Small Change: Expenditures for Resources in School Library Media Centers, FY 1995-96
By Drs. M.L. Miller & M.L. Shontz -- School Library Journal, 10/1/1997
Say, can you spare a dime? Probably not. School librarians say their budgets are not keeping up.
Give a school library media specialist a materials budget and then two years later, after costs have risen, shrink it by $600.
That's the scenario facing school library media specialists nationally, according to our most recent survey of school library expenditures, the eighth in a biennial series of School Library Journal reports. These reports summarize developments during 1995-96 in U.S. public and private school library media programs.
The title of the report is "Small Change." But it could just as easily be "No Change" when it comes to spending on books. Average book expenditures have not budged at all since our 1995 study, based on data from 1993-94. Library media specialists (LMS) spent an average of $4,000 then, and they spend an average of $4,000 now.
Dollars for most other resources -- AV, periodicals, microforms, and CD-ROM -- have dropped slightly. Only software spending has managed to inch up.
Not surprisingly, the push for Internet access has attracted additional funding. In our 1995 study, 21.3 percent of library media centers (LMCs) had received additional funds needed to access the Internet. In this study, that number jumped to 34 percent. Local area networks (LANs) have also mushroomed: 66 percent of LMCs now have a LAN, compared to 38.8 percent in our 1995 report.
Our report also looks at professional practices, such as the extent of collaborative planning between LMSs and teachers. Despite promotion of the practice, the number of hours that LMSs meet with teachers has taken a dip at all grade levels.
We also closely examined a subset of media centers in which librarians are skillfully juggling the Internet, networks, cable TV, site-based management, and regular contact with their principals, among other things. For more on these high-service media centers, see Table 19.
What the Survey Offers
The purpose of this series, begun in 1983, has been to provide SLJ readers with an up-to-date account (as well as a longitudinal review) of national trends in expenditures. We offer this report so LMSs can compare local expenditures, services, and programs with a national norm.
All the SLJ reports have focused on the status of school library collections, expenditures, staffing, and instructional involvement. In addition, we have reported on the steady escalation in the use of computers and the emergence and expansion of telecommunications in LMCs. The report also includes data from schools serving large numbers of economically disadvantaged students.
We add new data to each report. This time, we:
- report on the use of electronic reading programs and look at their impact on LMC expenditures (Tables 11-12);
- examine LMC services in schools with site-based management (Tables 16-18);
- look at what 141 high-service school library programs offer (Table 19); and
- describe the type and extent of communication between LMSs and principals (Table 21).
Who Responded? (Tables 1-3, Table 13 -- Tables will display in a separate window)
The response rate for this report is the smallest in the series. This may be due to a drop in high school respondents -- from 31 percent of all respondents in the 1995 report to 24 percent in this report. At the same time, the number of elementary school respondents increased from 36 percent in the 1995 report to 44 percent in this report.
For information on respondents' certification status, education level, experience, and salary, see Table 13.
Spending (Tables 4-8 -- Tables will display in a separate window)
Table 4 shows that median expenditures for all LMC resources dipped to $11,144 in the 1995-96 school year, approximately $600 less than in 1993-94. Obviously, spending for all types of resources did not keep pace with price increases or inflation.
Federal funds did not take up the slack. Slightly more than 50 percent of respondents turned to fundraising, but to little avail: their efforts attracted nearly the same number of dollars as in the 1995 report.
Although a higher percentage of funding continues to go toward books than toward other resources, the median figure for book spending is unchanged from 1993-94. In other words, average book expenditures are frozen.
Average expenditures for resources, however, do not reflect the strong economy in which LMCs currently operate. Not shown in our charts is the fact that 38 percent saw an increase in their overall materials budget over the previous year, while 33 percent had larger book budgets. Forty-one percent worked with increased funds for computer software, and 37 percent had more money for telecommunications. And, 34 percent had the funds to add more CD-ROMs to their collections.
Our report shows stagnant funding because there are other LMCs with budget problems that bring down average spending. Twenty-one percent saw cuts in overall materials budgets, while one-third were level-funded. A full 36 percent received less money for books.
By displaying both mean and median figures in Tables 5 and 7, the inequities between resource expenditures per school and per pupil are evident. Books still enjoy the largest allocation. We also see large differences between the mean and median figures for software and CD-ROM resources. These differences can possibly be attributed to higher investments in technology by those schools we define as high-tech -- schools with library media centers that have both an online catalog and circulation system.
Tables 6 and 8 show trends over the past six years. Except for expenditures for computer software, which increased by $190 per school or four cents per pupil in the 1995-96 school year over 1993-94, expenditures for all resources except books have declined. Indeed, the best year for average per pupil expenditures was the l993-94 school year.
