Location is Everything

What Are Our Credentials?

Advanced Degrees. Across the nation, the majority of professionals have an advanced degree in library media. The number is highest in the Northeast at 55 percent, and then decreases to a low in the West of 33 percent (Table 1). Interestingly, although the West has the lowest number of those with a library degree, that region has the highest percentage of professionals with dual advanced degrees. It is disturbing to report that in each region there is still a large minority (31 to 46 percent) of working media specialists without advanced library degrees. The geographic pattern of these figures directly corresponds to the number of accredited graduate programs, which dwindles as you move from east to west. When comparing these education statistics to the recommendations in Information Power, it is clear that many professionals fall short.

Certification. Nationally, 91 percent of media specialists are certified as library media specialists. (Certification requirements vary considerably from state to state. For more information, see "Getting Certified in 50 States," June 2000) On a regional basis, these numbers are 81 percent in the West, 92 percent in the North Central region, 93 percent in the Northeast, and 97 percent in the South. This includes individuals who are certified only in library media as well as those who hold dual certification in library media and another subject area. The rates of dual certification are highest in the North Central region (62 percent), followed by the South and West (58 percent), and lowest in the Northeast (49 percent).

What Do We Do?
Helping students learn and teachers teach are two critical functions of the media specialist. But librarians cannot perform these functions as effectively as possible without advance planning and collaboration with teachers. As we have shown in past reports, planning is neither an option nor a possibility for large numbers of media specialists. Some have little or no release time for formal planning, while others have inflexible schedules and limited access to teachers. In no area of the country do librarians spend even one hour a week in formal planning with teachers. (We define formal planning as a meeting scheduled in advance, as opposed to informal or impromptu planning.) Combined formal and informal planning time is highest in the West, at 3.59 hours per week. Respondents in the Northeast report 3 hours of planning and their North Central colleagues 3.26 hours. The South reports the least combined planning time--2.94 hours.

Degreed vs. Non-Degreed Librarians. To determine the impact of graduate library education on the media specialists' ability to handle an increasingly complex job, we compared the services provided by full-time media specialists who hold advanced library degrees with those provided by part-time media specialists without a similar education (Table 3). The data reveals that regardless of their level of preparation or employment status, school librarians provide the four basic services noted above.

Funding Sources and Priorities
The data in Table 4 show that collections are larger in the North Central region (10,978 volumes) and the Northeast (10,800 volumes), and that, not surprisingly, these schools spend more per pupil for books, $7.47 and $9.09, respectively. Expenditures in all regions reflect expanding video collections, which remain an important part of a school's total instructional program. While video collections continue to grow across the country, schools in the South have a median figure of 250 titles each, followed by the North Central region (200), the West (150), and the Northeast (100). Mean figures on video collections reveal large discrepancies between schools in all regions.

Comparing the mean and median figures for Total Materials Expenditures (TME) dramatically contrasts the have and have-not school libraries in all four regions. The Northeast reports the largest per pupil range, from a median figure of $20.11 to the average of $41.17, reflecting a number of schools that are either more affluent or more committed to providing library resources for their students and teachers.

District and Regional Support. Historically, larger districts have provided centralized resources, such as film libraries and revolving book collections, to their schools. And as audiovisual materials became more varied and began to play a greater role in students' learning (supplementing the use of textbooks), these collections increased as well. When federal money became available through the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, thousands of schools added librarians to their staffs. There was also a movement away from centralized district collections toward school collections that meet the demand for instant access to resources. Now, with the increasing use of electronic resources and telecommunications, school districts have entered into more licensing and cooperative purchasing agreements with vendors, often without allocating these expenses to individual schools. Thus, most building-level media specialists receiving these resources cannot totally document expenditures for their school's library. While being able to account for these funds is often impossible and impractical even for central offices, the additional resources are a wonderful thing for individual schools.

