Librarians come to students’ rescue at Lakewood Public Library’s Homework ER program, where students get a two-hour dose of help in reading, writing, and arithmetic. “They’re learning basics,” says spokesman Andy Harant. “Like dealing with money, all the way up through long-division and algebra.” Librarians are on hand to help students from kindergarten through eighth grade thumb through dictionaries, thesauruses, and encyclopedia sets for answers. But the sessions aren’t designed as social hours. “They are there to complete their homework,” says Harant. “And this is an [ideal] space to do it.”
Mondays-Thursdays, 3-5 p.m., 2006

This article appears in Dec 13-19, 2006.