The Homeschooling Handbook_ From Preschool to High School - Mary Griffith [74]
Dozens of catalog businesses are aimed at the homeschooling market—with more popping up every day. Some mainly carry books about homeschooling; others carry mainly curricular materials. Some aim at particular market segments, such as unschoolers or Christian homeschoolers, and others concentrate on a specialized subject area, such as math or science. Appendix C includes a list of some popular homeschool suppliers, both general and specialized.
Over the past two decades, homeschool suppliers have tended to be small operations, often home-based businesses started by homeschooling families. Recently, as homeschooling has become more popular and well known, larger companies have entered the market. Some carry materials previously unavailable directly to homeschoolers and others carry the more popular products of smaller companies but undercut their prices. If you tend to enjoy the more obscure resources, you might want to make a point of patronizing the smaller companies, even for those items available elsewhere, just to help keep those interesting but obscure items available.
A relatively new element in the homeschooling market in recent years are the independent dealers. These are individuals who sell a particular company’s line, rather like Avon or Discovery Toys representatives. Dorling Kindersley and Usborne Books are especially active in the homeschooling market, fueled largely by homeschooling parents who sell the books so they can afford to buy all the volumes they want for themselves.
Libraries
Libraries are the homeschooler’s favorite resource, and most homeschoolers probably could not survive without them. It is a rare homeschooling family within reach of a library branch whose members are not regular patrons. Libraries are tremendous resources for books, magazines, videos, pamphlets, community information, and more—and libraries make few rules about who is allowed access to it all. Libraries function to make their information accessible, and you don’t have to be in a certain grade or pass a certain test to be allowed in. If you’ve got a library card, you’ve got what you need.
We use the library a lot. Several librarians there know us now and are very helpful. We check out lots of books and videos.—Beverly, Nebraska
We use the public library so often that we know all the staff by name. We are there twice a week, for thirty to sixty minutes per trip.—Carol, California
Most librarians are familiar with homeschooling and enjoy working with homeschoolers. Many homeschoolers schedule their library trips during the slower hours before the arrival of the after-school crowds with term papers due, so they are often recognized as homeschoolers. Librarians tend to be responsive to the needs of their patrons, so many have made it a point to find out what homeschoolers need and want in their libraries, with the result that most libraries carry at least a few homeschooling books and a pamphlet file. Librarians also help homeschoolers find resources through interlibrary loan and from other sources.
Homeschoolers often end up as volunteers at the library. After all, if we’re spending so much time there and getting to know the stacks so well, we’re bound to pick up the classification system pretty quickly and become fairly proficient shelvers of books. Homeschoolers also get involved helping with story hours and other children’s activities and often prepare library displays on homeschooling and other topics. With tight, even shrinking, library budgets in many areas, some homeschoolers