This stagnation and decline are noteworthy during a healthy economy. Well into the vaunted "information age," schools are spending absolute minimums for the program that serves every student and teacher in the school.
Resources (Tables 9-13 -- Tables will display in a separate window)
Book collections are deteriorating across the country. We've documented sobering evidence of the effects of frozen spending, the impact of inflation, and normal wear and tear on collections in this and all previous SLJ surveys.
Even more sobering are comparisons of book expenditures per pupil for books by grade level. We found that senior high school LMSs spend less money per pupil on books than do those in lower grades. When comparing total materials expenditures, Table 9 shows that high school LMSs spend only $1 more per student than those in elementary and middle schools at a time when prices continue to escalate for adult trade books and reference titles.
Table 9 also illustrates the demise of the general AV collection, which includes filmstrips, films, and audiocassettes. When we compared general AV collections with video collections, we found that video collections had grown signficantly in the average school. High school video collections, with a median number of 200 videos per school, are larger than high school AV collections, which now average 150 items.
Table 10 gives an overview of the types and extent of technology in LMCs. Sixty percent use at least eight technologies:
Forty-nine percent of LMCs have web access. The table also shows that nearly one-third received extra funds to cover software, the Internet, and CD-ROMs.
Table 11 shows how schools and LMCs use electronic reading programs. Sixty-four percent of the schools in the SLJ study have not yet succumbed to these programs. The next best piece of news is that only seven percent of LMCs have primary responsibility for the program. Classroom teachers and LMSs share the responsibility in 16 percent of the schools. And 13 percent of classroom teachers manage the programs alone.
Table 12 shows the budgetary impact of these electronic reading programs, and by extension, the impact on collection development. Twenty-three percent of participating LMSs spend 61 to 100 percent of their budgets on books required by these programs. In many cases, the programs hold awesome power over expenditures as well as over building a collection designed to serve an entire curriculum. As LMSs study the argument raging on outsourcing professional services, they must consider themselves primary users of this strategy if they use electronic reading programs.
Human Resources (Table 13 -- Tables will display in a separate window)
Human resources are largely unchanged. On average, LMCs are still staffed by one LMS. Only high schools enjoy full-time paid support staff. Both adult and student volunteers, found mostly in elementary and private schools, continue to fluctuate in number and are not a major source of assistance. As we expected, LMSs at all levels saw an average salary increase of $1,500 over the 1995 report.
Curriculum Planning (Tables 14-19 -- Tables will display in a separate window)
In 1998, the American Association for School Librarians (AASL) and the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) will publish new joint standards for learning with a revision of Information Power (ALA, 1988). This document will focus on students as learners and will describe the successful LMS as one who collaborates with teachers and develops and manages a student-centered program.
In light of these new standards and guidelines, the information presented in Tables 14-19 becomes even more important.
Tables 14 and 15 describe collaborative planning in mean number of hours per week. High school LMSs do more planning with teachers, both formal and informal, than do LMSs at any other grade levels. Informal planning is twice as likely to take place as is formal planning at all levels. Collaborative planning of any kind is commendable, but the demands upon LMSs to become more productive partners in student learning will require more formal planning with teachers. Keep in mind that only means are used for Tables 14 and 15. Means skew data upward, making the figures look better.
It is obvious from Table 15 that the type of LMC scheduling has an impact on the type of planning. The good news is that so few media specialists still use fixed schedules. On the other hand, it is puzzling that so many LMSs using flexible and/or combined schedules do not regularly plan with teachers. Regardless of the type of scheduling used, it is encouraging that the majority of LMSs work together with a substantial number of teachers.
What about site-based management? Does it benefit LMCs financially? Tables 16 and 17 indicate that LMS involvement on site-based management (SBM) teams may not lead to budget increases. Seventy percent of respondents are either members of SBM teams (44 percent) or serve as team consultants (26 percent). Ten percent saw their LMC budget decrease under SBM, and 24 saw it increase. But the majority -- 66 percent -- saw no effect. This is worrisome. With so many media specialists involved in SBM planning, we have to ask, "What are the barriers that keep them from successfully making the argument for budget increases?"
Services (Tables 18-20 -- Tables will display in a separate window)
Still, site-based management may benefit library media centers in other ways. For this report, we identified 22 services and asked respondents which ones they provided. Table 18 compares services offered by site-based managed schools with those offered by non-SBM schools.
