State of America's (school) Libraries, 2010

School libraries ... receive good grades in national surveys, which indicate that 96-plus percent of Americans feel they are an essential part of the education experience [bold mine - Doug] because they provide resources to students and teachers and because they give every child the opportunity to read and learn. The role of school libraries continued to grow in 2009, with school libraries open, on average, 11⁄2 hours more per week than in 2008, according to a survey conducted by the American Association of School Librarians (AASL), a division of the ALA.

School librarians also play a crucial role in “keeping the digital doors open to help young people think about learning beyond the classroom,” according to danah boyd, an authority on online social networking sites and a keynote speaker at the AASL’s 2009 national conference.

But “School Libraries Count! AASL’s National Longitudinal Survey of School Library Media Programs” shows that a majority of schools received less funding for information resources in 2009 than they had in 2008. The survey revealed that there was no increase in the average number of teachers who are also school librarians, and that school librarians worked an average of almost an hour a week more in 2009 than in 2008. State of America's Libraries, April 2010

 The report is worth a look and the statement in bold above is worth sharing with your administrators.

The last of the book librarians

I did a workshop last week for a conference called "Spotlight on Books" up "nort'" near Grand Rapids, Minnesota. It was a very nice conference that focused on ... wait for it .... children and young adult books.

Like the probably hundreds of such conference held each year, there were authors and author talks, book signings, book sales, book talks, book related apparel, bookmarks, book groupies, and people reading books. My long-held observation has been that one really doesn't want to stand between a book lover and his/her book and hope to live to tell the tale. Book lust is as much a religion as anything.

So what the heck was I doing there?

When my friend Ruth asked me to come do the pre-conference workshop, I warned her that any expertise I may have had in children's and YA literature is long-past its expiration date. I only read adult books, find the majority of stuff purposely written for non-adults rather tedious, and wouldn't recognize a popular children's book author if s/he came up and bit me in the butt. But Ruth assured me that I would have plenty to talk about that would be of interest to her "bookish" attendees.

So my workshop addressed three "challenges" libraries, both school and public, are facing: digital publishing and the rise of e-books, online intellectual freedom and copyright/fair use issues. And as sort of after thought, I threw in a little section on how the literature experience can be enhanced using technology.

And as it turned out, the "after thought" was the most fun of the whole afternoon. I shamelessly stole exciting ideas I'd been reading about on Anita Beaman and Amy Obert's Reading 2.0 site and from Joyce Valenza's Reading20 slide show. Author sites, fan sites, web-page widgets, electronic means for kids to do book reports, Skyped author visits, reading promotion graphics generators - just tons of really cool and interesting things that people who work with kids and books can do to generate interest in books, enhance the reading experience, and help kids share their reading thoughts.

So more or less during the workshop, I had a little epiphany - one I am sure most of you, dear readers, had years and years ago:

You can't just be a "book" librarian anymore and be considered professionally competent even if your area of interest and expertise is literature.

If you work with books and kids, you can't do your job without understanding how to use technology in your field. Tech's no longer a "nice extra" - it's a vital set of tools, skills and undertandings you need to master if you want to provide the services kids deserve. I would categorize librarians who fail to recognize how technology can support what they do and actually use it as unprofessional and incompetent as a doctor who can't use a CAT scan or an accountant who can't use a spreadsheet or an engineer who doesn't use CAD/CAM.

There you have it. There are no more "book only" librarians.

Yet another shameless commerce post

My (unbiased) friend Cathy Jo Nelson has posted her kind review of School Libraries Head for the Edge on her blog, Techno-Tuesday.

Thank you, Cathy Jo!