Elementary Librarians Preparing for the Future? March 31, 2007
Posted by sbrisco in : Hot Topics , trackbackA recent question posed on LM_NET asked whether elementary library positions are being cut back to part-time or if elementary librarians are in such a vicious cycle of being so tied down to a rigorous fixed schedule that they are, in essence, being killed because they have not been given the opportunity to change as other levels of the K-12 library program.
While it may be true that “some” elementary library programs provide flexible or fixed-flexible schedules that allow for a more dynamic library environment, it is more likely that elementary libraries and librarians are still being held to the types of programming that were in place during the “pre-Information Power Standards” era (which began in 1988 with the publication of “Information Power”, ALA). Before “Information Power” was published, elementary libraries were a part of a rotation of special classes that included other subjects such as art, music, physical education, band, etc. As a result, students were ushered systematically into the library based upon a specific day and time during the week and “library lessons” were taught in isolation. Although no grades were given, it was expected that the librarian would provide “crowd control” for a certain amount of time in order to allow teachers to have a planning period (and possibly, some peace and quiet).
Today, many middle, junior high, and high school libraries provide students and teachers the opportunity to visit the library on a flexible or fixed-flexible schedule in order to choose materials for recreational reading or for specific library research assignments that are taught in cooperation with the classroom teacher who has taken the opportunity to work with the librarian. However, elementary librarians are often left to “find the time” to meet with teachers in order to collaborate…and with some librarians teaching as many as ten 35-minute classes each day, that time never comes.
With very little time during the day to meet with teachers for collaborative opportunities, many elementary school librarians are placed in the position of just “getting through the day” rather than advocating for their professional position within the school. When teachers are provided planning time away from the library while the librarian provides instruction to their students, they are also isolating themselves from the value of the school librarian and the impact that s/he can make to curriculum.
Even while most elementary librarians are team players and are involved in activities that allow for other programs to succeed, in many schools the elementary school librarian is alone without even a full-time assistant to help with clerical work such as shelving books. Relying on volunteers to help is not always an option and providing additional library enrichment programs such as visiting authors, book fairs, or storytellers can become a major issue because of time constraints that limit planning and / or the execution of the event.
Overall, the responsibility for change in elementary school libraries must come from the top down. School administrators must be the ones to set the environment that will provide elementary librarians with the opportunity to work with all students in a way that provides for true information literacy skills to be taught. If elementary school administrators continue to regard the elementary school library program as expendable, rather than a significant investment in academic achievement, these programs will be eliminated through ignorance.
If elementary school librarians are considered to be insignificant to the curriculum or to student achievement in specific areas such as standardized tests, they will be removed by those who are uneducated in how Information Literacy can impact the lives of their students. In fact, if elementary school librarians do not find strong library advocates through their school administrations and others, it is certain that librarians at higher levels will have a more difficult time teaching Information Literacy skills to students who have learned at the elementary level that libraries are not important to their education or in their lives.
(posted by Shonda Brisco)
Comments»
That describes my job before one librarian got axed & bumped me out. HOORAY. Now one librarian runs the SH & Middle School libraries keeping those libraries open 1/2 time, while the other has re-placed me. I want to add to my job decription, because you left a few things out: recess duty, bus duty, Book Fairs, and clerical work (my clerk was let go to save money) so I billed for damaged books, wrote overdue notices, etc. Also my elementary library operated in a paper environment. (Follett was reserved for the SH & Middle School). I was in the process of a retrospective conversion, (I wrote a grant to get software & hardware) but continued to make catalog cards & book cards, which required every spare moment: cataloging, creating cards, filing, etc. This was done after hours, at home, on weekends & inbetween creating lesson plans. Oh! I forgot to mention that the library was used by the Homework Connection folks for 2+ hours after the school day ended? Needless to say I would NEVER go back to work in an elementary school. Plan for the future? What are you talking about? It’s more like plan for tommorrow’s lessons…or next week’s, if one is really organized.
As a Library Media Teacher in Long Beach, CA, I service 36 classes per week on a fixed schedule with 8 classes (4th and 5th grade at one of my two schools) on a blocked 60-70 minute period every other week. The District’s standards are 20 min for 1st grade, 25 min for 2nd and 3rd, 30 min for 4th and 35 min for 5th. I service 455 students at one school 2 days a week, and 755 students at the other school 3 days per week. I have one media assistant (non-credendentialed) one day at each school and she sees the Kindergarten and some 1st grades (last year I had a additional assistant but “due to teacher raises” that was cut this year. Next year the block schedule will probably revert back to a fixed time every week so my schedule will be 40 classes per week (barring further cutbacks to Library staff which could make it higher). This is not uncommon in this District.
We do not allow for any more than 1/2 of any class time for checkins/outs of self-selected 2 books per student (hopefully, our library technology is fully functioning).
The second half of the class time is devoted to Library lessons that are aligned with CSLA Library Skills, Information Power, and our adopted curriculum Open Court. We do not have an adopted State curriculum unlike the teachers with leveled texts, pacing charts, and preset lessons for delivery.
