some books, like Life of Fred, that I don’t allow marking-up, but most of our curricula is of the consumable variety — meant to be written in. The benefit of a writable/markable curriculum is that it cuts down on the number of binder and folder filled with looseleaf paper, which, incidentally, never actually stays in those darn binders.

3. You’re really not supposed to photocopy that copyrighted material. While I’m not the Queen of all Ethics (I’m sure some of the software on my computer isn’t entirely on the up-and-up), I do feel that one should purchase consumable materials for home use, rather than photocopy the pages that aren’t expressly marked “for reproduction” and use the photocopies. When you do that, you’re reducing the number of sales for that particular publisher/writer, and guess what? If they don’t have enough sales, there won’t be another volume or companion book or edition of that material!

4. My library doesn’t have it. “It” being pretty much anything that I want to use for homeschooling. Sure, I could rearrange my academic plans based on what’s in the library (or available free online), but that seriously limits what materials we can cover. While my public library system has multiple copies of The Well-Trained Mind (various editions) to help a homeschooler get started, it doesn’t have a single book in the Life of Fred series, anything by Michael Clay Thompson, or any of the beautifully-illustrated DK Publishing history books. I can find supplemental books there, but nothing that makes a thorough enough curriculum for my gifted child, who really does need the challenge and creativity of the curricula we have chosen. We went through quite a few options to find what worked for us and not a one of those options was available in our public library system.

5. It only saves you money if you don’t rack up fees. We…um…yeah, kind of misplace library books sometimes. We have a kinda-sorta system on making sure those books don’t get lost, but someone always snags one from the “library books go here” spot and carries it off, then it doesn’t get turned in with the other, or somebody forgets the date the books are due, or somebody assumes somebody else renewed those books whilst s/he was at the library last time, and before you know it, we’ve got $20 in fees on all of our library cards and have to start checking things out under pseudonyms (which takes us right back to that ethics thing, people).  We already do this with our pleasure reading books to the extent that it’s usually cheaper for me to just buy the damn book outright.

6. I’m a book junkie. For those homeschoolers among us who are book junkies, it’s not enough to just read the book. We have to own the book. A big fat bookshelf is ever so much more satisfying than a big fat wallet, don’t you think? I love the smell of books, the feel of books, the lovely weight and size of a trade paperback (as opposed to library-bound hardbacks or thumbed-apart cheap paperbacks).  Books are my dear friends and my precious treasures, but a loaner book from a library can never be more than a passing acquaintance or another man’s rhubarb. I get something of a high from opening a FedEx/UPS box with a new book inside. I derive great pleasure from my shelf of curricula (and even have great dreams of one day arranging it all by topic, like Patchfire’s shelves).

7. Friends make great lending libraries. Patchfire has loaned or gifted me with a great deal of curricula. I, in turn, am prepared to pass along the stuff that didn’t work for us (or is just too young for us) to other homeschoolers.  Patchfire loaned me all of her Greek/Roman materials, and when I give it back to her, it will be accompanied by all the Greek/Roman materials I purchased. Reciprocity amongst a homeschooling community can be one way to cut costs without completely giving up that library. In this way, any book has the potential to help many families. Plus, it makes for a great excuse to get together with other homeschoolers. We’re planning a “Curriculattes” meeting for homeschooling parents to drink coffee and show off or swap curricula. Free or cheap stuff AND a night out? You can’t tell me that isn’t better than a library.

8. Libraries want you to be quiet. Tank, people. I have Tank. I really don’t think I need to explain it any better than that, do I?

9. Sometimes I get a bad case of the gonnas. As in, I’m really gonna make it out to the library this time…if I get around to it. I procrastinate. I put things off.  I drag my feet.  I know this about myself. If I rely on sources outside my home as my primary educational tools, my poor kids are going to be making do with crackers and magazines some weeks, because as much as I think I’m gonna make it to the library each and every week, I know it’s not actually gonna happen. I was also gonna do a lot of art projects and a ton of field trips this year, but without careful pre-planning, that didn’t happen, either. If I were to use the library with great frequency, I’d have to stick very rigidly to that color-coded schedule! I could do it if I had to, but I’d have to overcome a whole passel of gonnas to get there.

10. Have I mentioned I have three kids? I know, I know. Plenty of moms with way more kids than I have pile them into their white conversion van once a week and trot them meekly and quietly into the library to make excellent use of the facilities and resources. I am not those moms, however. Coordinating Captain Science’s need for certain books with Tank’s hands-on curiosity with Babypie’s “you’ve set me down and now I’m going to run off” isn’t my idea of a great time. It’s enough of a pain when we go for pleasure reading.  If I’m trying to locate specific books on the shelves for Captain S., it’s harder to corral Babypie, and Tank is piling up picture books on the reading table, and…ACK! Smrt Mama starts approaching a Smrt Meltdown of her own. Daddyman is usually the one who ends up taking Captain Science (and sometimes Tank) to the library for free reading books, and that works just fine for us.

The long (very long) and short of it is that we haven’t had the need or inclination to rely primarily on the library for our curricula, but that certainly doesn’t mean it couldn’t work for you or anyone else. Learn what your public library system has available to you and develop a schedule and system that allows for regular visits and timely returns of materials…and when you do, please let me know!

That’s what the [Smrt] Homeschooler thinks about using the library. What do you think? How do you and your family use the library as a part of homeschooling?

Do you have a question for the [Smrt] Homeschooler? Email them to
smrtmama@smrtlernins.com