L: Librarians? But they only check out books? (ES)

But They Only Check Out Books?

As school districts look to cut costs, in our tax capped society their priority is not to cut programs. At least, that is what they espouse. They look to make cuts that will least impact the students in the district. I realize that these choices that districts make are subjective and not everyone will agree with them. One that my district made years ago I still have difficulty understanding how anyone agreed with. I attended the board of education meeting in which the decision was made. All elementary school librarian positions were being eliminated. Teacher assistants would be good enough to cover the library.

I didn’t understand the perception that board members, some parents and even some teachers had that whatever was being done by the librarian could be done by classroom teachers. After all, all they do is check out books and read to classes. It was a person, not a program and it would have limited impact on students.

When I addressed the Board, I first pointed out that librarians are more than just readers. In fact, they are called Library-Media specialists for a reason. Yes, they did read to classes to introduce them to literature that might not be known by classroom teachers, but also how to find those books. When doing research students learned how to search out different sources, both within their library and outside of it. They learned how to cite sources. Using computers they learned how to search for answers and how to discriminate between fact, fiction and opinion. How to pull out relevant information from material read. You could ask a classroom teacher to do that, but what would they have to give up in order to find the time. The librarian not only has the skills to teach these things, but because they see all classes, can structure it so that there is a consistent continuum to the students learning.

Librarians are experts on literature. They read hundreds of book reviews, interact with teachers and curriculum in order to purchase materials each year that add to the library. Without them who would do that? Allowing a committee of teachers, parents, kids, administrators to decide what new books should be added to the library leaves out their strongest resource.

Waiting until the Middle School to begin to fully teach these skills allows for a lot of bad habits to accrue. It then becomes that much harder to correct and learn the proper skills.
In addition to a classroom teacher, I was a computer support teacher for 5 years and a teacher of the gifted and talented for 3 years. Both those last two positions were eliminated, they never returned. Once a position is eliminated it is very hard to get it back.I feel sad for my district and any other that feels that librarians are expendable. If you are part of district that is considering eliminating librarians, I would have you think carefully about the impact that it really has on students.