January 2000

Staff -- School Library Journal, 1/1/2000

A Debate Rages On

Dr. Swigger states, "Librarians won't save the world." I say, "Why not? I believe in the value of information." I'm writing in response to Dr. Keith Swigger's column ("Make Your Point," October 1999, p.47).

First, let me thank him for once again raising these important questions. It's healthy for any profession to respond to questions about its purpose and value. While some of the comments are accurate--school librarianship should be consistently "professionalized" through rigorous national education and certification programs at a Master's level--most of the rest of what Dr. Swigger says is absolutely wrong.

School librarians have no identity crisis. We have a widely accepted mission statement adopted by the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) over 10 years ago and recently reaffirmed in the new standards: "The mission of the library media program is to ensure that students and staff are effective users of ideas and information" (Information Power: Building Partnerships for Learning, ALA 1998).

School librarians fulfill this mission: by (1) providing a full range of essential services (including resources, access, reference and information service, and reading guidance and literature appreciation) and (2) teaching essential information and technology skills. School librarians don't choose between the two important functions of service and instruction but integrate both. As such, they work hard to improve their ability to deliver each one, through pre-service and continuing professional development, by taking advantage of the new technologies and expanding the reach of library programs in schools through collaboration with technology specialists, classroom teachers, and administrators.

Dr. Swigger states that a profession's legitimacy rests on three elements. In this respect, school library work meets all three: having mastered the essential skills of providing information services, building and managing physical and virtual libraries, and teaching information and technology skills, school librarians are increasingly able to meet the needs of students through delivery of services--including provision of resources and skills instruction. Meanwhile, the importance of library and information work in schools as well as the unique role of the school librarian are being acknowledged by the school and the broader community at large.

Finally, the article urges school librarians to "abandon zealotry and hyperbole," because information isn't life, or even power. Wrong. Information is essential to almost every endeavor in life--to learning, work activities, and recreation. Even football--something of great importance in [Swigger's home state] Texas--can be viewed as a contest of competing information systems.

Can we really believe that it makes no difference--in terms of success in school, business, public service, personal well being--whether or not a person is skilled in finding, evaluating, and using information?

Dr. Swigger states, "Librarians won't save the world." I say, "Why not?" I believe in the value of information for decision-making, learning, and helping people to achieve their aspirations. Furthermore, I believe that the full range of information skills (including the ability to define an information need, to select and access sources, to extract relevant information, to combine information to resolve the need, and to evaluate effec-tiveness and efficiency) are part of the new basics of K-12 education. I sometimes kid my friends in the medical profession that all they do is patch kids up so that we can do the really important work--to help them to develop their minds. There's nothing more important than what we do as school librarians, ensuring that students are effective users of ideas and information.

Mike Eisenberg
Director and Professor
School of Library and Information science
University of Washington, Seattle

Editor's Note: This is an edited version of an open letter distributed online.

In response to Keith Swigger's article: the school librarian is a unique individual, one who cannot afford the luxury of being a librarian first and only. We are the bridge that connects students with the information that can make a difference in their lives. I have been giving lessons this fall on information that teachers are also trying to teach, but I bring a different perspective. Teachers don't have regular access to the materials I handle on a regular basis. They cannot hope to match the volume of materials I choose to compare sources, and I have concentrated on a broad overview, while the teachers have gotten very specific. That's what collaboration is all about. It has been a great pleasure to coordinate my lessons with theirs. My role as a teacher is one that I take very seriously. Familiarity and love of books and other media is a part of it. If I couldn't teach and share my knowledge with the children, I wouldn't be in this field. I am not an academic who would be content living among my books. I want to reach out and instruct and motivate the kids to make a difference in their lives. Why should I be ashamed of that? If Dr. Swigger cannot accept that, then he is in the wrong field. I am where I should be. Information is power. Try getting anywhere without it.

Marcia Berbeza
library media specialist
Bayard Elementary School
Wilmington, DE

Thank you, Dr. Swigger! I was beginning to feel like the proverbial "Lone Ranger." As a school librarian on elementary, middle, and secondary levels since 1973, the frustrations attending this school of thought have been many.

The idea that school librarians should be teaching classes has ruined many a potentially effective library program. At one time, at least, the high-school library was run like a "real" library, but now even that is falling by the wayside. Librarians are being told that they must watch the "tardies," accept students when other teachers have put them out of class, and so on and so forth. Due to these and other similar situations, librarians have little or no time to be librarians. For me, a telling moment was when a supposed "professional" library publication began calling itself "Teacher-Librarian." Needless to say, our subscription was cancelled immediately.

