By KEN CARPENTER
Great Bend Post
More is not always better when it comes to library books at Riley Elementary School in Great Bend. That's a message the members of the Great Bend School Board heard on Wednesday at a luncheon meeting at the school.
Leah Yancey, an instructional tech specialist, has been in charge of Riley's school library since last May. One of her first tasks has been to give the library a makeover. That meant removing over 6400 old and unused books. Yancey told the School Board that the Central Kansas Library System helped her identify the books that no longer belonged in the collection.
“They have a list of things,” Yancey said. “If it hasn’t circulated in ten plus years, it shouldn’t be in your library. You give us a budget for a reason so we should get rid of the books that look frayed and old and use that budget and buy new books for our kids.”
Yancey said that Riley's library now has books that children are more likely to read.
"The colored pictures and the pretty crisp white pages of a book, those kids just thrive on that,” Yancey commented. “When they pick up a book, they’re really not going to read the title. They're not going to thumb through the book. The first thing they’re going to look at is that cover, and if that cover doesn’t interest them, they’re going to put it right back on the shelf.”
More than 200 new books have been added to the collection this year. Yancey said that more popular books that were worn or damaged have also been replaced.
