More than just a pretty face....

and other observations on school libraries and teacher-librarianship

School Libraries in Canada, v.19(4) 2000 pg 32

Let it be. We are in trouble. 

I spend too much time trying to rethink this thing we call the school library.  I am deeply concerned that we (the school library devotees) have discovered that many of the self-evident truths we held about our opportunity to do good in the schools will be meaningless when then are few of us left.  We appear to be casualties of the information flood at the very time when the schools are asking more from people like us.  It is as if we found our way in the late 80’s only to be challenged in the 90’s with changes that pitted us against machines.

We can keep on demonstrating how terrific we are, how important we can be, how glorious is our mission, but if there are few of us trained to accomplish those incredible objectives, the theories will become simply that - not blueprints for educational change or revitalization.  There are very few new teacher-librarians.  there are very few being trained for this role right now.  There are very few universities offering programs for their preparation.  Even if we were able to sell the grand design, there would be few who could take up the torch and hold it high given the limited capacity of the field to prepare new devotees.

I have become convinced that the NEW school library will have to be a completely different entity than the one we espouse so vigorously through our writing, research and collective advocacy.  If we are to continue trying to infiltrate the system rather than becoming integral to it, we are doomed to depending on the notions of our managers.  That is no way to build a profession. 

Let me use two stories to amplify my concerns:

I recently asked a new Director of Instruction  in a local board to assist me in finding teachers willing to consider teacher-librarianship courses.  He advised me that he believed that clerical people could provide the services he expected from the school library.

I was visiting a junior high school library nearby before Christmas.  I learned form the resident teacher-librarian about the usual problems; money, support and time.  And I saw the nest of older Macintoshes that I did not believe could connect to the Web. (They could but barely.)   I also saw the incredible posters that had developed out of a social studies program, and I met several of the students who proudly identified themselves with this fine library program.  I glimpsed the “information” power this teacher-librarian  had over her students and her school and the pleasure it gave her to perform.  Just as I was about to leave, four girls arrived at the entrance and quietly (politely) waited for the librarian to shift her attention from me to them.  When I suggested that they were waiting for her, she advised that they were the “Harry Potter” bunch and could wait for her.  These students were lined up waiting for returned-reserved copies of the latest Harry Potter books.  These four girls (From 13-15) were patently waiting for a copy of a book!

So I have four players in my little drama.  There is me - the isolated “expert” out of synch with the real world trying to come to grips with a diminished dream.   There is the Director of Instruction who is using his experience to direct his priorities. There is the teacher-librarian providing vital services to her school well beyond the expectations of a clerical position, and, there are the four girls waiting for the Harry Potter books.  Then wrap all those stories with the evidence that we have no immediate hope of creating the teacher-librarians that we will need if we were able to create a climate in which they would be engaged in schools. 

Could it be that in our haste to embrace all the new stuff - computers and CD-ROMs and the Internet- that we have lost sight of the first mandate for this notion: feeding and nurturing reading in the school and in the lives of children and young adults?  Few schools are able to find the resources to meet the demands of the curriculum let alone the personal demands of kids who demand the latest Harry Potter.  I asked the teacher-librarian in that junior high school how many copies she had to meet this incredible demand.  She had three copies of each title.  This is for a school serving over 500 kids.  How many should she buy?  Should she buy more?  Can she meet the general reading needs of her school?

I am left in all this with my usual confounding observations as I search for a renewed mission for this program :

If we are going to convince educators that we are integral to the learning laboratories we call schools, then we must have ALL the required resources to meet the needs of those learners. We cannot pretend to meet those manifold needs with tiny “what’s left” budget allocations.  We must sit down and determine what we must have to meet student (and teacher) needs and how much they will cost. Then the whole enterprize must come together to demand the necessary resources.  We must end this notion that the school library can be sustained by volunteers and charitable donations and school fund raising ventures.  If this thing is important then the money must be provided from public funding sources.

We cannot stage advocacy campaigns directed to teachers and parents and administrators if they are incapable of taking “political action” to achieve those ends.  Why do we believe that the teacher-librarian should sell the school library?  Surely the school library must be integral to the school and its program or it is merely nice.  Nice is not important.

We are identified with reading.  Any new definition of our role and function must acknowledge that the teacher-librarian will be one of the catalysts that will stimulate and advance reading for pleasure and for information.

We must embrace the technology.  It is just too important to leave to someone else.  we can make it work for learning.  We can find ways to change the way in which teachers teach.  We just need time and money and vision and the profound sense that others think we are important players in the processes.

I recent learned about a shrine in Japan that is destroyed every 20 years and rebuilt by its devotees.  They are unwilling to let it be.  It has to be a new part of everyone’s life. 

Could it be that the school library has to be threatened and even destroyed before it can be rebuilt?  Would your school build a better library if your library was destroyed?  On the other hand, would anyone notice?


Donald Hamilton