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School libraries pummeled as budget crisis worsens
Librarians fear students won't learn information literacy skills if staffing is cut
librarians say few people understand how involved they are in classroom learning and school technology.
School librarians fear another round of budget cuts in districts across the nation could severely impair students’ development of information literacy and other key 21st-century skills.
As the school budget crisis deepens, administrators have started to view school libraries as luxuries that can be axed, rather than places where kids learn to love reading and do research.
No one will know exactly how many jobs are lost until fall, but the American Association of School Administrators projects 19 percent of the nation’s school districts will have fewer librarians next year, based on a survey this spring. Ten percent said they cut library staff for the 2009-10 school year.
A trip to the school library might be a weekly highlight for children who love to read, but for kids from low-income families, it’s more of the necessity than a treat, according to literacy experts and the librarians who help kids struggling in high school without a home computer.
Unlike the overflowing bookshelves of wealthier families, 61 percent of low-income families own no age-appropriate books, according to a 2009 study commissioned by Jumpstart on “America’s Early Childhood Literacy Gap.” They depend on libraries to keep them from falling behind in school.
While the American Association of School Librarians says some states like California, Michigan, and Arizona have been hit especially hard, a map of cutbacks on the organization’s web site shows jobs are disappearing across the nation.
“We’re doing a disservice to our kids, especially those in poverty, if we don’t have the resources they need,” said association president Cassandra Barnett, who is also the school librarian at the Fayetteville, Ark., High School library.
Because few state or federal laws mandate school libraries or librarians, and their job losses are small compared with classroom teacher layoffs, library layoffs might seem minor to some observers. But librarians say few administrators or parents understand how involved they are in classroom learning and school technology.
“We have really cut off our noses to spite our face, because we are denying access to the very resources we say our kids need,” Barnett said.
Rosemarie Bernier, president of the California School Library Association, says she doesn’t know how students doing complex online research projects could complete their assignments without the guidance they get in school libraries.
“The people who control the purse strings are out of touch. They don’t understand what the kids really need,” said Bernier, who is the librarian at Hamilton High School in Los Angeles.
She spoke of a student with a first-period English class who came to her in tears because she didn’t have enough time to transfer and reformat the essay she had written on her cell phone. Because she doesn’t have a computer at home, the student’s cell phone is her only hope of completing assignments that need to be typed.
The number of California school libraries that won’t have teacher librarians next year is changing daily, but she says many students will be surprised next fall when they find their school library closed or staffed by someone who can check out books but not help them with their school work.
Los Angeles eliminated all its elementary school librarians a few years ago and has left next year’s staffing of middle school libraries up to the schools. Of 77 middle schools, about 50 have found the money to pay for a teacher librarian, according to Esther Sinofsky, who is in charge of libraries for the district.
Sinofsky, a former school librarian, says Los Angeles Unified School District recognizes the connection between student achievement and school libraries, but the district is also struggling to close a $640 million budget gap for the 2010-11 school year.
Teacher-librarians have been disappearing from Michigan schools gradually over the past decade, with a drop of nearly 1,500 to not quite 500 since 2000, according to Tim Staal, executive director of the Michigan Association for Media in Education.
Those who remain are doing the jobs done by two or three people a few years ago.
Gigi Lincoln, the librarian at Lakeview High School in Battle Creek, Mich., since 1973, was told she would have to leave the library and start teaching French because the district needed to make drastic cuts in the middle of the school year.
4 Responses to School libraries pummeled as budget crisis worsens
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Transistor
June 30, 2010 at 1:45 pm
Google Books
Transistor
June 30, 2010 at 1:45 pm
Google Books
esmith601
July 1, 2010 at 4:21 pm
As a technologist, I’m only peripherally involved in K12 education but if one considers the most common definition of a library (a place set apart to contain books, periodicals, and other material for reading, viewing, listening, studying, or reference, as a room, set of rooms, or building where books may be read or borrowed), it is my belief that libraries as we know them today and the job title of librarian are and probably should be on its way out anyway. Librarians might do well to come up with one or more updated job titles or reinvent themselves to be more closely aligned with technological changes. Perhaps updated job titles like Information Navigator, Information Archive Specialist, Chief Information Officer and Information Data Specialist would be much more appropriate and descriptive.
Edwin W. Smith
esmith601
July 1, 2010 at 4:21 pm
As a technologist, I’m only peripherally involved in K12 education but if one considers the most common definition of a library (a place set apart to contain books, periodicals, and other material for reading, viewing, listening, studying, or reference, as a room, set of rooms, or building where books may be read or borrowed), it is my belief that libraries as we know them today and the job title of librarian are and probably should be on its way out anyway. Librarians might do well to come up with one or more updated job titles or reinvent themselves to be more closely aligned with technological changes. Perhaps updated job titles like Information Navigator, Information Archive Specialist, Chief Information Officer and Information Data Specialist would be much more appropriate and descriptive.
Edwin W. Smith
parnold866
July 6, 2010 at 6:09 pm
As a school librarian (AASL has officially adopted as our title), I am NOT “only peripherally involved ” but very actively involved TEACHING middle school students ( and often staff members) how to search, how to use new technologies, follow copyright, determine bias and authority, help students with their school work and assignments, inspire and encourage reading, model the use of new technologies, and lend an ear to students in need. A name is a name is a name.
The library is the place, not the person in the place. Please visit the ALA website and look at the new standards from AASL. They are very similar to the tech standards. It is so frustrating having been in this profession for nearly twenty years and being a promoter of technology – think back to where the newest technologies have been – and now being seen as not necessary. It all comes down to the testing. Watch out technology integrators, directors…whatever – you will be next.
parnold866
July 6, 2010 at 6:09 pm
As a school librarian (AASL has officially adopted as our title), I am NOT “only peripherally involved ” but very actively involved TEACHING middle school students ( and often staff members) how to search, how to use new technologies, follow copyright, determine bias and authority, help students with their school work and assignments, inspire and encourage reading, model the use of new technologies, and lend an ear to students in need. A name is a name is a name.
The library is the place, not the person in the place. Please visit the ALA website and look at the new standards from AASL. They are very similar to the tech standards. It is so frustrating having been in this profession for nearly twenty years and being a promoter of technology – think back to where the newest technologies have been – and now being seen as not necessary. It all comes down to the testing. Watch out technology integrators, directors…whatever – you will be next.
nsmith6
July 6, 2010 at 8:21 pm
As a media specialist i hate to say I hate this article but could you not find any librarians under 60 years of age to interview? I have never in my 15 years of being a “librarian” just checked out books. My field is so diverse that it pains me to be severe about my fellow colleagues. Cutting the idea of the old- school librarian is essential. See the writing on the wall people! As I type this from my iPad I am shocked that and saddened to be losing my aide this year, but it is clear that I’m going to have to reinvent myself again and be as public with my work as I can- blogs, mails, websites, newspapers– if I go down I go down fighting as a 21 st century teacher!
nsmith6
July 6, 2010 at 8:21 pm
As a media specialist i hate to say I hate this article but could you not find any librarians under 60 years of age to interview? I have never in my 15 years of being a “librarian” just checked out books. My field is so diverse that it pains me to be severe about my fellow colleagues. Cutting the idea of the old- school librarian is essential. See the writing on the wall people! As I type this from my iPad I am shocked that and saddened to be losing my aide this year, but it is clear that I’m going to have to reinvent myself again and be as public with my work as I can- blogs, mails, websites, newspapers– if I go down I go down fighting as a 21 st century teacher!