It's Bleak, North of the Border
Almost every Canadian school has a library, yet the average budget is a mere $2,000
By Laura B. Weiss -- School Library Journal, 6/1/2005
Going north of the border does not improve the picture for school libraries. That's the finding of a recent report on Canadian school libraries, which found them woefully underfunded and poorly staffed.
While the overwhelming majority of schools have libraries (93.3 percent), the median expenditure on new library materials, such as books and magazines, during the 2003–2004 academic year, was a paltry $2,000, according to the study released May 4 by Statistics Canada, the Canadian federal government agency that gathers and analyzes statistics about the country.
That amount, the study concluded, would be sufficient to pay for just one set of encyclopedias. "I'm pleased the report has been done," says Don Butcher, executive director of the Canadian Library Association (CLA). Butcher says it is "important to find out what the real situation is" concerning school libraries.
But Butcher adds: "The results [of the study] are quite scary." "Solid action" by the provincial governments and local school boards is needed to remedy the problem, says Butcher. He is "optimistic" such action will occur because of the demonstrated importance of school librarians in helping to achieve school literacy goals. "Now we have evidence to make our case," he says.
In total, schools in the Canadian provinces spent $56.2 million to buy books, magazines, electronic equipment, and the like. Moreover, few Canadian schools employ a full-time school librarian. On average, each school employed .25 full-time school librarians, the study found. Staffs at secondary school libraries were roughly twice as large as at elementary schools, the report said.
But Gloria Hersak, copresident of the Canadian Association for School Libraries, a division of CLA, cautions that future library funding must also be accompanied by an acknowledgment of research findings supporting the impact of school libraries on student achievement.
