Wild About Reading

It's inconceivable to think of Mary Lankford's life apart from libraries. By the time the Texas native was in fourth grade, she was already itching to become a librarian. Since then, Lankford has spent more than 40 years developing school library programs in Delaware, Georgia, New Mexico, and Texas. As the Irving Independent School District's first director of library and media services—a position she held for 30 years—Lankford received the 1984 Texas Association of School Librarians Distinguished Library Service Award for School Administrators, building a program that has twice been named Media Program of the Year by the American Association of School Librarians. Along the way, she has also been a prolific author, contributing reviews and writing books for both children and adults on topics as down-to-earth as hopscotch and as innovative as the use of film and video in the classroom.

Since 1999, Lankford has been program administrator for the Texas Education Agency's Division of Instructional Technology, helping to establish statewide standards for librarians. Now 69, she is the most recent winner of the Grolier Award, given by the American Library Association for an "unusual contribution to the stimulation and guidance of reading by children and young people." She spoke to us from Austin, TX, where she lives.

You've always emphasized the importance of reading in children's lives. Where did that belief originate?

I was fortunate enough to go to an elementary school that had a librarian. It was a school that they called a "demonstration school" at that time, connected with the University of North Texas. We had all kinds of student teachers who were helping our teacher. We had special art and music [classes], and a librarian and a library, which, in that era, most schools did not have, in Texas anyway.

I had teachers who read to me constantly. I had a mother and father who read aloud constantly. We listened to my dad reading the newspaper at the breakfast and the dinner table, whether we wanted to hear it or not. So I was immersed in good books, good reading. I want every child to have that joy that I still have about books.

How did you discover your vocational calling?

The librarian at that lab school had so many people going through library school at North Texas, she didn't need any helpers. [But] she let me help. I've said many times, I chose the career of librarianship because the library smelled so good. In that era, there were no plastic covers for books, and [the librarian, Virginia Clark] shellacked the covers of all the books. I can still see them sitting in the window drying. She put a little black stripe on the spine of the book to stencil the white call number on. Every time you went in that library, it just smelled wonderful.

So that was one of the reasons [I became a librarian]. That, and the love of books. As a child, I was never restricted to any one part of the library or not [permitted] to read certain books. I can remember being fascinated with prisons, and she had several books on prisons. I didn't know anybody in prison. But I could choose any book I wanted, and I loved that. I had made up my mind in the fourth grade that I wanted to be a librarian.

Over the years, you haven't been afraid to stand up for librarians. Can you share an example of that?

In New Mexico, I was a librarian in a K–8 school. It was a brand-new library. I helped set it up. We lived exactly across the street; it took me two minutes to be in the school. I would go over there early, and we had kids in the library before school. The principal, who later became a very good friend of mine, came marching in one day and said, "You're supposed to be out on playground duty." I said, "No, librarians don't do playground duty. We are in here with the children helping them with books." And I said, "You'll have to find somebody else to do the playground duty."

[The principal] was a very tall, striking blonde. She drew herself up and said, "Everyone does playground duty." And I said, "Except for me." She saw what was going on in [the library] and recognized that it was a better place for me [to spend my time].

Do you see collaboration as a top priority for school librarians?

Collaboration is the key that must be in place to demonstrate that all of the library media center's other most essential elements—reading literacy, enhancing learning through technology, and information literacy—fit together. The "spiral" of collaboration includes parents, administrators, professional and clerical staff, as well as other institutions. Collaboration doesn't just happen. You don't "find" collaboration as some folks "find" Jesus. It takes work, time, planning, knowledge. I liken the process to climbing a long, never-ending series of steps. Those who recognize that the stairs are leading to something wonderful are building library programs for the next century. Those who think the steps are too steep or are waiting for collaboration to come bounding down those stairs are setting themselves up for disappointment.

Are you satisfied with the role of the school library in your home state?

The thing that I think is missing in the equation here in Texas is the lack of focus on school libraries. You learn to read by reading, I'm firmly convinced, and it's not always out of a textbook. I would like to see more emphasis on the library part of it so that the classroom teacher and the librarian are linking that skill that they learn in the classroom of words and word-attack skills to the joy of the books that we have in the library. I think that you can create this ability in every child to read.

Sometimes, though, in a classroom, I'm afraid we drill and kill. If you have to "Dah" and "Pah" for every phonetic thing, why would you want to use that in reading? The reading, the joy of it, comes from not beating everybody over the head with phonics. I think a real good example is the dinosaur books. Those little kindergarten kids can pronounce those [difficult] words; they know what they mean, and nobody has had to [compile a special] list of those words. That's a real good example of [how young children] have found an interest and they have managed to understand it.

You seem passionate about wanting to share the joy of reading.

I can't imagine not reading. I was on an airplane going from Dallas to New York and the girl who sat down next to me—she was a pretty young girl in her twenties—didn't have anything in her hands to read. She didn't have a headset on, listening to music. She just sat for that entire trip. I just couldn't imagine [doing that]. I get on an airplane, and I enter my [own] world; I'm reading and it's uninterrupted—no phones. I love that time to read. And I always have a book in the car. In case I get stopped in a traffic tie-up, I've got something to read.

Modeling is the strongest teacher. If a teacher is excited about books, reads aloud daily to the students, and just fills that room with books and talks about the library, I think that enthusiasm is catching. But when [reading] becomes drudgery to the teacher, I would like to see a teacher put down her book reluctantly and say, "Okay, class, I've got to stop reading. We've got to talk about math or something [else]." I've told many principals, "You should never walk down the hall of a school unless you have a book in your hand."