AASL Boosts Librarian Role

New brochure says librarians play critical part in NCLB

By Lauren Barack -- School Library Journal, 1/1/2005

If you're suddenly getting more attention from your administrator, you may want to thank the American Association of School Librarians (AASL), which recently mailed 78,000 brochures to elementary and middle school principals explaining the importance of media specialists in meeting the strict requirements of No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

"This is about grassroots advocacy," says Julie Walker, AASL's executive director. "We can work at the national level, but this has to begin at the building level with principals, school board members, and teachers."

The five-page pamphlet, "Your School Library Media Program and No Child Left Behind," makes a convincing case that librarians are a "powerful ally" because schools with well-stocked libraries led by certified librarians lead to higher test scores. "Good library programs bolster the efforts of the classroom teacher and reading teacher whose responsibility it is to teach students how to read by helping students want to read," it says.

The brochure also explains that media specialists design information literacy units that are tied to the classroom curriculum and help students use information in meaningful and memorable ways.

According to the document, library media specialists also teach children ways to use information technology skills to answer questions and solve problems, thus helping schools meet NCLB's requirement that students be technology literate by the eighth grade.

"This helps principals see that traditional and emerging roles have always been a goal for school librarians," Walker adds. "And our goal at AASL is to get these [brochures] in the hands of people who need them."

AASL also sent copies of the brochure to 10,000 of its members nationwide. Copies can be downloaded from the association's Web site (www.ala.org/ala/aaslbucket/aaslnclbbrochure.htm) or purchased in packages of 25 for $8.