Read here about the “Manchester Miracle,” about an elementary school in Pennsylvania that had only 40 fiction books on its shelves.
The community came together, renovated the library, and stocked its shelves with books.
And then there is the bad news. In Pittsburgh, only 14 of 51 schools have a full-time librarian. Most librarians spend only one day a week at each school.
This is the part I don’t understand.
When I went to public school in Houston many years ago, every school I attended had a library and a librarian. Some had more than one.
Our society is now immeasurably richer than it was then.
Why can’t every school have a library and a librarian?
Why don’t hedge fund managers support libraries?
Andrew Carnegie did, and it made him a hero for all time, enabling people to forget about labor practices at his steel mills. So today, because of his benefactions, he is remembered for his gift of libraries and literacy, not the brutal suppression of the Homestead Strike in 1892.
If the hedge fund managers and equity investors supported school libraries, we would think of them kindly and the memory of 2008 would fade.
Hello, Democrats for Education Reform! How about Democrats for School Libraries?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Great point, Diana.
“Andrew Carnegie did, and it made him a hero for all time, enabling people to forget about labor practices at his steel mills. So today, because of his benefactions, he is remembered for his gift of libraries and literacy, not the brutal suppression of the Homestead Strike in 1892.”
I’d argue that if they fully funded libraries and paid for librarians that they would have a greater impact on education then their wrong-headed moves into policy and curriculum. But hey- what do we know? I’m guessing too much. In their world ignorance is gulden and the less you know about education- the more you know.
sp: gulden should be golden. I just made a sandwich using that mustard.
Yes, their ignorance is definitely Gulden!
“I’d argue that if they fully funded libraries and paid for librarians that they would have a greater impact on education then their wrong-headed moves into policy and curriculum”
I completely agree. I have seen librarians change young lives. Sadly, our middle school library and many elementary libraries are now open only every other day due to budget cuts.
I was watching a PBS (yes, PBS) show last night on the industrial tycoons. Apparently, it was the Johnstown flood that finally made Carnegie think about his legacy. The South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, to which Carnegie belonged, made modifications to the dam that many claim led to its failure. Club members denied their responsibility, but Carnegie is believed to have felt differently.
Diane-
I just finished a post based on this article by Eduardo Porter from the NYTimes: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/31/business/choose-your-capitalism.html?smid=fb-share
It suggests that our brand of cutthroat capitalism has exacted a high social cost and, in effect, we are getting what we’ve voted for over the past several years… In effect, we’ve chosen “…unheard-of profits toward the prosperous few while threatening the jobs and eroding the wages of the rest”…. or computers donated to schools by high-tech philanthropists over publicly funded library books and librarians…
“. . . we’ve voted for over the past several years. . .”
Actually since 1980 the regressive right has been gaining ground in an attempt to bring our society to back before the Progressive Era.
When I retired as an elementary school librarian covering 3 schools I was not replaced nor was the middle school librarian. The high school librarian was riffed and aides are now in charge. One of the aides left and was replaced by a guy with absolutely no idea what to do BUT he can coach a SPORT!
I entered public schools in Yakima, Washington in 1949. The librarian was one of the 4th grade teachers, Mrs. Woodruff. Whether or not she received any extra compensation for that I do not know. I do know that teachers took their classes to the library once a week and stayed with them, as Mrs. Woodruff would have been in her own 4th grade class. Our school had about 600 kids in K-6. We probably had twice that many books.
I mention this litany of resources only because it appears that 63 years later, many schools have even less than this. How can we have allowed our public schools to atrophy so badly? Where are our values, if policy makers do not see the error in this kind of thinking?
And that doesn’t even begin to consider the current trend toward privatization of public schools!
I would not say there are fewer resources available, but rather different resources. The internet provides students with the ability to access more information than any library could possibly contain. My own son, the grandson of three librarians, refers to books as non searchable PDFs.
The ability to access this information is obviously limited by the financial resources of the families and the schools that they attend. Every effort should made to give students access to this new depository of human knowledge.
For a funny but thought provoking look at how difficult it is adjust to new technology, midieval help desk is worth a look. You can find it here:http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=pQHX-SjgQvQ&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DpQHX-SjgQvQ
And where, in a school, would you expect to find computers? That’s right, in the library.
It’s a sad commentary that student expect all resources to be “searchable”. So, I Olympic read the portion of some great literary piece that relates to my specific topic. Never mind plot, character development, or any other aspect of literature! Even less useful than “Cliff Notes”.
OK, dude; that was, indeed, funny!
Iris not so much that he expects electronic documents to be searchable, it is that they are simply easier to deal with than books. Any parent who has watched their child transform into a turtle each morning as they head off to school with a heavily loaded backpack can appreciate the advantages of the new format.
Thought I caught all of the helpful suggestions from Apple. I meant “It is”, not “Iris”.
Yes there are different resources available, but who is choosing the resources and teaching the students how to navigate the internet? A school librarian is trained to evaluate and choose the BEST resources for their school. They collaborate with teachers to create student projects. Librarians also teach students how to evaluate what they find on the web as well as to ethically use the information they find. School librarians also are able to put the right
book in the right hands. They promote and encourage reading and expose students to many genres. For the record, students are still reading books. My students prefer the actual book rather than an ebook!
If you need more evidence about what school librarians provide, http://issuu.com/dkachel/docs/paschoollibraries/14
Robin hood foundation used to support libraries in public schools; now they support charter schools which overcrowd and take away the space for libraries in public schools.
Thanks for posting this, Diane.