In most cases, LMSs in site-based managed schools provide a wider range of services than do their colleagues in non-SBM schools. For example, more LMSs in site-based managed schools:
To provide a profile of an active, progressive LMC program, we identified 141 high-service LMCs in our study -- those that provide 17 or more of the 22 services listed in Table 18. We compared the high-service group to those LMCs that offered a smaller number of services, from 1 to 16 of those listed in Table 18.
Table 19 shows that 99 percent of high-service LMCs provide CD-ROM searching, compared to 77 percent of the non-high-service LMCs. High-service LMCs are also more likely to:
LMSs in high-service LMCs are also twice as likely to use an advisory committee, plan with teachers more than two hours a week, plan with more than 30 percent of their teachers, and communicate directly with their principals.
Not surprisingly, having a district media coordinator also makes a significant difference in LMC services. This report reveals that slightly more LMSs have access to at least half-time district-level help than did their colleagues in the 1995 study.
Table 20 shows that LMSs with access to district library media leadership are more likely to plan with teachers for integrated instruction. They are also more likely to:
On the other hand, LMSs with access to district media leadership are less likely to use electronic reading programs.
Principal Relations (Table 21 -- Tables will display in a separate window)
In this survey, we introduced basic questions about the strategies used by LMSs to communicate with their principals. We asked them to describe how, and how often, they formally communicated with their principals. These data will be presented in more depth in a forthcoming SLJ article.
We found that LMSs who communicate well with their principals are also more likely to lead staff development activities. The staff development activities described here underscore the importance of educating teachers to use telecommunications. We compliment the 53 percent of LMSs who also assist with instructional design.
We want to note one interesting finding about video production. In our experience, both from reading research studies and personal observation, video production activities remain a low priority for many LMSs. Staff development in video production, often a potentially high profile and popular activity in many schools, still takes a back seat to telecommunications and its applications. That's true regardless of the level of LMS/principal communication.
Doing More with Less
As with all of our reports, we conclude with bittersweet reflections. We are amazed and almost awed by the explosion of services and programs in the telecommunications arena. On the flip side, we wish that we could sweeten the sour refrain of school library media specialists doing more with less, which, translated, means "providing more motivation and guidance in the art, joy, and necessity of reading while saddled with deteriorating print collections."
We know from many respondents' comments that the times are discouraging: the temptation to chuck it all is not uncommon. As always, however, we commend the majority who are learning new skills and expanding their vision of what school library media programs should be for today's students and teachers.
New to the resource mix are the growing demands of electronic reading programs. In schools that use these programs, many LMSs find that they wreak havoc with both budgets and the freedom of LMSs to manage materials selection.
Table 21 displays critical differences between LMSs who initiate communication with their principals and those who do not.
MethodologyBy December, we received 659 responses -- 45.7 percent of the sample -- and of those, 43.7 percent were usable. Of the total, 66, or 10.5 percent, came from private schools. The usable response rate for this report is the lowest received in the series, begun in 1983. Each response was checked for accuracy, then coded and entered into the computer. Data analysis was done using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). Measures of central tendency (means and medians) were produced for all of the budget items listed on the survey. Chi square and ANOVA tests were used in the statistical analysis of data presented in Tables 18 and 20. Both means and medians are reported, wherever appropriate, to give a more accurate description of the data. The means allow for comparisons with earlier studies that have used this measure; the medians indicate accurately the expenditures reported by most LMCs. Although the mean (or average) is the descriptive statistic most commonly used in studies of this type, analysis of the data showed that much of it was skewed upward because a few respondents reported spending extremely large amounts for various kinds of materials. With a wide data distribution like this, a few large scores make the mean a less desirable measure of central tendency because these inflate the mean. To report only the mean in instances where data were skewed would be misleading. For example, one respondent reported adding 109 software titles, another added 150, while a third added 300. However, 29.7 percent of the respondents reported adding no software, and another 31 percent added 10 titles. If we used the mean, we would note that LMCs added 7.19 items. The median -- a much more accurate picture -- would indicate two items per LMC. |
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For More DataPrevious "Expenditures for Resources in School Library Media Centers" have been published in the following issues of School Library Journal: October 1983, May 1985, June/July 1987, June 1989, August 1991, October 1993, and October 1995. SLJ has also published specialized technology reports based on the data in April 1994 and October 1996. In 1998, SLJ will publish two supplementary reports to this one. The first will concentrate on comparisons and profiles of collections, budgets, and staffing, including a close look at communication with principals. The second will examine the continued growth and use of technology in school library media centers. |
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Marilyn L. Miller (left) is Professor Emeritus and former Chair of the Department of Library and Information Studies at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. Marilyn L. Shontz is Associate Professor in the same department. |  |
