Comments on: The Disappearing DC School Librarians

By: library_yeti

library_yeti — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 17:26:15 +0000

I can’t wait to hear about the lack of critical thinking skills exhibited by college students on the east coast a few years from now. Many of them may end up at unaccredited colleges or predatory for-profit institutions as a result of their lack of savvy. Let the games begin. Too bad the subjects of this sad experiment have to suffer.

By: Library Spinster

Library Spinster — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 19:04:32 +0000

“Maybe the schools that don’t have libraries could partner with their local public library.”

I can tell you how that works in Philadelphia. No heads up of any kind. We find out every kid in 8th grade has to read such and such a book when they come in, one at a time. Doable when there are a lot of copies in the system, not so much when the system only owns a handful.

By: Randal Powell

Randal Powell — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 08:33:01 +0000

I’m amused that the AASL falls back on “research and internet instruction” as their core competency. How much focus has “research and internet instruction” gotten from them in the past? Are the ALA/AASL approved school media programs — that train and assess future licensed school librarians — primarily focused on turning out people good at research and internet instruction? I think that the AASL would have been well advised to have been clearly focusing on that, and advocating for that, but they have not been, and it’s a bit late in the game now.

By: Baxtyre

Baxtyre — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 15:25:34 +0000

Maybe the schools that don’t have libraries could partner with their local public library. They could pay the DC library system some amount of money, but far less than they would have to pay to hire their own librarian and build their own collection, and then have a public librarian come to the school with books some number of days per week.

A public library in my area has basically taken over the local public school libraries and it’s been working out pretty well. Yes, in an ideal world every school could have a wonderful library, but we live in reality where money, especially in poorer urban areas, is limited.

By: Dan Kleinman of SafeLibraries

Dan Kleinman of SafeLibraries — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 01:56:10 +0000

Then there’s the school librarian in NJ who actually admitted in the NJ Education Association’s monthly magazine that books can be so racy that she cannot bring herself to read them, so she has her students do that for her. See “School Media Specialist Passes Sexual Content Review to Students; Dee Venuto Says It Is Discrimination to Keep Children From Material Including Lengthy, Vivid Descriptions of a Ménage a Trois” at the link under my name.

By: Diane Roberts

Diane Roberts — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 18:41:21 +0000

Hey, AL, we’re trying what you suggested here in Houston! ….or at least half of it. The local Jesuit high school has let their librarian go – it’s one of the better private (privileged for the most part) schools in town. Of course the resources freed up won’t go to poor areas of town, but you have to start somewhere.

I don’t know about the numbers of school librarians in Houston compared to DC, but the number of school librarians, public and private, here as definitely been going down. I just retired from a private high school and was replaced with a part-timer. Another private secondary school that once had 1.6 librarians went from one last year, to a single part-timer this year.

Not a profession with much of a future around here.

By: anonymous

anonymous — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 17:03:49 +0000

The question isn’t whether a librarian will be the equalizer in the poor school vs. rich school debate. That’s a red herring. The question is whether the students will do better with a librarian, working in partnership with classroom teachers, than they would otherwise, all other things being equal. Most of the research seems to indicate that they will.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 13:19:00 +0000

On the flip side of Joey’s experience my middle school librarian taught a nine week library class to every grade level where we were taught everything to do with using the library. I didn’t think much of it until I got to college and got into an English class where one day was devoted to a crash course at the university library on how to use library resources.

Everyone else in the class had no idea what they were doing going into it. The stuff they covered was mostly review for me. There was a bit of a lag between the instruction and the payoff, but that school librarian definitely made a difference in my education.

Of course they replaced her with an Teacher’s Assistant when she retired a few years back and they don’t teach the library class anymore as far as I know. Budget cuts and all that. So I guess it doesn’t matter whether or not you’re effective as long as you’re a convenient line item to be eliminated.

By: Joey

Joey — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 12:50:28 +0000

I was somewhat friends with the old librarian at my high school. She was very knowledgeable, but honest had no role whatsoever in the high school’s non-existent “basic research and internet skills” curriculum. She was essentially a book-purchasing consultant and book checking-in and checking-out manager who spent most of her day trying to keep idiot high school students from doing idiot high school student things and trying to order only enough manga to placate those who demanded it.