ALA Midwinter: Funding, Advocacy, Tech

AASL calls for reclassification of school librarians as instructional staff

By Debra Lau Whelan -- School Library Journal, 3/1/2006

Almost everyone was buzzing about the “65 percent solution” at the American Library Association’s (ALA) midwinter meeting in San Antonio, TX, from January 20–25. The movement, led by the group First Class Education, wants to ensure that every school district spends at least 65 percent of its operating budget on “in-classroom instruction”. But school librarians don’t fall under the definition of classroom instruction and risk losing crucial funding.

The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) endorsed a resolution on January 22, calling on the National Center for Education Statistics to classify school librarians as instructional staff and to recognize the impact of certified media specialists on student achievement.

AASL also hosted a question-and-answer session with Irene Harwarth, team leader of the U.S. Department of Education’s (DOE) Improving Literacy Through School Libraries program. The focus was on the government’s new application process for federal education grants, which are now available at www.grants.gov. “The purpose was to caution potential grantees that use of the Web site requires preregistration and that their previous registration with the DOE is no longer valid,” says AASL Executive Director Julie Walker.

Meanwhile, the Association of Library Service to Children (ALSC) unveiled a new advocacy program, “KIDS! @ your library,” to encourage children, parents, and caregivers to use the public library. The program will provide helpful tips, downloadable art, and tools to help libraries market their services. ALSC also announced its annual National Institute, a professional development program that will take place September 14–16, at the Hilton Pittsburgh. This year’s three-day event, “Children’s Services Today and Tomorrow,” will focus on new technology, ways to raise patron awareness of library services, and how to arrange author/illustrator visits.

The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) launched a new blog at midwinter to make the gathering more accessible to its members. The blog will continue to operate with news and information on YALSA’s homepage at www.ala.org/yalsa. Current topics on the blog include technology, teen advisory groups, the division’s 2006 award-winning books, and YALSA’s programs at ALA’s annual conference.

YALSA also hosted two events, Teens & Technology and Video Gaming Night. The goal of both gatherings was to familiarize librarians and library workers with the different technologies teens use so that librarians can incorporate them in their teen programming and services, says YALSA Executive Director Beth Yoke.

A YALSA taskforce is proposing the creation of an audiobooks award, Yoke adds. If approved at ALA’s annual conference in New Orleans in June, the award would be given beginning in 2008.

Total attendance at this year’s midwinter meeting was 11,084, slightly down from last year’s total of 13,232 in Boston.