To the Editor:
I read your Nov. 8, 2006, article 鈥淪cholars Test Out New Yardsticks of School Poverty鈥� with interest, living and working as I do in a small, rural district that sits on the poverty line, as measured by free or reduced-price lunches.
As a school library media specialist who has continued to argue in favor of encyclopedias, in both print and online formats, I was saddened to read the comment from Commissioner Mark S. Schneider of the National Center for Education Statistics that 鈥渘obody has encyclopedias anymore.鈥� He said this while talking about alternative measures of family socioeconomic status.
In my professional opinion, encyclopedias still have a place in student learning. Indeed, print versions offer an invaluable tool that online encyclopedias cannot: an index. For many precollegiate students, actively perusing an index aids them in gaining vocabulary and a better understanding of how a broad topic can be narrowed or subdivided. Furthermore, encyclopedias offer readers an often much-needed context for a topic. Should students stop their research having used only an encyclopedia? No鈥攂ut it can be a good place to begin.
Are print encyclopedias as common in middle-class homes as they once were? Probably not. That does not mean, however, that they (and their electronic offspring) don鈥檛 deserve respect and a place in student learning.
Candace Broughton
Cattaraugus, N.Y.
