Your Voice Matters in Advocating for Libraries

In our highly connected digital world, libraries are more important than ever. I can hear you saying, “Of course you say that! You’re a librarian and want to protect your job!” Yes, that’s true, but hear me out. Libraries have been a part of civilizations since the birth of writing itself as places to house, preserve, and disseminate information and as meeting grounds for information seekers. They have evolved continually over time to meet the changing needs of not just scholars, but all people seeking access to information. Libraries, in conjunction with widespread public education, have created a far more level playing field for modern societies. And as societies have grown and evolved, so too have libraries. With exponential increases in information available and developments in technology, they have continued to support access and opportunity for all citizens, arguably better and more efficiently than any other time period.  The Internet alone cannot provide such support; it only creates the connectivity. Libraries with space for collaboration, access to the most innovative technology, and yes, information, in all of its various formats, and staffed by people highly skilled in finding the right information for individual needs and teaching skills for finding, evaluating, and using information independently, are an essential need in today’s modern societies. Indeed without libraries and information professionals who can curate, cultivate, and make accessible quality information, the Internet and its connectivity become useless.

I can hear the naysayers; “Public education? What a broken mess! And my library has nothing for me!” While neither is perfect, they are shifting in the right direction. And I would argue that they should never truly be perfect. What we have now should be completely different 5, 10, 15, or 20 years from now. Both libraries and public education are in the business of creating and supporting life-long learners and should continually seek to evolve as society learns and grows. Neither profession should wake up one day and say “Well, we’re perfect now. Time to stop evolving and keep doing what we’re doing for the next 2 decades.” And I do believe that the vast majority of schools and libraries are not only doing good things, but amazing things today. But those darned naysayers are loud and squawky. They grab headlines – over and over and over again. It is libraries and educators, however, who have been the voice for open access to scholarly research and equal access to literature, technology, and the Internet. They have spoken up on behalf of all of us in the battle against censorship. They have been a voice arguing for privacy and individual rights in balance with societal needs. They have been the protectors and preservers of our cultural heritage and history – in all of its formats.  

So what can we do? Advocate to keep and expand libraries – and for finding ways to properly fund them. Who should speak up for libraries? Everyone, because that’s who they serve. There are few professions that truly speak for each and every one of us, even among the variety of public services.  The mission of libraries has always been to meet the needs of the communities they serve, whether school, public, academic, or specialty. They are driven by a sense of equal access. In recent surveys of public opinion, more than 80% of respondents place high value of the role of libraries – and yet they have been voraciously cut back and eliminated in schools and communities. In conversations with parents, teachers, and community members over the last few years, I regularly hear the lament, “They just don’t have the money for libraries anymore.” The blame is almost always on a nebulous “they” who are cutting the funding. Ultimately, we are our public servants, whether elected or hired. Advocating for improving and evolving public services, for finding and ensuring adequate funding, falls on the shoulders of each and every citizen. It is not “us” versus the nebulous “them” but rather a “we the people”. We all need to act to preserve libraries. Not doing so will just send us reeling back to the dark ages of vast inequity.

How and for what should we advocate? First, ask lawmakers and leaders to stop trying to find magical solutions in the for profit world for services that are public in nature. Keeping schools and libraries in the public non-profit sector does several things; it reduces the likelihood of individual gains taking precedence over public good and needs, it keeps hierarchy to a minimum allowing more collective (and patron driven) decision-making, it ensures that these institutions remain committed to equal access for all rather than shifting to a pay-for-play model that increases class inequity. If public services have to follow the mighty dollar, they cannot serve everyone equally. Rather than serving the public, they become servants to those that can pay the most. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be fiscally responsible with the funding they receive, just that the funding should not be tied to individual profit and gain.

