Canada's School Libraries in Crisis

American media specialists who think they have it bad should take a look at their neighbors up north. School libraries have been on the decline in Canada for a few decades, where severe budget cuts have led to depleted collections, and a growing number of schools have shut media centers and eliminated librarians.

Just how dire is the situation? Only 10 percent of Ontario's elementary schools have full-time school librarians, compared to 42 percent 25 years ago, and the number of school librarians who work half time or more in Alberta has dropped from 550 to 106 since 1978. In British Columbia, inconsistencies in school-board funding have led to a huge gap in annual school library materials spending, ranging from 80 cents to $35 per student each year, says Ken Haycock, a librarian and professor at the University of British Columbia, who recently released the report The Crisis in Canada's School Libraries.

Media specialists in both countries continue to struggle to prove their relevance, but unlike Canada, the U.S. government allotted $12.5 million in FY 2002 and FY 2003 specifically for school libraries. Such funding is impossible in Canada because it is the "only industrialized Western country without a federal office of education," Haycock adds.

Haycock says Canada's school libraries are suffering because legislators don't recognize the direct link between media centers and student learning. As a result, school librarians and teachers of specialty classes are often the first on the chopping block, says Annie Kidder of People for Education, a national coalition that promotes school libraries.

Haycock's report, the first of its kind in Canada, synthesizes years of research by library experts such as Keith Lance of the University of Denver and James Baughman of Simmons College to prove that a well-stocked school library managed by a qualified librarian boosts student learning. The report asks Canada's Ministries of Education to develop school library standards and allocate specific funding for media centers, as well as establish a tenured track for school librarians.