Walking into the public library, junior Serra Gomez’s eyes light up as she walks down the rows of bookshelves. She pulls a book off the shelf, sits down on a bench in the library, and begins to read through the book. This is a simple but rewarding task for Gomez.
In 2017, Austin Public Library began to offer all Austin ISD students free public library cards. Moving into 2021, the program expanded to students enrolled in any school in Texas, as long as they are Texas residents. This year starting on March 11, the program branched out to all Texans, including adults living in unincorporated areas outside the city, waving the $120 fee applicants previously had to pay.
“I have access to a lot more books that I can read than I did at the school library, we have a really small fantasy section which is sad,” Gomez said. “The public library has a lot of educational books such as textbooks, cookbooks, audio-books, and tutorial books, there’s so many books and it helps a lot for school.”
An Austin public library card can be used in person and online. Students can check out books digitally or physically, along with being provided access to online resources such as e books, music, and a program called “Homework Help” which has one-on-one tutoring, research tools, and video tutorials.
“They have all these different kinds of free tutorial programs on their website,” school librarian Tara Walker-Leon said. “There are so many resources if kids would just get on there and kind of play around with it. This is a great resource to offer students access to all of what Austin Public Library has.”
According to Living Tree, library budgets vary widely across the district with some schools being well-funded and others not so much. Walker-Leon feels that this budget deficit can prevent libraries from being properly funded, and maintained, and makes adding to their libraries more difficult. It’s also up to the principal of each school to set the budget for the library.
“Some principals don’t give their librarians any money so they have a $0 budget,” Walker-Leon said. “How are you supposed to have a library if you have no budget? We could get even less funding and if Austin Public Library is offering its resources to all Austin ISD students for free, that’s amazing.”
According to AISD, the partnership between public libraries and schools can help diminish barriers for students who previously could not access these resources, improve education outcomes, and strengthen the community. AISD alone has almost two million books spread out through 130 schools within the district while there are 20 public library branches in Austin.
“I used to go to the Austin public library a few times a year when I was in elementary and middle school because I lived close to one,” junior Hannah Vanhorn said. “When you check out books through the public library, you can read a lot of different books without having to pay for them. You can learn about a lot of new books that you probably wouldn’t have picked up otherwise.”
According to the Austin Monitor public libraries are used for many things aside from providing people access to books and research resources. City Council member Vanessa Fuentes considers public libraries as community hubs and people can take advantage of some of their programs and services such as assistance with navigating the internet. 48% of students use libraries as a study space and 44%of students use libraries to conduct research for an assignment or project, according to ProQuest.
“The school library is kind of loud because of all the students who are in there at times,” Vanhorn said. “If you have a very loud family at home, it’s nice to have a place that you can go to that’s more quiet. The Austin Public Library is free, fun, and a nice environment that students should take advantage of.”
If an AISD student were to log into their public library account, they would go to the Austin Public Library website login page and type their username AISD + student ID number and the password aisd4books. After that, students may have to complete account setup if it is their first time logged into that account.
“I have sent several BLEND messages with how a student can log into their public library account and how to access Libby which is the platform on student’s phone to get access to e Books and audio-books,” Walker-Leon said. “The Libby app is so amazing, I think students are allowed 10 checkouts and they’re allowed seven holds. Students can ask Libby to send books to their Kindle or the Kindle app, or students can access it on the Libby website and read it on their Chromebook.”
According to Gomez, access to the Austin Public Library’s online resources makes checking out books and acquiring resources convenient. She finds that it’s not always easy to find time to make a trip to the library, but by using her online account, she can still regularly read books and enhance her knowledge on various subjects.
“You can read books from your Chromebook or phone, personally, I don’t like having to pull out a whole book to start reading but even if you can’t read on your phone and the teacher tells you to read, you can just pull up a book online,” Gomez said. “There’s a tutorial on how to log into your account on your phone which can be found on BLEND but a lot of people don’t know about that.”
Gomez believes that the public library has a larger variety of books, but she specifically takes note of the fantasy section, which is her favorite genre. She also takes advantage of the online academic resources to help her succeed in her classes.
“I’ve been using my account to help me study for my anatomy class,” Gomez said. “I also use my account to read for fun too. It’s a lot of fun and I think everybody can find something in it that they’d like. I think more people should take advantage of the free public library cards otherwise it’ll go away. Just like with anything, if people are not using it, they’re not going to keep those programs around.”
According to the American Library Association 98% of public libraries offer free public Wi-Fi access, 95% offer summer reading programs to address the “summer slide” in reading achievement experienced during school breaks. The services found at a public library may have more variety in programs than the typical school library. AISD’s library goals are to provide students with up-to-date, relevant and appropriate resources and meet students’ individual reading needs (AISD).
“The question you ask yourself is, do I like choice?” Walker-Leon said. “The public library can buy at least 10 copies of each book and that’s great. They have a lot more choices and if you have more options, the more chances you have of being able to find a book that you might like.”
