Third Colorado Study in the Works
By Debra Lau Whelan -- School Library Journal, 3/15/2007
Keep an eye out for one more Colorado Study, the third in a series of studies by the Library Research Service (LRS), which proves that school libraries have a direct link to student achievement. This time, however, the research will be led by Nicolle Steffen, who replaced Keith Curry Lance as director of LRS on March 1.
Lance recently retired from LRS, a unit of the Colorado State Library and the Colorado Department of Education, after 20 years. While at LRS, he gained nationwide recognition for documenting that media centers help students perform better on standardized tests.
While Lance’s 1993 and 2000 Colorado studies focused on general reading scores, CO3, as the latest study has been dubbed, will be “zeroing in on specific standards related to information literacy,” Steffen says. “The CO3 study will be examining the relationship between school libraries and student achievement, as demonstrated by specific Colorado Student Assessment Program items in the reading content standards.” No release date or further details are available at this time..
An associate director at LRS since 2001, Steffen says she’ll “definitely continue what I call the LRS “Trinity” of meaningful, useful, and obtainable statistics,” which includes school libraries. “School libraries are important in Colorado's and the nation's educational offerings,” Steffen says. “[And] the Library Research Service has a long history of measuring the impact of school libraries on student achievement.”
Steffen, who previously worked in the interlibrary loan department at Regis University’s Dayton Memorial Library, says her special research interests include library workforce issues like the graying of the profession, diversity in librarianship, and the projected shortage of librarians. She also plans to continue research about family and early literacy issues.
She received her MLS from the University of Denver and her Bachelor’s degree in business administration and marketing from Metropolitan State College of Denver. She is a member of the American Library Association, the Colorado Association of Libraries, and the Special Libraries Association. For more information, visit www.lrs.org.--Debra Lau Whelan
