School Staffing Survey 2000 LOOKING FOR A FEW GOOD LIBRARIANS

Chain of Command

It's not only librarians who can be hard to find. From the top down, from state-level coordinators to building-level aides, school library staffing is often spotty. At the top, only 12 states and the District of Columbia have state-level, full-time directors of school library media services. Eleven states have no director, and the remaining 27 states have part-time directors. The presence of strong leadership can be crucial to well-staffed media centers, since state directors develop and oversee standards, coordinate statewide initiatives, obtain grant money, offer professional development, and generally keep school libraries uppermost in the minds of legislators.

Wisconsin and Georgia require library coordinators at the district level. A more common scenario is for districts to hire one certified librarian to supervise aides in up to 15 schools, a situation reported in Utah, Colorado, Idaho, and Mississippi.

There is some good news to report about building-level media specialists. New legislation in Kentucky and Maryland mandating certified media specialists should increase the need for librarians there, and California's $158.5 million in school library appropriations is spurring some school districts to hire their first professional librarians in years.

Mandates for library aides are few in number. Georgia, Maryland, Vermont, and Virginia are among the states with guidelines for support staff. Unfortunately, only 15 states had any data to report in this area. Of those reporting, Iowa and Florida had the highest percentages of schools with aides, at 75 percent and 95 percent, respectively. Nationwide, of those states reporting, the average is 41 percent, with more support staff at the high school level. Half of the nation's high schools have an aide, but only 40 percent of middle schools and 30 percent of elementary schools can make the same claim.

Reasons to Worry

Respondents from over half of the states, in both rural areas and inner cities, reported librarian shortages, ranging from moderate to extremely severe (see chart below). They cited many reasons for this condition, including retirements, limited access to library education, stricter certification rules, heavy workloads, site-based management, and the increasing emphasis on standards and test scores. Ten states claimed limited access to library education programs was the reason for their staffing shortages.

Distance-education programs and the Internet hold out hope. Institutions such as Southern Connecticut State, Florida State, Syracuse University, and the University of Illinois now offer library degrees completely online. And starting this fall, an online Master of Education degree in School Library and Information Technologies will be available from Mansfield University in Pennsylvania. Library educators at last year's American Association of School Librarians' conference even discussed the idea of creating a virtual library school with the cooperation of institutions from around the country.

The path to certification is another area of concern. Several states have beefed up certification requirements, raising the bar for prospective librarians. (For a complete report on certification, see "Getting Certified in 50 States: The Latest Requirements for School Librarians," June 2000.) State supervisors in Missouri, Wisconsin, and New Mexico predict the more rigorous path to media specialist certification will make their already severe shortages of librarians even worse. Richard Sorenson at Wisconsin's Department of Public Instruction fears that the combination of requiring dual certification (in library media and another teaching area) and having no MLS program in the northeastern section of the state will increase librarian shortages there.

In New Mexico, Texas, South Dakota, Iowa, and Minnesota, tech coordinators are actually replacing librarians. Elsewhere, school librarians in the majority of states are being asked to perform double duty as technology coordinators. Margaret Crank in Arkansas's Division of Curriculum and Instruction says librarians in her state are taking on more responsibilities for technology, as well as being more rigidly scheduled with classes due to a legislative mandate requiring teacher planning time. Thanks to a firm state mandate, Arkansas has consistently had one of the lowest student-to-school librarian ratios, but now it is facing an extremely severe shortage of qualified librarians. Crank is concerned that principals and superintendents will request a change in accreditation standards if they cannot find certified media specialists to fill the job vacuum.

The pressure on schools to raise and maintain standardized test scores, especially reading scores, is also taking its toll. "Ironically, state legislators and administrators don't see the link between library services and reading," reports Georgia Loutensock from the Utah State Office of Education Curriculum. In her state, as well as in Minnesota, Ohio, and Delaware, site-based management and the lack of a legislative mandate to hire school librarians continue to erode programs and positions, as first reported in 1998. Eugene Hainer at the Colorado State Library goes so far as to predict that the allegiance to state and national curriculum standards and the emphasis on students meeting mandatory performance levels will destroy most library programs within five years. Only the most proactive and efficient will survive, says Hainer. The rest will be slowly trimmed or neutered until nothing remains but books and computers and a few staff. (Hainer is one of the authors of the latest Colorado study that links school library media programs to student achievement. See "Dick and Jane Go to the Head of the Class," April 2000.)

If a Candidate Can't Be Found

Districts are using a number of methods to cope with shortages of librarians. The most common solution is to assign a teacher who agrees to work toward library media certification, usually at the pace of six credits per year, a practice referred to as provisional or emergency certification.

Some states allow public librarians and other college graduates to work in school libraries, but many don't require them to seek certification. The most discouraging news is that school districts in Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, New Mexico, Texas, and Utah can hire persons without any college degree at all to lead their library programs.

Future Concerns

The shortage of school librarians nationwide is reaching the crisis stage. States with mandates for school librarians are in danger of losing them because there are not enough qualified candidates to fill vacant positions. States pushing for mandates where there currently aren't any will find themselves needing to quickly recruit and train new applicants. New York has a recommendation before its Regents Commission that if approved would result in the need for an additional 1,000 school librarians. Frances Roscello in New York's State Department of Education says, "Given that currently we issue about 300 new LMS certificates per year, there will be a great need to educate and attract library media specialists."

A school librarian in California, where the situation is improving even without a mandate, sums up the status of many states: "It's sort of a chicken-and-egg thing. Fewer people got the credential as fewer jobs were available, and now that jobs are becoming available, there is no one with a library media credential." 

Additional References

"California Dreamin': The State's School Libraries Finally Have New Books and Maybe Even the Momentum to Hire More Librarians." School Library Journal, February 2000, pp. 16, 26.

Everhart, Nancy. "Characteristics of Information Provided to School Library Media Specialists by State Library Agencies." http://www.ala.org/ascla/everharthtml.