The Hole Truth

"People don't buy a quarter-inch drill bit because they want a quarter-inch drill bit," points out Doug Johnson, director of media and technology for the Mankato (MN) Area Public Schools. "They buy a quarter-inch drill bit because they want to create a quarter-inch hole." Similarly, board members and administrators aren't interested in good library media programs because they want good libraries. They're interested in libraries because they want students to read better, learn more, and improve achievement. What implications does this have for those of us who are library advocates?

First, it suggests that we should rethink the image of libraries that we're presenting to decision-makers. We should campaign for school libraries, as researcher Ross Todd, a professor at Rutgers University's School of Library and Information Science, has so nicely put it, as "knowledge spaces, not information places." After all, a school library's value isn't that it offers access to information. Students and teachers don't seek information for information's sake; they seek it to generate useful knowledge.

The notion that it's the hole we're after rather than the drill bit also suggests another idea that Todd neatly voices: when we advocate on behalf of school libraries, we should emphasize "connections, not collections." In other words, the value of a library's collection is that it's able to connect students and teachers to the information they are seeking.

Part of the difficulty with the educational process is that it often disaggregates, or artificially separates, reality in order to study its constituent parts in a more manageable form. That means that mathematics, chemistry, physics, biology, and other fundamental disciplines are disconnected and studied in isolation from one other—despite the fact that they are inextricably integrated in our daily lives. The best educators constantly struggle to emphasize connectivity. The library is the only place in the school where there is a confluence of all of the various disciplines. A librarian's stock in trade is making significant interdisciplinary connections, connections between learners and the knowledge that they are searching for.

Finally, focusing on the hole instead of the drill bit implies that librarians ought to strike a new stance when campaigning for additional school library funds and personnel. We should never state that the resources will be used to hire staff or purchase books, magazines, CD-ROMs, computers, and licenses without stating what those resources are needed for. Buying the drill bit buys the hole; buying resources buys improved student achievement. Unless library supporters take that tack, board members and administrators will continue to view libraries and librarians as an expense rather than as a necessary investment.

Make no mistake. Our efforts at championing school libraries and persuading others that librarians continue to play an essential role in the educational process will be challenged. This will be a difficult fight because we know from social psychology research that it's harder to change an existing concept and relationship than it is to create a new one. We'll need to bring persuasive research evidence into play and be prepared to communicate it often and in as many ways as we possibly can. The evidence is available. There's a good summary in the April 2000 issue of School Library Journal (see "Dick and Jane Go to the Head of the Class ," pp. 44–47).

It's important to keep in mind that legislators, board members, and administrators—like the rest of us—make decisions on the basis of perceptions. If our advocacy efforts misguidedly reinforce stereotypical perceptions of libraries and librarians, we may well lose ground instead of gaining it and find ourselves falling through a professional hole much bigger than a quarter-inch in diameter.