Editorial- What's Your Story?

"The fault lies not in the inadequacy of our budgets, not in the myopia of upper management, not in sexism… or restructuring, but in ourselves. What are we collectively guilty of? Missed opportunities, unfulfilled promises, unrealized potential, puny visions, and limiting dreams. Until we are ready to admit that, we are doomed to lament and bemoan our fate." The owner of the jarring comments above does not work in a school or public library serving young people. Yet the words, with their Shakespearean overtones, resonate sharply with school librarians on an eternal quest to gain the attention and respect of their administrators.

The words belong to Eugenie Prime, a leader in the field of corporate librarianship, who is not afraid to speak the truth even when it hurts. Her words were part of a rousing speech to nearly 5,000 colleagues at the 1997 Special Libraries Association's annual conference. But Prime might as well have been speaking to school librarians. "If we lack a fundamental certainty of who we are and what we are capable of doing, or what our real worth is, that uncertainty will leave us incapable of handling the complex changes of this Information Age," said Prime, who oversees Hewlett-Packard's corporate library operations worldwide. "To let others define us… and determine our possibilities is to place ourselves at their mercy."

Gary Hartzell, a professor in the University of Nebraska's department of educational administration, has talked for years to the profession about building influence with administrators by educating them. "You are engaged in impression management," says Hartzell, a former principal and school librarian. "Influence is perception. Redefine what you are and get them to see it."

A recent survey of 20 New York City principals to learn how they perceive the school library bore some surprising results. Conducted by Nancy Everhart, an associate professor in the library school at St. John's University, New York, and school library consultant Anita Strauss, the survey revealed that when gauging the library's success, principals were less interested in discussing budgets and looking at circulation figures than they were in making informal visits to the school library, examining student work, and checking test scores.

Show your impact. Tell your story, the library story, by demonstrating how your services and expertise help students become more discerning researchers, and how the information literacy skills you instill bolster student achievement. Being an advocate for your library is not enough, says Ross Todd, an associate professor at Rutgers University's department of library and information science. In fact, Todd says, school librarians "will not be heard until [their] day-to-day practice is directed toward demonstrating the real, tangible power of their contribution to the school's learning goals." Todd argues that this "evidence" or impact on student learning should be the "substance of your message."

Of the countless librarians I've interviewed over the years, the most dynamic had one prevailing trait in common: the keen ability to communicate to those in positions of power the value of the library and staff to its community of users. They show how results and outcomes matter.

Setting up the necessary parameters to assess your impact on student learning is a substantial commitment, with time being a scant resource among librarians who often run an entire school media center with a staff of one. However, creating assessment tools and gathering the evidence necessary to make your case compellingly, to tell your story, must now be considered as fundamental a responsibility as collection development, content evaluation, and information navigation. What's your story? It's time you told it.