The Only Young School Librarian?

How did Smith end up in a career in which the average age is now 45? Convinced that she wanted to be an educator working with children, but afraid of being trapped teaching the same subject for decades, she turned to her university guidance counselor for advice in the fall of 2000. He suggested she consider becoming a library media specialist.

"I just laughed it off," recalls Smith, who at the time was a senior at St. Bonaventure University in upstate New York. "I thought about the stereotypical librarian: older woman with glasses and a bun. I didn't want to go into a profession where everyone was closer to my mom's age."

Few college graduates become media specialists because there aren't many prominent role models to dispel those ingrained stereotypes or to successfully advocate on behalf of the profession, says Smith, who admits that during her first semester at Buffalo University pursuing an MLS she was too embarrassed to reveal her career choice for fear of being labeled boring. But since becoming a media specialist at Naples (NY) Junior Senior High School last September, Smith says she "absolutely loves" her job because of the sheer variety it adds to her life as an educator. "I feel blessed that I had a professor who was on top of his game and pointed me in the right direction so that I could find such a great career at such a young age," she says.

Elizabeth DeYoung, a 24-year-old student at Simmons College's School of Library and Information Science in Boston, credits her dad for helping guide her career decision. DeYoung's father, a principal at the Dale Street School in Medfield, MA, was always a great supporter of his school librarian and often told his daughter that the media center was the "heart of the school." DeYoung, who graduates in May, already has a part-time job as a library assistant and is in the process of job hunting. Interestingly enough, two of her best friends from grammar school are also pursuing their masters in library science, one at Simmons and the other at Syracuse University.

Although Smith and DeYoung's stories are encouraging, they are rare exceptions: the fact is, not many 20-somethings choose school librarianship as a first career choice. Only 6.7 percent of the nation's 120,800 librarians are under 30 and just 13 percent are under 35, according to the American Library Association (ALA). And we're all too aware of the dismal statistics about the profession's aging population: 58 percent of professional librarians—some 66,470 of who are certified library media specialists—will reach 65, retirement age, between 2005 and 2019.

The situation is even more troubling when you examine recent trends in our nation's library schools. For instance, media specialist Sheila Gurtu was an anomaly when she graduated with an MLS from San Jose State University at the age of 25. Four years later, the problem still exists: of the 1,075 MLS students at San Jose who plan on becoming school librarians, none are under 25 and only one is between 25 and 30. At Indiana University's Indianapolis and Bloomington campuses, less than two percent of the 750 MLS students who are studying to become media specialists arrive straight out of college. Widespread school library budget cuts don't help either. Daniel Callison, executive associate dean at Indiana University's School of Library and Information Science, reports a 20 percent decline in media specialist job listings at Indiana University's career center.

What will it take to secure a generation of young school librarians? One effort is taking place at Simmons College, where the Graduate School of Library and Information Science has seen a dramatic spike in the number of students under 30. In an effort to attract younger blood, James Baughman, director of Simmons's School Library Teacher Program, convinced the Massachusetts Department of Education in 2001 to eliminate a requirement that school librarians also obtain classroom teaching certificates. Since then, the average age of incoming library students has dropped by four years; some 36 percent of Simmons's students who intend to become school librarians are under 30 and 11 percent are under 25. "This established school librarianship as a profession in its own right and reduced the time and money needed to get another teaching degree," Baughman says. The university has also added additional classes to its curriculum specifically geared to future K–12 librarians.

The Indiana Department of Education is hoping to attract student interest at the high school level. As part of a recruitment effort called "We've Got a Secret and We Want to Share It," more than 280 high school counselors in Marion County have been invited to a May luncheon in the hope that they will promote school librarianship to students at career fairs and in casual conversation, says Connie Champlin, a project consultant with the state Department of Education. "We have to begin selling this vision early," Champlin says. "A third grader isn't going to be a fireman either, but at least there's an awareness that it can be a career. We'll lose a whole group of kids if they don't see being a school librarian as a possibility."

The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) is also pumping up its efforts. In January, AASL, a division of ALA, launched Job Shadow, a yearlong recruitment effort that gives students a chance to "shadow" a mentor in the workplace, and an ongoing "@ your library" campaign, sponsored by ALA, has helped to increase awareness and support for school libraries nationwide. The purpose of these programs is to make the job more accessible to young people, says Julie Walker, AASL's executive director. "The best recruitment tool is one-on-one interaction," she says. "We've been doing a good job of selling the need for a school library media specialist, and it would be terrible if we couldn't fulfill the promise of putting a body in there."

