The Death of the High School Library

At my high school, we no longer have a library. The room is still there, but most of the books are gone, replaced with extra workspace and computers. It's no longer called a library, it's the "learning center." Funny thing is though, nobody really uses it as a learning center. They either use it as a library (HA) or they're in there socializing and playing games on the computers, because since it isn't a "library" anymore they don't have to be quiet.

When they cleared out most of the books, all the non-fiction that hadn't been taken out since 1995, they just dumped them into a wheelbarrow and planned to "probably just throw them out," according to a teacher I asked. She said I could take whatever I wanted from the wheelbarrow, so I scored a book on Constantinople and another on Israel, mostly just because I liked the look of them. I wished I could have saved more books from their unfortunate fate, but I didn't have a bag with me, so I lacked the carrying capacity to take all the ones I wanted. My friend did take quite a few though, being the book-loving saint that she is. Her old soul is incredibly admirable.

Of all the places in a high school they could have killed off, why the library? Hasn't my principal seen The Breakfast Club? A library in a high school is completely essential! By getting rid of the library, you're essentially killing a symbol for the contemporary teenager, a microcosm for real-life socialization! In The Breakfast Club, the library is where the kids find themselves and see themselves as somthing more than they originally thought themselves to be!

I have an uncontainable rage when it comes to the topic of killing libraries. Not unlike Miley Cyrus, I can't be tamed. And I certainly can't stop.