Second, ask lawmakers and philanthropists to invest heavily in both libraries and education. Each and every school in America should have a school library with appropriately trained administrative assistance and a minimum of one full-time certified teacher librarian who collaboratively teaches information literacy with other teachers. Less than that and the school library is ineffective. Well-funded libraries deliver enormous value for each dollar spent. In schools, they not only prepare students with the skills for self-motivated independent learning, but connect each and every subject and discipline to encourage true interdisciplinary learning. They foster school cultures and environments where serendipitous discovery can happen naturally and in conjunction with the educative process.  They are a bridge between academic, archival, and public libraries and a link between each grade through elementary, middle, and high school. How do we know this? Solid data from two decades of more than 60 state studies show a definitive correlation between school libraries and student achievement. That kind of data is unequivocal. 

Finally, vote. Vote in every election. And understand that good politicians have to balance their decisions based upon not just your voice, but the voices of thousands of constituents, some of whom are very vocal and have substantial financial backing. Wealthy squeaky wheels, however, drown in a sea of less-well-off masses. You will never agree with every choice that elected official has to make, but if you are a passive grumbler who never votes and never communicates with elected officials, then your voice is merely static. Choose to be an educated, informed, part of “we the people.” And support widespread educated and informed citizenship through well-funded, accessible, professionally staffed, quality American libraries.

To 1to1, or not to 1to1? That is the question...

“Technology in Education” is definitely the hot buzz in K12 lately, but the challenge for districts trying to make solid decisions is ensuring that they are seeing a full picture and weighing all of the various factors affected by their choices.  It’s easy to get trapped in the buzz word rut, but at the end of the day, everyone involved is really trying to make choices that support student learning and overall excellence in the education we provide our students.   

Melvin Kranzberg, a former professor at Case Western Reserve and Georgia Tech is famous for coining what he called “The Six Laws of Technology”.  The first of these was that “Technology is neither good, nor bad, nor neutral.”  I like this quote because it expresses a big picture sentiment that I think is often missing from technology implementation discussions: that technology is just a tool and it is what we do with it and the consequences -- good, bad and neutral -- that occur are a result of our use and choices.  Kranzberg’s 6th Law, that “technology is a very human activity - and so is the history of technology”, reaffirms the sentiment that it is about our involvement, our use, and sometimes, our misuse.  It’s critical that any technology initiative maintain a perspective for both long and short term goals, a solid understanding of functionality needs of end users, and a critical eye toward both intended and unintended consequences.  

My personal perspective on technology in our K12 schools stems from my experience as a librarian who has served as a substitute teacher in more than 10 districts throughout the Philadelphia region, accumulated more than 20 years of experience in desktop publishing and communications, parented my own children through the implementation of a school 1 to 1 device program, and a personal passion for technology and the power it has to interconnect our world.  The EdTech discussion is a vibrant and exciting.  As we continue pushing that discussion and it’s evolution, there are several recurring issues that I’d like to see technology committees exploring.

1. Access to information isn’t guaranteed by access to technology. While there are definitely pluses to 1-to-1 device plans in ensuring that all students have access to devices of some sort and increased mobility during times of peak use, there are some issues.  Many districts implement 1-to-1 programs and eliminate libraries and library resources under the mistaken belief that technology alone means “access” to information.  The reality is that providing access to digital resources currently costs substantially more than equivalent paper resources.  In addition, not everything desirable for meeting student and staff needs is available in a digital format.  Information literacy skills as also tend to suffer substantially if libraries with adequate staffing are not boosted along with the technology implementation.  Plagiarism outside of the K12 environment is rising exponentially and the research skills the college freshman are frequently not adequate for academic work prompting many universities to add a required research/information literacy course for incoming students (see the Rutgers study published in Spring of 2014).

2. Does one device really meet everyone’s needs? There is a significant difference in functionality and purpose for various devices which is often overlooked.  iPads are awesome, and my preferred device, for digital textbooks, ebooks, and basic browsing/curation of sources.  Heavy writing, however, is difficult on a tablet.  Laptops are great for mobility and allow more comfortable writing than tablets, but they are terrible ereaders and don’t have enough power for heavy duty creative software like the Adobe Creative Suite.  Labs configured for teacher instruction from a computer linked to a SMART Board or other large screen and which allow the teacher to control student computers via the teacher computer or an iPad are every bit as important in schools with 1to1 programs.  Giving students more technology actually increases the need for instruction in information literacies.  Students still need scaffolded instruction in researching, evaluating information, and behaving ethically and that instruction is best done as a collaborative effort between classroom teachers and teacher librarians while students are creating individual and group projects.  There is a time for each device in instruction and a time for varying degrees of freedom in using those devices dependent upon instructional goals.

