California Dreamin'
The state's school libraries finally have new books--and maybe even the momentum to hire more librarians
Staff -- School Library Journal, 2/1/2000
They arrived in a tractor-trailer truck one day last June. Books, thousands and thousands of books, all headed for school libraries in California's Palmdale Elementary School District. A battery of important people was on hand to greet them: principals, school board members, local TV and newspaper reporters, parents, library staff, and, of course, children. In all, 20,000 books were unloaded that day, each school's shrink-wrapped cartons rolled out on a separate pallet.
Of course the books could have arrived little by little, over a few months. But "when they come in a few at a time, people don't notice them," says Faye Choate, Palmdale's educational technologist and the person in charge of school libraries. On the other hand, "When you pull up a truckful, they go, 'Man, this is a lot of books.'"
A lot of books have been arriving all over California in the last few months, the fruit of an historic 1998 appropriation of $158.5 million for the state's pitifully funded school libraries. The money can only be spent on materials and tools to access information. But there are small signs that the money may be sparking other, equally important, changes. For instance, after years of getting by with technicians or clerks, a few districts have hired their first professional librarians. Instead of clinging to whatever sits on their shelves, library staff are actually throwing out those embarrassing books that say man will one day walk on the moon. And perhaps because it looks like school librarianship may again become a viable profession in California, more people seem to be heading back for graduate library degrees.
All that money for libraries has caught the attention of school administrators. "What it's doing is showing that somebody up there in the state appreciates school libraries," says Jo Ellen Misakian, director of the library media credentialing program at Fresno Pacific University. "And they say, 'Well, maybe this is not so unusual, maybe there is some value in our school.'" Thanks to the new momentum, Misakian says, she also expects a "tremendous jump" in the number of people enrolling in her program.It's helped that the state appropriated another $158 million this year for library materials and seems poised to do so for the foreseeable future. "At first administrators were sort of disbelieving that the money was coming and was going to continue, so they were reluctant to commit to hiring someone. Now they're beginning to feel they need some expert help in spending this money," Misakian says.
Few California elementary schools have certified librarians. And while many districts have certified people in secondary schools, it's just as common to find districts without a single library professional. Selma, a small school district 10 miles south of Fresno, was one such district until last fall, when it hired Margaret Baker, its first professional librarian in 10 years. Selma is unusual in that it increased library spending on its own five years ago. Last year, the district received another $150,000 for materials from the state. That, combined with its own assessment of the poor state of its libraries, convinced administrators to hire a professional, Baker says.
How are school districts without librarians figuring out how to spend thousands of dollars on collections? It "runs the gamut," says Barbara Jeffus, school library consultant at the state Department of Education. "At one end, some are looking at it professionally and seriously, and on the other end, I know there are districts that are easy prey to the sales rep who drops in." To prevent that, the state requires districts to submit plans about how they're going to spend their money and to account for it at the end of the year.
Still, Jeffus and other library leaders know that they've only half finished the job of turning around school libraries. That's why they're working now on convincing schools to hire more certified librarians. Last year, the state's school library association got a bill introduced in the state Assembly that would have paid half the salary of library media teachers. The bill died, but the assemblywoman who introduced it plans to do so again. This time the bill will focus on funding for low-performing schools, making the case that librarians can help them improve. If the bill passes, "we'll have to prove our worth," says Misakian. "I want to do that."--A. G.
