In SLJ for the Month of May
By Lillian N. Gerhardt, Editor-in-Chief -- School Library Journal, 5/1/1997
This is an issue of School Library Journal you can use to help explain how you support literacy to people who don't know about library work with young readers.
Our lead article is a success story. When or if you ever need to describe the essential difference that a dynamic elementary school library program can make to the support of early literacy and effective teaching, whip out Susan Dowling's article about the transformation of Brooklyn's P.S. 3 and its library.
Time was when the elementary school libraries of New York City and its boroughs were prize-winning exemplars to the nation. As with many major cities, the severe economic recession of the mid-'70s resulted in education budget slashes that were never regained and the withdrawal of school library services for the youngest children. That these cuts were pennywise and pound foolish is slowly but surely dawning on school administrators and boards of education, especially in those districts that seized the opportunity to demonstrate Library Power through the funds made available by the DeWitt Wallace-Reader's Digest Foundation and the assistance of the American Association of School Librarians (AASL).
There has been no steady flow of reports on these projects from either the foundation or AASL, but the successful recreation of elementary school libraries in inner-city schools are stories that need to be told far beyond city limits.
That need to tell our stories about the positive difference that effective library service can make toward creating a "Nation of Readers" is always with us; for those inside our tribe as well as to the general public. For instance, I have a favorite library school professor of whom I am ever respectful and genuinely fond despite the fact that she always tells me at national conferences: "I don't know what it is you people actually do with children in libraries. What do you mean when you say you promote reading?" (She must be a barrel of fun for the children's literature professor at faculty meetings.) Anyway, I send her articles whether she reads them or not.
This month, I'm going to send her "Iowa City Reads." Jean Donham van Deusen and Mary Jo Langhorne describe an annual event that has their whole town talking about books, libraries, and life-long learning. Their promotion of reading is hard work, good politics, and carries great, measurable results for student reading scores. I'm going to append this note: "The authors make it sound like fun, but please don't hold that against them. They are really as serious as your dissertation."
The fact that a serious educational purpose can be served in a library program that children actively enjoy makes these activities suspect to adults who have forgotten (if they ever knew) that there is joy in learning through reading. Donna Beale's "Lords of the Library" should convince the most unimaginative that reading, doing, learning, and enjoying fit together.
Don't miss Pat Manning on "When Less is More." Nothing is more shocking about library work to outsiders than the fact that librarians must throw away books. Even some librarians grow faint at the thought. It's an amusing, persuasive introduction to how and why librarians cultivate a healthy library collection.
SLJ's news section tells you about how National Library Week's slogan, "Kids Connect the Library," turned into a bad joke as public libraries across the country pulled computer plugs, installed filters, or imposed computer access restraints on young library customers. SLJ's editors urge you to use these articles and columns to tell the world what else youth services librarians do beyond porn patrol on the gutters of the over-hyped Internet.
Renée Olson
Editor-in-Chief
rolson@slj.cahners.com
