School Libraries

I read a line of information out of the "Issues and Advocacy" section of the American Library Association web site and it sort of struck a nerve. The ALA in their support of including the "SKILLs" act in "The No Child Left Behind" movement, makes an attempt to save school libraries.


I would imagine that a few of us caught up in our day-to-day chores in the media center, still aren’t aware that school libraries need saved. I knew it and then forgot about it. I guess I can attribute that to old age and ineffectiveness on my part. I just finished my 33rd year in Ohio schools.


There's an interesting statistic embedded in “Issues and Advocacy”; "Only about 60 percent of our school libraries have a full-time, state-certified school library media specialist on staff." This was posted in August, 2007. (http://capwiz.com/ala/issues/alert/?alertid=10223941)


As of last year, according to the data available at the Ohio Department of Education web site, the district in which I work which has a student population of 3050 declared that we had 2.2 FTE in Librarian/Media (FTE = Full time equivalent). I’m the .2 FTE. At one time in my career, I was a “1.0 FTE” in Librarian/Media. Then, in January 1981, Commodore came out with a device called the VIC 20. For those who don’t know their technology history, that was a massive 5k of RAM and 16k of ROM computer that sold for just under $300. That VIC 20 changed our school district.

As a media specialist who had 2 years before (1979) finished his Master of Library Science and had a class at Kent State on some sort of information research class using a computer and modem, I ended up buying my own VIC 20 to try to keep up with the times. I learned to program that computer in BASIC. As it was, every enlightened educator and community member knew that these personal computers could become the wave of the future. No one really knew how, but that’s another story.


Our district began it’s investigation into the future use of this technology and, to make a long career story short, I ended up becoming a computer ed guy and leaving my world of library media. After a couple of media specialists in the interim, I returned to the media center in 2001 and still did computer ed and tech integration but I incorporated library skill/information skill instruction into my class. Libraries had come into the computer age somewhere along the way.


Some teachers wanted me to cover library skills, which I did, when they brought classes to the media center. In 2006-2007, because of certain building needs, I was back in the computer ed classroom full time (hence a .2 librarian/media) and, just this past school year, 2007-2008, I became the data analysis guy with “media specialist”, “tech integrationist”, and one computer ed class as my duties. I was still able to slip in a few INFOhio/research lessons in 2 of our 3 grade levels. (6 and 8)

After my re-entry back into the fold of library media in 2001, I found that the library media needs and responsibilities had changed since the early 1980’s. They changed but, at the same time, they stayed the same. I don’t know how it happened, but, when the computers came along, there was a division in media specialist duties that should never have taken place. There was a distinct split into a libraries group and a technology group. I went with the techie group.

In a recent (2008) beta survey by etech in Ohio, out of over 87,000 respondents, 91% of them stated that a technology coordinator or technician provided technical support when the classroom computers did not work. I don’t have the statistics yet comparing technology staffers compared to certificated media specialists in Ohio, but, I’m going to guess that 91% of 87,000 beta respondents would not say their technology needs are being met by media specialists, especially if only 60% of our nation’s schools employ full time certificated media specialists. Of course, that’s playing around with statistics.

In the old days, if an overhead projector blew a lamp and needed replaced, chances are they went to their media specialist for the replacement. I remember being in Cleveland schools as a media specialist and setting up a record player with a mic input for a local production in our elementary school. I was the high-tech guy that teachers came to and I still handled the Pre-school through 6th grade library skills classes. So, the point is, the media specialist was a librarian/technology expert in those days. We were trained in our media specialist classes to handle library management, audio/visual needs, and teacher support in the way of lesson plan development using library skills and technology.

Somehow, computers changed all that. Some librarian/media specialists made the transition and many more didn’t. I don’t have the stats on that but, if it hasn’t been done, it would make an interesting survey. What we can assume is, if we didn’t keep up with the technology, then the library/media center became a lower priority in a school district. The laws of Ohio made that so.

If we take a look at the Ohio revised code where references are made to school libraries and media specialists, a school district only has to employ “5 of 8” full time “educational service personnel for every 1000 students. In other words, the media specialist is competing with counselors; school nurses; visiting teachers; social workers; and elementary art, music and physical education teachers for 5 positions per 1000 students.

