Education in the library: luxury or a citizen’s guaranteed quality of life

Moscow City University, Institute of System Projects, Laboratory of Sociocultural Educational Practices, Moscow, Russia

^* Corresponding author: asonovaea@mgpu.ru

Abstract

The article studies the role of city libraries in school education based on expert interviews carried out with Moscow teachers, librarians, teenagers, and their parents. The study is relevant due to the importance of city libraries in the educational process and their insufficient use in practice. This is the first comprehensive study of standardized interaction between schools and city libraries. The research has demonstrated that ties between these institutions and the process of their interaction have a personal and informal nature. Today, public libraries are information and education resources for school only to a small extent. Most teachers do not see any point in collaborating with libraries since their communication with librarians is not properly regulated. As a rule, successful examples of such interaction are not associated with established rules but rather with a personal interest conditioned by subjective, often random reasons. An essential characteristic of this communication is event-based learning, the use of verbal practices and educational games, as well as a stable educational orientation. Children as participants in the educational process have minimum engagement in this field. It is a rare case that libraries are regarded as a place for independent learning where students work with the necessary sources to conduct scientific research and engage in project activity. In most cases, city libraries attract teachers with their student-oriented events or activities. At the same time, libraries are rarely used in the educational process. Their role does not always involve working with collections or developing children’s need for independent reading. The latter can be satisfied by visiting a local library and addressing reading lists.