Editorial- A Librarian at the White House

It's been great having a Librarian in the White House. Despite the Bush administration's justifiable fixation on terrorism to the exclusion of nearly everything else, Laura Bush's influence is already evident in the Bush Education initiative, with its focus on literacy and reading.

Now comes more good news courtesy of the First Lady: At a stop at the Topeka and Shawnee Public Library, KS, January 9, she announced a proposed $10 million in federal funds to recruit a new generation of librarians (see News ).

As encouraging as it is to hear that the federal government wants to invest money to help attract a new generation of intellectual talent to a library profession comprising predominantly graying Baby Boomers, that goal will never be achieved if the more discomfiting, overarching issue of the perception of librarians is not addressed. Without a strategic mechanism in place focusing on image-building and education, the profession will never be flush with the type of young, ardent, and talented minds that bolstered the library field during its boom years, the '60s and '70s.

The perception factor looms particularly large because it involves an acculturation process. Librarianship needs to transform its image, however inaccurately portrayed, from an oft-ignored, underestimated haven for introverts who are misunderstood and underpaid, to one that is dynamic and meaningful, whose members are fairly compensated and engender respect and appreciation. Perception is reality.

Consider that in 2000 the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) Interactive Edition's Job-Related Almanac ranked librarianship 245th out of a possible 250 jobs in its outlook section. The rewarding careers ranked ahead of library service? Guard, mail carrier, fisherman, forklift operator, and garbage collector, to name a few. Last I checked, none of these jobs required a master's level degree. If the Wall Street Journal views the field through such a discouraging prism, what are prospective students pondering career choices to think?

So how do we reverse the ugly trend? I propose the creation of a taskforce with a mandate to create initiatives that elevate the status of the profession, through education and marketing, so it receives the veneration and recognition it justly deserves. It would include an ambitious mix of members from all corners of the profession—library educators, practitioners from school, public, academic, and special libraries, school administrators, politicians, perhaps even patrons—and would have a multi-pronged mission:

• Creating local, state, and national awards culminated by an annual presentation at the White House celebrating a Librarian of the Year, similar to the Teacher of the Year ceremony that takes place every year in the Rose Garden.
• Working with media outlets to rectify inaccurate, damaging reports like those in theWSJ that completely undermine the profession's recruitment efforts.
• Organizing a state-by-state education and communication campaign to inform and educate states that continue to perpetuate policies justifying the baby-sitting of a school library by someone with clerk-level expertise. This campaign would also include marketing directed at teachers—both at their schools and at state conferences—to recruit them to the field as potential teacher-librarians.

Having Laura Bush in the White House, someone to help shape the administration's education and literacy initiatives, someone who is a highly visible and articulate advocate for the library profession, has already begun to pay substantial dividends. However, until we alter the overriding perception of librarianship, until we draw attention to the profession's viability, no amount of scholarship money will substantially alter the current troubling landscape. What better way to begin to elevate the status of librarians than by having the librarianin the White House recognize a librarianat the White House.