Della Curtis loves to show off her books, a private collection of tattered covers, broken spines and titles that hark back to a time when man had yet to walk on the moon.
Those books are now history -- off the shelves forever -- and Curtis, the Coordinator of Library Information Services for the Baltimore County school system, couldn't be happier.
"There really is a time when all good books must go to library heaven," said Curtis, who spearheaded a successful effort to add $10.5 million to next year's school budget to restock substandard school libraries. "We're not the Library of Congress. We can't keep rare book collections."
Armed with data that show that most of the county's school libraries are filled with books printed in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, librarians this week persuaded County Executive C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger to begin a book-buying campaign that could put 400,000 new books on library shelves within the next 12 months.
If the County Council approves the spending request, Baltimore County would become one of the first school systems in the nation to take on such a massive book replacement plan, said Curtis.
Her goal is to reverse years of neglect that have left all but two of the county's middle and high school libraries without adequate current research materials, according to a school-by-school survey conducted last fall.
"All the money will go to books and books only," said Curtis, who has witnessed orders for computer gear -- iMacs and CD-ROMS -- replace book orders in recent years.
"It's like we're talking out of both sides of our mouth," she said, referring to educators. "Of course we want our students to read, and read a lot, but we're not giving them the books they need to do that. It's almost like we don't value them or their reading."
Librarians, who handle books and student queries daily, have been aware of the poor condition of their collections for years but had been unable to squeeze more money for library improvements from school administrators intent on beefing up computer labs.
A recent survey of the county's elementary, middle and high school libraries, executed with the aid of computers and spread sheets, enabled librarians to make their case to the Baltimore County Board of Education, members of which solidly endorsed an overhaul.
According to that survey, not one of the county's 26 middle school libraries has a collection that is considered current: about 60 percent of the books in most middle school library collections are outdated.
