School Librarians Don't Have to Be Taken for Granted

As a writer-presenter, as a professional member of school accreditation teams, and as a teacher educator, I've visited hundreds of public school libraries, many in California, but also in Maryland, New York, Louisiana, and Illinois. School libraries are established and operated according to traditional ideas and expectations of what a library is supposed to be. Library association criteria are often (but not always) consulted in establishing a school library. And there are standards from those associations against which school boards might gauge the effectiveness of any school library.

Finding a Norm

But I find that a "norm" by which to gauge actual library support within the school and community is difficult to discover. School libraries seem to be idiosyncratic and responsive to their perceived leadership rather than to lists and rubrics and criteria established from afar. Local leadership norms may reside in the personality of the librarian or in the attitudes of the principal or in "traditions of the faculty."

One of my high school librarian friends who works full-time at it says she is "more-or-less happy" with her current situation, even given the state of the economy, the rather low level of interest in libraries displayed by much of the general public, and the apparent lack of enthusiasm for libraries demonstrated in the priorities of many school boards. I ask my friend (let's call her Meg) what accounts for her happiness in her work when colleagues in other places seem not so sanguine about their own situation.

"I put in extra time," says Meg, "and my payment is not in money, but in satisfaction." Meg tells me that she spends a lot of time giving "lessons" to faculty as to what the library is for and what the librarian does. The level of ignorance is profound, she says, probably because everybody's been in school forever, therefore already knows everything about how schools and libraries work. In other schools she knows about, attempts by teachers, parents, and administrators to run roughshod through the library and have their way with the librarian, so to speak, are common. Not so nowadays with Meg's school.

Some Important Elements Seem to be Deprived

Meg takes on the extra duty of teaching the what and wherefore of libraries. Her students are not only the school's student library patrons, but the teachers, the administrators, as well as the classified staff and parents. She gathers these folk in groups when she can. When she cannot, she tries to teach individuals by any means she can think of. And after she has taught a group or individuals, she re-teaches. She says that for her to say, "I've done that already" isn't useful, as every teacher has to do that over and over again. Young people are mostly easy to teach and responsive to her lessons. Her teacher colleagues, Meg says, need special lessons organized around the subject matter they teach. School and district administrators appear to her to be especially deprived learners.

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Meg makes appointments with teachers to give booktalks in classrooms and she writes a column for the PTA newsletter. She has lobbied (so far without success) for a student library representative to the student council. Most importantly (she says) she asks the principal to arrange a spot for her on the school board agenda every month or two in order to provide board members and the public an oral, sometimes AV, brief on library activities and student and faculty achievements related to their uses of the library. Meg usually asks students to help in the presentations.

"How is it that you have time to do all this?" I ask. Meg looks surprised at my ignorance. "I don't have time," she says. "I never have time. I make time for what's necessary. And," she adds, "whenever I must do that, something else important has to give."

It's Not My Job

The result of setting aside all this "it shouldn't be necessary--it's not my job" stuff one hears all over the education establishment, claims Meg, is that most everybody in and around her school knows important facts about the library, sees the librarian as a necessary and contributing part of the teaching staff, is aware of some of the problems of the librarian and of libraries generally, and cannot dismiss the library and the librarian as "frills."

There's another route to this blessed state that needs more attention. Colleges and universities that prepare teachers and administrators for professional service might well consider including more than the usual brief mention of the school library, the responsibilities and duties of the typical school librarian, and the opportunities available to the classroom teacher who values the services of the librarian.

Jonathan Pearce is author of many books, mostly fiction for grownup-tolerant teens and teen-tolerant grownups. He is also publisher of BalonaBooks. You could visit the Balona Web site.