Letters

Weighing the pros and cons of a public vs. a school library career

I loved the mission and work of public libraries, and worked in them as a reference librarian and manager for over 15 years. With young school-age children, I finally gave up and transferred to the school system in my county. After four years, I'm making 66 percent more as a school librarian than I did in several public library management positions where I supervised large buildings and a sizable staff. Plus, I have much better benefits, long holidays, and summers off. I love my new job—but I worry about the overworked, underpaid staff at the public libraries I left behind. Your April 2004 article "Trading Places " (pp. 48–51) focuses on youth services librarians, but public librarians are poorly paid at almost all levels.

Moreover, in the last position I held, our staff was chronically overworked as they coped with our high turnover rate.

Kathryn Enniss
Librarian
Shamrock Middle School
Decatur, GA

As a librarian whose career went the other direction—from a school librarian to a public youth librarian—I was especially interested in the chart (p. 50) comparing the roles of school and public librarians in your "Trading Places " article. However, I took great exception to "no union dues" being listed as a so-called benefit of public librarianship. At Multnomah County Library, nonsupervisory librarians are members of the AFSCME union. Perhaps if the public librarians at the Prairie Trails Public Library were unionized, their pay would be higher. At Multnomah County Library, our starting librarians earn $41,000 a year with yearly increases for the first eight years of employment. This is directly related to our unionized contract negotiations. Anything paid out in union dues is returned three-fold in higher wages and benefits.

Naomi Angier
Librarian, Juvenile Justice Outreach
Multnomah County Library
Portland, OR

I read with more than a bit of consternation the article "Essential Software " in your February 2004 issue (pp. 56–58). The article lists 10 programs perfect for public libraries. While I respect Warren Buckleitner, I question his choice of titles for school libraries. The majority of the titles listed are simply edutainment and provide little if any educational quality. As a trained school librarian, I recognize the need to entice students with great software. However, I feel that there are many other titles other than the likes of The Powerpuff Girls that would be wiser additions to school library collections. Titles such as BrainCogs (Fablevision), The Kreative Komix Book Maker series (Visions Technology In Education), and Community Construction Kit (Tom Snyder Productions) to name a few.

As the educational software specialist for Lesley University and the chair of the Educational Software Preview Guide (ed.fnal.gov/espg), I evaluate hundreds of educational titles in the course of a year, and I would urge you to inform your readers of the wonderful educational software available.

Eileen Barnett
Director/Educational Software Coordinator
Lesley University
Instructional Computing
Cambridge, MA

I have always felt that protest letters from publishers or authors over bad reviews are ineffective. Over the years, I have had my share of negative reviews but have always restrained myself from responding, feeling that such protests are futile. But with Rosalyn Pierini's review of RiverWood's first children's book, My Secret Bully by Trudy Ludwig, illustrations by Abigail Marble (SLJ, Jan. p. 100), I feel compelled to reply to her negative comments, which are unfair and purely subjective in part and ridiculous in fact.

Ms. Pierini, after a fair description of the compelling story of the bullying of Monica by Katie, states: "A muddy palette, uninspired renderings of the characters, and a small typeface detract substantially from the appeal of this picture book." Ms. Marble's illustrations are in a style that may not be to Ms. Pierini's taste, but that is a rather subjective comment. Marble's watercolor paintings are highly emotional and draw the reader's attention to the inner turmoil and compassion reflected in the faces of the characters who are confronted with the relational aggression taking place in Ms. Ludwig's engaging story. As for the "small typeface," this is just an absurd comment. The font used is Berkeley at 14.5 point size. To give SLJ readers points of comparison, the typeface is larger than the type used in Chris Van Allsburg's The Polar Express and appears to my eye to be the same size typeface as used in Robert McCloskey's Make Way for Ducklings.

Steven Scholl, Publisher
White Cloud Press/RiverWood Books
Ashland, OR

The importance of the topic of bullying is fully recognized in my review. Evaluating illustrations is always a somewhat subjective proposition, but the artwork in this book does seem to lack child appeal from my perspective. Although the typeface is not inordinately small, the placement of several text-heavy passages makes it appear so. I concur that the story has a valuable message, but I feel it could have been better served by a stronger visual presentation.

Rosalyn Pierini
Children's Librarian
Nipomo (CA) Library

The Spring 2004 issue of Curriculum Connections omitted a credit for a third contributor to the "Instructional Resources & Professional Development Update ," pp. 67–68. The contributor, Liz Anderson, is a doctoral student at the University of Tennessee's College of Education, Health & Human Sciences.

The review of Diane Wolkstein's Sun Mother Wakes the World (HarperCollins, 2004; Apr., p. 144) mistakenly attributes the voice that Sun Mother hears to that of her father. What she hears is "a voice," which is not gender specific.

SLJ's biannual listing of paperback reprints of hardcover trade books published between January and June 2004, is now available on our Web site. The next listing features books published between July and December 2004 and will be posted in November.