As of last year, according to the data available at the Ohio Department of Ed web site, the district in which I work which has a student population of 3050 declared the following positions. (FTE = Full time equivalent)

6.5 FTE in counseling
3 FTE Psychologists
1 FTE Registered Nurse
8.5 FTE in Educational Services Teacher assigned to elementary only (Phys ed, art, music)
2.2 FTE in Librarian/Media

The O.R.C. refers to “Educational Support Services” as; “Student support services may include screening, assessment, intervention, monitoring of student progress, counseling, consultation, and access to library media and information technology programs designed to support student achievement.” In the same reference,
Instructional materials, including library media materials, technology and other student support services shall: …… (d) Be selected according to adopted policies and with the involvement of credentialed staff. (Notice the wording “involvement of credentialed staff)

The O.R.C. also refers to educational assistants. “Educational assistants may assist a teacher to whom assigned in the supervision of pupils, in assisting with instructional tasks, and in the performance of duties which, in the judgment of the teacher to whom the assistant is assigned, may be performed by a person not licensed pursuant to sections 3319.22 to 3319.30 of the Revised Code and for which a teaching license, issued pursuant to sections 3319.22 to 3319.30 of the Revised Code is not required. The duties of an educational assistant shall not include the assignment of grades to pupils. The duties of an educational assistants need not be performed in the physical presence of the teacher to whom assigned, but the activity of an educational assistant shall at all times be under the direction of the teacher to whom assigned.”
As other school librarians have recognized, an educational assistant can assist in instructional tasks that do not have to “be performed in the physical presence of the teacher to whom assigned.” In other words, if you have a certified librarian/media specialist in the district then they can “supervise” all library instruction and management. In a letter written by the staff of School Library Journal, dated May 2006, “Written into the code is permission for districts to give lesson plans created by a library media specialist to educational assistants to teach.” (http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6330759.html)

In our district, we have 2.2 media specialists who have full time jobs. That puts us above the national trend. That also puts us on precarious ground when it comes to job security, especially in a small school district with definite financial limitations.

According to the ORC our enrollment of 3050 requires the full time employment of 15 individuals (5 of 8 rule). We have over 20 FTE employees who meet that criteria. It seems that the school district would only need to have one FTE librarian/media specialist in the district who was given the charge to direct educational library assistants. The library assistants could then deliver the library/media program for the district without the need for the physical presence of the certified librarian/media specialist, as long as the assistant doesn’t assign grades.

I don’t want to be an alarmist, but according to our district’s master agreement with teachers, the school district can have a reduction in staff according to ORC regulations. I went directly to the Ohio Revised Code to see reasons for Reduction in Staff. That link is: http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/124.321 . In part it states that, staff can be reduced when the following condition exists; “(C)(1) Employees may be laid off as a result of lack of work within an appointing authority.”

“(2) As used in this division, a “lack of work” means an appointing authority has a current or projected decrease in workload that requires a reduction of current or projected staffing levels in its organization or structure.”

If we take a look at the guiding principals of school media programs we’ll see the “workload” that became our responsibility when we adopted Learning and teaching principles… as our program to follow. (see the Principles below)

For example, principles 1 – 4 requires that we are actively involved with all teachers as part of their professional learning communities. With words like, “fully integrated into the curriculum”, “integral to the content and objectives of the school’s curriculum”, “promotes collaborative planning “, and “promotes creative, effective, and collaborative teaching,” how could we ignore our responsibility to be engaged in all lesson development. Of course, that’s if teachers allow us to be involved.

These principles 1-4 directly feed into principles 5 and 10 in which it’s the library media program responsibility to provide “the full range of information resources and services through the library media program [that] is fundamental to learning.” Library/media services should also be “an essential link to the larger learning community.”

And how can we separate ourselves from the technology side of things when technology is at the core of all of this planning, creative and collaborative teaching, and student achievement. Audio/visuals might not be produced as much with overheads, tape recorders, record players, and 35 mm cameras anymore, but they are certainly being done with computers, digital video recorders, digital audio recorders, wikispaces, blogs, and other Web 2.0 “A/V productions.”