I just wanted to also point out that the grassroots movement here in Pennsylvania that pushed the “Manchester Miracle” into a viral social media phenomenon — and got those books on the shelves — has also been fighting this as an equity issue and is deeply involved in the fight for public schools as a public good. These actions show what we can do when we work together. But volunteers shouldn’t have to fill school library shelves … and we will keep the spotlight on the underlying equity and funding issues that emptied them in the first place.
Yours,
Jessie
Yinzer Nation + Education = Yinzercation
Another thing I find maddening about this situation is that school libraries are now often called “media centers” instead of libraries. As a librarian myself, I understand that this re-christening is simply an effort to make libraries seem newer, fresher, and more “hip” to our students, but as an academic librarian (university level), I spent years dealing with first-year students (formerly, ‘freshmen’) who had no idea what a ‘library’ really was, and who often spent as long as a semester without ever visiting even one of the libraries on campus.
Exacerbating this problem: young faculty members who, themselves, had never learned the value of libraries. As a result, even our students’ college professors rarely visited our University Libraries, or mentioned their value to our students. It is not uncommon for professors to simply “loan out” the five or six books they always use to their students, make illegal photocopies of book chapters and distribute them with course syllabi, or place digital copies of reading materials on secure Web sites (such as WebCT, now known as ‘BlackBoard’) so that students are completely dependent on their professors’ sparse, limited, less-than-diverse resources. As a result, many students become “specialists,” by being exposed to the few books their professors recommend, as opposed to using libraries to facilitate reading widely.
Not that I have an opinion…
At least at universities, it is also a function of how much is available on line. As far as I can tell, everything the World Bank publishes, for example, is available from their website for free. Every bit of data, every working paper, every annual report, every book.
While I couldn’t agree with you more regarding the availability of government documents online, there’s simply so very much information available, and it’s so challenging to ably and competently evaluate/vet its worth and relevance to one’s research, particularly when one is not a trained research, seasoned scholar, or just plain savvy student, it is often professional librarians, whether “special librarians,” public librarians, or academic librarians, who help researchers to “tame the wilds” of information.
Many people, from the secondary school level to the university level, are under the mistaken impression that everything is available, for free, on Google — when, in fact, much of the information available online, must be purchased, through buying subscriptions to electronic databases, by libraries, and the occasional unusually well-off private business or individual. As an information scientist myself, I can assure you that while it is often said that “information just wants to be free, that is, unfortunately, not always the case.
Libraries (and librarians) are about so much more than books. We are now, often, technologists who must acquire graduate degrees, in the study of “information architecture” or “information science.” Having *more* information doesn’t always (or simply) make the process *more* easy…
Very true, but with an institutional subscription to JSTOR, I find that the articles I use for teaching are easily available from my desktop.
Again, I must whole-heartedly agree with you, as well as make a slight comment about the database you indicated you find so handy.
JSTOR is one of the finest electronic databases ever devised. J-STOR stands for “journal stirage.” And what is mist unique about J-STOR is that it was, unlike most databases, designed by librarians who were concerned about the lack of availability of *older* fulltext journal articles.
— particularly “scholarly” articles. This is why, as I’m surreyou’ve noticed, the information, while tried and true, is not “current.” You need only read the database description to read its policies regarding newer, more current articles. I, myself, was honored to have
had the opportunity to help work on making JSTOR the incredible electronic resource you’ve experienced it to be. It’s gratifying to hear this, indeed! Thank you!
Again, I agree that the articles introduced with a lag, but for teaching undergraduates and in many graduate courses, suitable. Graduate workshops often look at contemporary work in the form of working papers. These working papers are often available a year or more before the work is published in a journal.
There’s a bit of a difference, of course, between a “working paper” and a peer-reviewed article. In my graduate, as well as undergraduate research methodogy courses, I always make it a point to let students know that JSTOR is a “general” database, as opposed to a subject- specific one. Because JSTOR’s “scope” is limited, it is not possible, space-wise or discipline- wise to get everything available eithin the chosen content. We did not design it that way… JSTOR cannot, and does not take the place of say, PsycInfo or EconLit…
Here is some useful software that takes advantage electronic documents used by researchers. It is called qiqqa, and found here: http://www.qiqqa.com/
As a fellow librarian, I will always call it a library. “Collection of information resources in print or in other forms that is organized and made accessible for reading or study. The word derives from the Latin liber (“book”).” (From the Concise Encyclopedia
Thanks for this. Although many school librarians in the US have dual qualifications as teachers and librarians, it seems as if librarians and teachers frequently operate in separate spheres. By addressing this issue on this blog, you are highlighting what many of us have recognized, but don’t discuss nearly enough. The assault on libraries (both public and school) in many ways mirrors the assault on public education, and the discussion really should be framed in a way that acknowledges this relationship.
As Middle School Librarian pointed out above, the role of a school librarian is not simply to ‘check out books,’ but rather to collaborate with teachers to ensure that students develop a genuine interest in reading, the ability to think critically, and the ability to locate/use/evaluate/synthesize/create information effectively (often termed information literacy). Of course, when education is reduced to a series of standardized tests, one can see that a librarian’s job would become impossible and would actually interfere with a system that revolves around drills, memorization, and recall.
You raise several important points. Many so-called “teaching faculty” are not aware that librarians can make exceptionally valuable partners in teaching. Having a PhD in “anything” does not make one a beter librarian than… a librarian! Many faculty members are ignorant regarding the educational grounding and expertise required of both school and academic librarians. And it’s just as difficult, if not more, to get teachers/professors to understand that most materials are definitely not available, freely online. I believe we all have something to learn from each other; but unfortunately, about half of us don’t (or won’t) acknowledge this…
‘better,’ not beter.