The position requires a huge amount of information synthesis in order to provide an appropriate leveled Library lesson that scaffolds to each higher grade, is interesting and engaging, and utilizes the educational technology and real world tools that the students should become adept with using.
I seldom go to conferences as these are at my own expense and personal day use (which are limited each year) and most importantly create the disruption that my absence causes to an already limited position coverage (read: the teachers get very annoyed about their loss of planning time).
I remain in my Library for everyone before school, at breaks, at lunch, and after school so everyone has plenty of opportunities to return materials and get new materials as they require.
Our group of School Librarians here in Long Beach, CA has been very active in advocating the CSLA standards of staffing to our Board of Education. The Board has been generally supportive however there is still much work to be done to move us up out of the “threatened/critical” staffing levels of Librarians and Assistants in order to actually have the time to plan and deliver our original lessons in any sort of collaboration with the teachers in order to support the State literacy standards, higher tests performances, and teach authentic learning lessons in the class time rotations that we are currently given.
The second portion of advocating for CSLA staffing standards will be to increase the number of our assistants which are critical to supporting the Library program in their performance of clerical work. Our assistants frees the (dual) Library credentialed teachers to perform the tasks that require those professional skills in the Library program.
All programs, including those of the Library, at schools serving high levels of english language learners, low socio-economic demographics, and interrupted educations are impacted due to the high needs for other services required to bring our students up to higher performance levels on the standardized tests. More reading recovery teachers are needed, resource specialists, speech and language teachers, literacy specialists, special education teachers and as a consequence, the site budgets are already stretched very far. NCLB threats hang over the heads of administrators who must determine the best use of their inadequate funds for the continued life of the school, so many other fringe benefits are reduced or non-existent.
The fine arts, team sports, career & vocational education, home arts, adequate library funding, and computer lab tech assistants are often considered fringe benefits. If some of these areas are occasionally addressed, it is due to the efforts of the parents involved in school site councils and PTA’s.
Fully funding NCLB mandates would be a major step to address many of these issues, however, that is just a start to addressing what a WHOLE SCHOOL EDUCATION TO EDUCATE THE WHOLE CHILD should look like.
Thanks for expanding on my original posting, Shonda. Certainly the two responses so far absolutely verify the concerns I expressed in my original message.
One of the things that I wondered about is if secondary LMSs could do more to help elementary LMSs get better traction in their environment? The irony of secondary people having more flexible time to implement and innovate when it is at the elementary level that we seem to lose so many students has not escaped me. By the time they get the high school, many of the poor readers and isolated students with poor information (and social) skills have been marginalized.
It didn’t occur to me when I was at the high school level that perhaps I had a role in educating and advocating for elementary people whose jobs were so constricted by building administrators. Realistically, there probably wasn’t much that we could do, but I wonder about our lack of real concern in the first place.
Sometimes we are so busy with our own issues that it is difficult to look beyond our own patch.
For me, this article “Changing Roles of Academic and Research Libraries,” reinforces some of the ways elementary school libraries are different from secondary and academic libraries. ACRL has noted 3 essential actions for the future of academic and research libraries. I think this is how these actions apply at the elementary school library level.
#1 I believe that in elementary libraries, library collections and the work of the teacher-librarian will always be centered on reading. When reading becomes an “on-the-screen-only” activity then books (will no longer be the center of the elementary library.
Until then, we should be perceived PRIMARILY as the domain of the book. We will continue to integrate technology tools as they are available through our libraries and in our schools, but for the foreseeable future, when young people are learning to read and beginning to solve information needs, the primary resources will be print.
#2 I agree that we should not have the mindset of ownership and control. I would hope that this mindset has not been an issue in school libraries since 1988. I believe that Information Power – both 1 and 2 – clearly convey the idea of the school library as the hub of learning, the classroom of every student, educator, administrator, and parent. We should always refer to our school library – its program and collection – using the plural pronoun “our.”
#3 I also agree that elementary school libraries should “assert their evolving roles in more active ways.” For me, this means classroom-library collaboration for instruction and facilitating or advocating for an open, flexibly scheduled library that provides our stakeholders with access at the point of need. When we accept fixed library schedules during which school library professionals serve as planning time providers, we are not asserting our evolving role as a partner for standards-based instruction that makes an impact on student achievement.
Bravo to ACRL for the idea of “taking it to the streets.” Library programs should never be isolated from the learning communities they serve. This is/should be the core principle for all libraries and taught in every course called Libraries 101!
Thank you, Floyd Pentlin, for bringing this article to our attention on LM_NET.
Thank you to Shonda for bringing the conversation to the AASL Blog.
(Also posted on LM_NET)
Best,
Judi Moreillon, M.L.S., PH.D.
Author: Collaborative Strategies for Teaching Reading Comprehension: Maximizing Your Impact (ALA Editions, 2007)
Veteran Elementary and High School Teacher-Librarian