Principle 9 has always been a fundamental responsibility of the media specialist / librarian. “The library media program integrates the uses of technology for learning and teaching.” This includes the technology through which we access information resources, services, and other learning opportunities. Much of that is on line in the form of INFOhio, United Streaming, IP video conferencing with experts or collaborative instruction, and virtual/educational learning communities that have sprung up.

If it weren’t for principle 9, we would only be known as “librarians” instead “media specialists” (which, by the way, you should have a master of library science to be called a librarian.) Education is a culture of learning and, just like any culture, when the technology changes, the needs of the culture changes. Certainly to keep up with these changes is a “load of work” but it is our “workload.”

When the great schism between library/media and technology took place, a new group of staff was born to meet the technological needs of the school community. Those were the technology specialists. It became the charge of the techies to fill in the gaps that weren’t being met by library/media specialists such as developing and assisting the use of technology by teachers and students, assisting teachers and administrators in assessments and data analysis, and using data analysis to drive the classroom and intervention learning needs of students. They weren’t trained with a “library” or information specialist background, but they had the technological know-how to move ahead of media specialists on that district priority list.

Now we are trying to play catch up in our school district. Granted, there are a lot of tech-savvy librarians out there that we can borrow advice from as evidenced by many of the blogs and wiki’s like http://www.theshiftedlibrarian.com/ and http://librariansmatter.com/blog/, but at a district level, we have one heck of a workload in front of us.

In our district, the tech integrationist workload has increased over the past year and, according to the re-alignment of the technology integrationists under the direct supervision of the curriculum director, that work load will increase even more. It is imperative that the media specialists step up and accept that technology challenge that was their responsibility to begin with. It was theirs before the library/technology split occurred. That is our workload.

If we take a close look at library circulation statistics in our school district, we would see that school library circulation of materials have been on the decline. Take those declining statistics, couple it with our other media specialist responsibilities that were taken over by “technology integrationists” and we’ll see that it wouldn’t take our school district much effort to declare or at least project a “decrease in workload that requires a reduction of current or projected staffing levels”. It could be fairly easy to document. It could limit the need for librarian/media specialist positions for the district to one. That would justifiably fit the requirements of the “5 of 8” educational support services requirement in the ORC.

Media specialists have an important role in today’s schools if we accept the challenges of the 21st century skills that have been presented to us. We have to be proficient in the same skills that our teachers and students need. Here’s a section from the “Mile Guide Chart” from the Partnership for 21st Century Skills site at http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/

Educational objectives and teaching strategies emphasize the integration of learning skills and 21st century tools, which comprises information, communication and technology (ICT) literacy.

Learning skills and 21st century tools are used together to enable students to effectively build content knowledge.

Through integrating learning skills and 21st century tools, students are able to do such things as access and communicate information, manage complexity, solve problems and think critically and creatively.

Parents want their children to enjoy reading, but there’s a whole lot more that learners need to know in today’s world and the key is using the “21st century tools”.

“Long regarded as the cornerstone of the school community, school libraries are no longer just for books. Instead, they have become sophisticated 21st century learning environments offering a full range of print and electronic resources that provide equal learning opportunities to all students, regardless of the socio-economic or education levels of the community – but only when they are staffed by school library media specialists trained to collaborate with teachers and engage students meaningfully with information that matters to them both in the classroom and in the real world.” American Library Association’s “Issues and Advocacy” section on their web site. http://capwiz.com/ala/issues/alert/?alertid=10223941

If the above paragraph doesn’t tell us how important our role is in using the tools that our students are growing up with according to the ALA, then I don’t know what does. It would be a shame to lose that book-driven, information-specialist expertise of the media person to tech integrationists who haven’t had the same training in library/information skills. After all, historically, books and printing were once the main new “technology” that drove the direction of cultures. Now another technology is driving the culture.

Another part of our workload has changed. We’ve had a birth of a whole new technological environment taking place on the web; Web 2.0. In that environment a new way of doing another librarian’s skill has popped up: the Tag (metadata) has replaced subject headings.

“A tag is a non-hierarchical keyword or term assigned to a piece of information (such as an internet bookmark, digital image, or computer file). This kind of metadata helps describes an item and allows it to be found again by browsing or searching. Tags are chosen informally and personally by the item's creator or by its viewer, depending on the system. On a website where many users tag many items, this collection of tags becomes a folksonomy. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_%28metadata%29%29

For media specialists and librarians in the world of information, this was part of our job. Turns out, with the millions of tags out in Web 2.0, people didn’t care that categorizing information was our job. It’s now a people’s information retrieval system.

