Comments on: Maybe It’s the Teachers

By: Googler

Googler — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 06:34:10 +0000

The reason school librarians are being cut is because teachers are promoting Wikipedia and other Internet sources. They only care about the kids passing some test so they don’t really care where the kids get the info, just so long as they have some.

Plus, if the librarians are gone, there is more cake left in the staff lounge and they can work on the size of their backsides.

The revolution is coming but will not be reported.

Why?

The revolutionaries will not know how to write down their experiences.

By: Kaylin

Kaylin — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 22:41:18 +0000

AL, thank you for taking the time to respond! I’m not a school librarian myself, and I appreciated the second look at the topic – thanks for playing “devil’s advocate”. Looking at the other comments on this and the previous post, maybe I’m just a starry eyed new librarian amidst an experienced and somewhat jaded crowd… but I retain my optimism!

Maybe it IS the teachers – I know when I was in middle school I was thrilled when it was time to visit the school library (we went every week and it felt like a special occasion) but by the time I got to high school, my teachers made research seem like a dull chore that must be labored through at, sigh, the library. If I didn’t already have a well-cemented adoration of libraries and all things books, I may well have ended up considering the library a place to be avoided. Perhaps if teachers and school librarians found a bit more mutual benefit and encouraged students to go, we wouldn’t be seen as dispensable.

By: SchLib

SchLib — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 21:46:08 +0000

The reason school librarians are cut first is because when it comes right down to it librarians only see a portion of the students each day. Teachers are more “valuable” because they have to be in the room with 30 kids for the bulk of the day. Same thing with art, music, foreign language teachers, etc. It has nothing to do with the value of the position, and everything to do with containing the kids from bell to bell.

By: DLJ

DLJ — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 16:25:29 +0000

I have a hard time believing that the school librarian would be doing anything any different than the teachers are. That is, if the goal of the public school is to turn out students who embrace Marxism, the entitlement mentality, unbounded self-esteem, etc. then the librarians are probably selecting resources which promote these things, and they are directing students to online resources which promote these things. I expect any public school librarian who worked counter to what the teachers were doing would find themselves without a job, and that not because of budget cuts.

By: Verbatim

Verbatim — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 15:06:16 +0000

Meh, I don’t know. I posted on the other topic and mentioned that I am a school librarian (high school) in a boarding school. This is an elite school that accepts about 17% of applicants and sends most graduates to Ivy League and Little Ivy schools, so I guess my experience is quite a lot different from that of a public school librarian. But we teach real research skills for pretty in-depth research the kids do, and our technical services department is similar to that of a liberal arts college library’s TS dept.. Our library is a separate, large, free-standing building. Meh… I guess I do have a raw deal. No summers off, virtually no federal holidays off, and a salary a lot lower than that of most public school librarians (and no free housing either! unlike the faculty here….) I guess the one thing I do have is that I’m not totally humiliated to admit what I do for a job (beyond the general embarrassment of being a librarian.) I usually consider myself to be an academic librarian. But SOME school librarians do real work!

By: Father of Two

Father of Two — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 13:15:51 +0000

My two kids, both in AP classes, and are no dummies by any means (they take after mom, thank goodness) tell me that all their school librarian helps them with is how to click the Ebsco link and how to use Easy Cite. She and her assistant both have their MLS’s and have union protection.

If I double my humble salary, I can almost reach one of theirs.

You wonder why their jobs in general are in trouble?

Get a clue.

P.S. I liked the previous AL better.

By: Jesus

Jesus — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 12:37:46 +0000

The fact is that Librarians aren’t really that helpful in high school unless you are actually an avid reader or are taking AP classes…

I mean I never asked any librarian for help until my senior year because it was only till then that I needed to conduct research… research from books and not on the internet.