There's also been a rising number of promising outreach programs. Mansfield University in Pennsylvania offers the nation's only Web-based Masters of Education degree in School Library and Information Technologies solely devoted to training school librarians (see April 2002, "The First All-Virtual Library School , pp. 54–56). And the Maryland State Department of Education, in partnership with the University of Maryland College Park, has a project to recruit and train school librarians by establishing professional development schools in two Prince George's County high schools with model school library media programs.

But much more still needs to be done. Many educators, including Gary Hartzell, professor of educational administration at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, think it's time for a complete public relations overhaul of the profession. "Librarians need to reshape the perceptions other educators, school board members, and legislators have of libraries and librarians," he says. "Until that happens, status, priority funding, and support will continue to elude them." Gone are the days of passive school librarians; today's media specialists are active "master-level teachers" who want to take a leadership role in education, adds Callison. The message needs to get out that school librarians aren't staid old ladies who sit at desks and stamp due dates in books. "They help kids define what their information needs are, [show them] how to use and evaluate that information, and [help them] to organize it in a way that creates new knowledge," says Bob Berkowitz, co-author of the Big6 approach to teaching. "That's exciting stuff. You really are the ultimate teacher." Berkowitz advocates embarking on a new marketing campaign that includes more nationwide seminars about the impact of school librarians on improving student learning and stepping up recruitment at graduate and undergraduate schools of education. Most important, he says, is strengthening the links between library schools and schools of education.

School librarians also need to strut their stuff—something that doesn't come naturally for some media specialists. Practicing media specialists make ideal spokespeople for their profession, says Robert Martin, director of the federally funded Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). "The single most important way to improve recruitment is if every outstanding school librarian showed young people why this is an exciting and viable career option," Martin says. To that end, Smith, the young librarian at Naples Junior Senior High School, has already assumed the role of one of the profession's new messengers, telling her high school students about the excitement and satisfaction her job brings. She hopes to create a recruitment video to distribute to university career centers and eventually wants to apply for an IMLS grant to specifically help attract young people to the profession. Thanks to Laura Bush's White House conference on school libraries last year, IMLS recently secured $10 million in FY 2003 specifically to educate and train librarians, and that number may rise to $20 million next year.

Although school librarians' salaries are commensurate with those of teachers, low pay is another big reason why so many young people overlook careers as media specialists. "When you're in college and you close your eyes and think about your future, librarian doesn't pop up as a career choice," says Jim Matarazzo, dean of Simmons College's School of Library and Information Science. "Teaching is a calling, just like the ministry, and they're not highly paid professions."

Many disagree on whether teaching certificates for media specialists should be eliminated. Although Jo Ellen Priest Misakian, director of the school library media program at Fresno Pacific University, doesn't require incoming students to have three years of teaching experience, she strongly recommends it. "The successful classroom teacher usually makes the best library media teacher," she says "However, I think that this requirement may preclude some young teachers from entering the profession. Unless there is a good chance at employment in a library media center, they are reluctant to begin a program that is both rigorous and expensive."

Gurtu, the MLS graduate from San Jose University, says her teaching degree was invaluable because it provided training in areas that aren't covered in library school. While Callison supports efforts to attract energetic 20-somethings to the profession, he cautions that they also lack the teaching experience and record of classroom collaboration that older MLS applicants bring with them. Indiana University prefers students in their late 20s to early 30s who have at least three to five years' experience in the field.

Tiffany Michaud falls into that category. Michaud, who's in her mid-30s, spent the last 12 years as a teacher before deciding to pursue an MLS at the University of South Florida in Tampa. Her salary will increase by $2,900 once she earns her degree, but money wasn't a factor in her decision. "What interests me is how I can have an influence on the entire school. That's the hook," says Michaud, who is a technology coordinator and teacher at Xavier Cannella Elementary in Tampa. "I'll have an impact not just on 33 fourth graders but on 915 students in the whole school."

What advice does Michaud have for attracting younger crowds into the profession? Media specialists need to engage in one-on-one outreach efforts by developing more personal relationships with students, faculty, and their communities. And that means speaking at university career centers and making sure education schools mandate library science courses as core class requirements. "I would have started earlier if I had known the influence you can have from the media center," she says.