When Kyle Asberry was hired two years ago as a library aide at two public elementary schools in the lower-income Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts, he faced a sorry state of affairs.

Both of the Los Angeles Unified School District schools-which he won’t name out of fear of reprisal-had shut down their libraries for at least a year owing to staffing shortages resulting from budget cuts. One library was even used as a storage facility for boxes.

‘I tried to do what I could. Once I cleaned the libraries up [and] dusted off the shelves, teachers and kids came in, and were waiting to come in. That was the high point,” he said. ‘They were looking for the books. In both libraries, though, most of the books are old. There are no new titles at all.”

As dire and damaging as it is, Asberry’s situation is among the best-case scenarios in today’s school libraries.
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His positions are funded through a 2011 civil rights settlement with the federal government to promote performance in black and immigrant communities.

Across the country, public school libraries, including those elementary and middle school ones serving kids in […]