I agree that until school librarians are ready to be librarians and not teachers, others' perception of the position will not change. We can only hope that a wake-up will occur among the members of the profession. Until then, some of us will still be considered uncooperative and stubborn because we want to be librarians and not teacher assistants. Thanks, Dr. Swigger, for stating the problem so well.

Judith K. Nador
Librarian, Vashon High School
St. Louis (MO) Public Schools

Vanishing Librarians

Brava, Renee Olson, (Editorial, November 1999, p.9) for calling attention to the fact that while the American Library Association (ALA) and, in my view, the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) are busy with tea party-like endeavors, such as the Sister Libraries project, school librarian positions are being cut in many school districts and the salaries of public librarians are insulting.

I am writing also because of the school library crisis in the school district of Philadelphia. We have the lowest per- pupil spending in the nation, at $5.97 per pupil. (This figure includes equipment and hardware for technology.) In the last seven years, 110 of our 180 elementary schools have cut the librarian position, and now that secondary librarians are no longer mandated by the state, cuts on the secondary level are beginning.

I fear that the crisis situation like the one in the school libraries in Philadelphia will become a national epidemic as school-based decision-making is adopted in more and more districts throughout the nation. Indeed, the November issue of School Library Journal (p.16) tells of the beginning of similar cuts in Cincinnati, now that site-based management has taken hold of that district. The experience and education of the majority of building level principals does not prepare them to make sound decisions about the school library program. As a certified principal myself, I have experienced the educational preparation of a school principal. The school library and best practices in education are not included in the readings or issues in the course work in most state principal certification programs. Ten percent of principals have an educational vision before they begin their programs and these few can see how essential the school library is to life-long learning. The remaining 90 percent can justify using the school budget to purchase an assistant or two to relieve their own workload; they see this as something of equal or greater value to a school librarian providing service to the children.

Because of the increased implementation of site-based decision-making and what that may mean to school library programs throughout the nation, I see the School Library Media Resources Bill  [legislation to increase federal funding to school libraries], as a lifeline. I would hope to find AASL in favor of this legislation, as I fear that with more site-based decision-making, more and more school library programs will be eliminated in the name of "school reform."

Debra Gniewek
Activity Manager, Library
Programs and Services
School District of Philadelphia
Philadelphia, PA 19103

Denying kids their subs

Thanks to Andrea Glick for writing in November about how some Cincinnati schools have eliminated their librarians. Her story, with mine, tell a sad tale of a school district that doesn't care about its library staff and of a school board that doesn't care about its students.

I am a laid-off, "long term sub" for one of Cincinnati's public school libraries who worked for over a year in the same place with no assistant and did everything a regular school librarian does, including: teaching 600 students weekly, automating the old-fashioned system, coordinating volunteers, hosting Scholastic book fairs, and bringing in guest speakers and musicians. I lost my job at the end of September 1999 and was not reassigned. The small group of classroom teachers who make up most of this elementary school's "leadership team" was told to make immediate cuts and decided to eliminate the librarian altogether. Glick paraphrases Assistant Superintendent Kathleen Ware: the only thing schools must have are teachers. Overlooking students and parents as essential components, Ware goes on to say that librarians are merely "support staff" for the classroom teachers, rather than teachers in their own right. No wonder many of my peers saw my role as serving them rather than the children. At least Ware was willing to speak to SLJ, unlike Superintendent Steven Adamowski's office, which referred calls elsewhere. Does this sound like a superintendent who accepts responsibility for his implemented programs, such as site-based management? Adamowski began his first full school year in fall 1998 with politician fervor and an exciting announcement of a spring 1999 school levy. But he postponed that until November 1999 and cut $20 million from the budget instead! Teachers, including librarians, were forced to leave their schools in mid-September 1999, and less than two months later the levy failed. Now the superintendent says he's going to cut another $20 million but promises it won't affect the students. This is a magic trick I'd like to see. Instead of intervening in September to save our libraries, the school board voted to extend the superintendent's contract through spring 2002. Apparently Adamowski, who made $100,000 more than I in our mutual rookie year, got good reviews from his union-busting friends. My only hope is that some day we look back and rectify the terrible mistake of denying our city's children the crucial library skills necessary to become productive citizens in our society.

Claire Reutter
Kovington, KY

Correction

Debbie Reese, who wrote "Authenticity & Sensitivity" (Up for Discussion, November 1999, p.36) contacted SLJ shortly after the article went to press to say she was "mortified" to have called Abraham Lincoln the 14th instead of the 16th President of the United States.