Schools across the country receive extra funding for at least eight categories of nonbook resources and services, the top three of which are Internet access, videotapes, and equipment maintenance (Table 6). Half the schools in the South have their Internet access paid for by a centralized source, compared to just over a third of the schools in other regions. Less than a third of all schools receive district funding for equipment purchases. This could explain why large numbers of schools still have to seek funding for computers through outside sources such as gifts and grants. An interesting finding is the rather large number of media centers that receive teaching supplies, such as paper and computer disks, for the entire school from regional sources. This indicates that librarians play a substantial role in administering these resources to their schools.

Respondents were also asked how they spent this additional funding (Table 7). Computer software and telecommunications access receive the most targeted funding in all regions, followed by funding for resource-sharing costs, and the purchase or lease of CD-ROMs. More than one out of every five schools in the Northeast, North Central, and Western regions received extra funds for Web-based products or subscriptions. Less than a quarter of all respondents reported receiving funds for technical processing.

Technology. Table 8 describes the availability of technology in school libraries. Cable is the most prevalent of the five TV options, operating in 59 to 71 percent of schools. Distance education (either one-way audio-video or two-way audio-video) is far more rare, with only 11 to 19 percent of schools reporting that capability. Schools in the South make the most use of television when all options are combined.

The predominant function of computers in all schools is telecommunications--the Internet, e-mail, and CD-ROMs--which is used by 75 to 84 percent of schools. Three-quarters of schools have access to the Web, while 50 to 76 percent have either local area or wide area networks.

But the most basic technology, the telephone, is still not universal in school libraries. Five to 12 percent of schools report that their libraries do not have a phone. Fax machines are becoming more common, with one out of every four libraries having its own fax, and 59 to 72 percent having access to one somewhere in the building.

Using our previous definition of a high-tech school--one with both an online catalog and computerized circulation--we found that the South and North Central regions boast the highest concentration of schools that meet these criteria (75 and 72 percent, respectively). The West has 68 percent and the Northeast 62 percent. In another important technology category, schools in the South and the West lag behind the two other regions in having access to electronically linked networks. About half of the schools in the North Central region and 46 percent of those in the Northeast belong to such networks.

Computer Resources and Policies. Respondents were asked to report the number of computers both in the library and any separate computer lab managed by library staff (Table 9). The median number of computers is nine, with slightly over six reported in outside computer labs. Media specialists in the North Central region report an average of 10 computers in their libraries; schools in the South and West report nine and in the Northeast, seven. One interesting but disconcerting finding lies in the fact that there is only a small difference between mean and median figures for library computers, which proves that too many libraries have inadequate resources. An entire class of 15 to 20 students that comes to the library for online research would find little satisfaction in finding so few computers available.

This survey was the first in which we asked respondents to report whether they have an acceptable-use policy (AUP) and whether they use filtering software. The good news is that more than three-fourths of media centers in the country do have AUPs. Since computer use is only going to increase, one hopes that the other 25 percent will quickly develop their own. The not-so-good news is that filtering software is becoming more commonplace. We found that half of the schools in the South and over one-third of those in the other three regions use such filters. We hope the future will bring more sophisticated and flexible software that will allow students greater access to a broad range of resources appropriate for both curricular and personal use.

Home Pages. Large numbers of schools and library media centers have their own home pages--over 60 percent of those in the South and West and 54 percent in the other two regions. Responsibility for managing these pages is divided among the school community (Table 10). Regardless of the region, this responsibility largely goes to school personnel, either at the building or district level. Fifty-nine percent of school Web pages in the West are managed by building technology personnel, followed by 57 percent in the South, 47 percent in the Northeast, and 45 percent in the North Central region. A much smaller number of media specialists have this responsibility, with the largest number found in the Northeast (20 percent). In the South and North Central regions, large numbers of schools (most likely those without available technology personnel at the building or district level) have turned to a wide range of others to maintain their home pages, including students, parents, teachers, or other volunteers.