Rows of bare bookshelves gather dust, and aging computers rest in silence inside the unusually quiet library at Kalani High School.

It's a place rarely used by students or teachers that sits above the school's main office, with a dusty tile floor, wobbly tables and a few stacks of books. The average book in the school's collection is 30 years old. Many were published more than two generations ago. For science publications, that might as well be the Stone Age.

The shelves are emptier than normal because 2,873 books were tossed in the trash. Most were riddled with bookworms, and others were moldy or had not been checked out since the 1970s. Some contained outdated information and were obsolete, said Anne Torige, the school's librarian.

"I've only used the school library about eight times in the four years I've been at this school," said Malachi Maglaya, a 17-year-old senior. "I only go when the teachers take us and force us.

"There are more tables in the library than there are books. It's very obsolete."

Principal Randiann Porras-Tang said there is only so much money to go around, and the library has been low on the school's list of priorities.

The school gives the library about $10,000 to $15,000 a year for books and subscriptions, Porras-Tang said.

"But there is so much that needs to be purchased, and it's hard to keep the library current," Porras-Tang said. "You never have enough money for anything. The first priority is the classroom."

The woeful condition of the library was recently cited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges accreditation team in June. The team found several books with publication dates ranging from 1932 to 1959, and most were printed in the 1970s. The lack of current literature was caused by a constrained school budget that did not allow for weeding out old books and replacing them with updated material.

That's something Torige wants to change.

With the help of a new parent group, Torige has organized a Bucks for Books fair this weekend where anyone can buy a book or make a donation in the name of Kalani High School Library at the Barnes & Noble store in Kahala. Some parents have organized a HI-5¢ can recycling drive to donate additional funds to the library, Torige said.

The books on Torige's wish list include multiple volumes of research information for science courses, some sets costing more than $400. Others on her list include two copies of "Othello," $7 each.

"We have less than an elementary school library," she said. "Even though the school is in a nice neighborhood, we have no extra money to buy books. I was surprised by how poor the school was. We have no computer lab here in the school. The ones in the library are castoffs."

Parent Pearl Whittaker was shocked about the condition of the library. Not every parent can provide children with Internet access at home or take their children to the public library, Whittaker said.

"The library on campus should be part of the teachers' repertoire," she said. "If the goal of the school is to make college-bound students, then we need to provide the resources and the skills to help them become college-bound."

Kalani High School, with more than 1,100 students, was built in 1958.

The state Department of Education likes to have 18 to 20 books in a library per student. Some libraries are better off than others and some, like Farrington High School's, have been completely rebuilt, said Lucretia Leong, DOE school library specialist.

"Kalani High School is a particularly old library," Leong said. "Each school site determines how much money goes to the library. It varies from school to school."

The community must pressure state lawmakers if it wants Kalani to get more taxpayer money and support, Leong said. Some school libraries rely upon fundraisers or book fairs to augment budgets, she said.

At Kaimuki High School, where Torige worked before moving to Kalani, the school has more books and most are recently published, Torige said.

While it could be argued that the concept of a library is outdated because of the Internet's ability to put volumes of information at students' fingertips, Torige said books have a place in student research, and the school has a responsibility to provide that information and to teach students how to do the research.

"You need to use the books to get some basic knowledge before you go to the Internet," Torige said. "There is so much bogus information out there, you have to have some basic knowledge to decipher it. And to do good research, you need to have a wide variety of resources to put together a thesis.

"We don't have the resources to do the research, and because we don't, the teachers and students don't come here."

That was what happened to Karen Kuniyuki, a 17-year-old Kalani senior who went looking for a copy of "Macbeth."

"I really needed that book, and the library's only copy was out," Kuniyuki said. "The librarian didn't know when it would come back."

If the book collection contained more current information and the computers in the library were more up to speed, Evan Jodlom, 17, said, he'd use the school library more.

"It is right here and would be easier to get to than the public library," Jodlom said. "But the collection isn't very broad. It's rather minimal."

Reach Suzanne Roig at sroig@honoluluadvertiser.com.