What comes to my mind in this never-ending, fast-paced technological world that we have found ourselves in the middle of, is a quote from “Fiddler on the Roof.” I don’t know if I can attribute the quote to Sholem Aleichem who wrote “Tevye and his Daughters” or “Fiddler on the Roof” lyricist Sheldon Harnick.

The setting for the story was 1905 tsarist Russia. In his corner of the world, Tevye’s workload was being the milkman. It was a world of anti-Semitism, Russian-heritage dominance, and the breaking up of family and community. When Tevye was faced with the breaking of the tradition of arranged marriages, he came to the realization that he had to change with the times. He turns to his wife, Golde, and with the look of resignation and sadness on his face he says, “It's a new world... A new world. Love. Golde...".

I won’t break into song here, and, in context of the song, Tevye was talking about love. But in the context of the story, Tevye was talking about the traditions that were changing around him, just like the changes in traditions we have been facing in school libraries and education.

We could find all sorts of quotes to further an argument on any side of a debate, especially when it comes to technology and the ways that we should or shouldn’t use it. We could find parents and community members who would side with tradition and some would side with change when it comes to the role of school libraries and the media specialist.

My perspective on the argument is that we must change or become obsolete. As Bob Dylan sang in “The time’s they are a changing”:

“…don't criticize what you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command
Your old role is rapidly aging
Please get out of the new one if you can't lend a hand
For the times they are a changing.”

These lyrics emphasize the fact that change has happened and will continue to happen, with us, or without us. If we can’t find our place in that change and do it quickly, then it’s time to move on or be moved on. Media specialist/ librarians have 60% value left in our nation’s schools. We have to save what’s left or get out of the way and let the new wave of professionals have their chance.

After all, educational communities need this support. Hopefully, media specialists trained and respectful of all technologies, including books, will help drive the support and information services and skills all people will need to survive in this 21st century.



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<!--[if !supportLists]-->Ø <!--[endif]-->The certified library media program and staffing:





(4) A minimum of five full-time equivalent educational service personnel shall be employed district wide for each one thousand students in the regular student population as defined in section 3317.023 of the Revised Code. Educational service personnel shall be assigned to at least five of the eight following areas: counselor; library media specialist; school nurse; visiting teacher; social worker; and elementary art, music and physical education. Educational service personnel assigned to elementary art, music and physical education shall hold the special teaching certificate or multi-age license in the subject to which they are assigned.





Source:



Operating Standards for Ohio Schools 3301-35-05 page 19 - copyright 2006. http://www.ode.state.oh.us/GD/DocumentManagement/DocumentDownload.aspx?DocumentID=22222







*Learning and Teaching Principles of School Library Media Programs

These principles were identified and developed by the Information Power Vision Committee, reviewed and commented upon by the profession, and approved by the AASL and AECT Boards as the cardinal premises on which learning and teaching within the effective school library media program is based.



Principle 1: The library media program is essential to learning and teaching and must be fully integrated into the curriculum to promote students’ achievement of learning goals.



Principle 2: The information literacy standards for student learning are integral to the content and objectives of the school’s curriculum.



Principle 3: The library media program models and promotes collaborative planning and curriculum development.



Principle 4: The library media program models and promotes creative, effective, and collaborative teaching.



Principle 5: Access to the full range of information resources and services through the library media program is fundamental to learning.



Principle 6: The library media program encourages and engages students in reading, viewing, and listening for understanding and enjoyment.



Principle 7: The library media program supports the learning of all students and other members of the learning community who have diverse learning abilities, styles, and needs.



Principle 8: The library media program fosters individual and collaborative inquiry.



Principle 9: The library media program integrates the uses of technology for learning and teaching.



Principle 10: The library media program is an essential link to the larger learning community.



Excerpted from Chapter 4, "Learning and Teaching," of Information Power: Building Partnerships for Learning. Copyright © 1998 American Library Association and Association for Educational Communications and Technology. ISBN 0-8389-3470-6. Order by phone at 1-866 SHOP ALA (1-866-746-7252).