3. Some subjects don’t seem to be ready to embrace technology for everything they do.  For example, my son is doing algebra using iPads.  They are great for instructional lecture review, but they are using adobe PDFs as digital problem sheets.  Adobe just doesn’t have good functionality yet as a digital math worksheet.  It’s quirky and awkward when writing and has visibility problems (zooms in and out so that only part of the problem shows).  Inadvertent marks constantly occur and the writing feature is messy.  As a result, technology can become a distraction to the problem solving process.  We would be better meeting student needs if we would dig deeper into whether or not overuse -- or impractical use -- of technology is becoming a hindrance to learning.  

4. Are there better solutions than 1 to 1 programs?  An alternative to 1 to 1 programs is to have laptop and iPad carts that are shared among students in each area of the school and increasing the number and quality of labs in both the library and other appropriate areas of the school.  Designing labs specifically to meet collaborative teacher instructional needs and solid tech support staff to ensure that technology is always working, updated, and functional is also key.  The number of needed per student software licenses is not as high with this route and allows more flexibility for additional high quality software in the lab environments (ex. Adobe Creative Suite, CAD, and other very pricy software).  In addition, the most cost effective plan that allows districts to keep up with the inevitable and rapid aging of current technology within schools may be to lease a variety of devices -- laptops, iPads, and desktops -- from an outside provider who will keep all devices current and upgraded.   

5. Firewalls and restrictions… Schools have frequently been overly restrictive with access.  In order to implement a top notch tech program, the mindset has to shift from being overly restrictive to teaching proper use and using those moments of improper use as teachable moments.  Better for a student to mess up where the consequences are not as severe than to go out into the world after leaving our schools to make bigger mistakes with bigger consequences.  There is definitely a certain amount of data that needs to be restricted and protected, but it isn’t necessary to go overboard.

6. And most important, solid contingency plans are essential. Contingency planning is often left out of K12 technology plans.  We expend a lot of time and energy planning for medical emergencies, fires, and intruders, but not much for the failure of technological tools.  A backup plan needs to be available for students to complete assignments if they forget their device at school or home, if their is a network or wifi failure, if there is a major power failure, or if a student (or teacher) device fails.  Businesses have instituted contingency planning since they began relying upon technology.  When businesses prepared for Y2K, most of them refined their plans with multiple redundancies in the event of a catastrophic technology failure.  Schools need to be similarly prepared.

Technology decisions are always challenging.  Technology is expensive and changes rapidly, but it's a necessary component of any quality educational program that truly prepares students for life outside of our educational institutions.  Finding the best way to use limited dollars is a huge task.  But at the end of the day, we want to be certain that we are not just teaching students to play with cool techy gadgets, but that we are teaching them to use technology as a tool.  Our primary goal is to teach them to think critically as they explore our interconnected world and seek balanced decisions and choices that have a positive impact on the future.

It's About Access to Content

We are living in a revolutionary time.  Our country has been struggling with a turbulent economy, financing a decade-long war, increasingly polarized politics, and changes flying at us from every direction as the result of rapidly developing technology and increasingly interconnected flows of information.  It is exciting and daunting at the same time.  Education has been caught in the crossfires of all of this while undergoing its own attempts at evolving.  Libraries have been keeping up with changes in technology and have evolved right along with all of the rapid changes surrounding them, but those outside of library circles seem to be mystified by what the library brings to the table amidst all of the changes.  Although format and delivery of information are shifting somewhat, libraries remain integral in the same way as when they were initially created; libraries are about access to content.

In the school environment, this role is particularly critical. There is a mountain of data showing that schools with library programs led by MLIS certified school librarians with full time staff and substantial collection development budgets have higher test scores, in all subject areas, than schools without libraries or libraries that are improperly staffed with inadequate collection development budgets.  Despite decades of data demonstrating the clear correlation, libraries continue to disappear.  The more I try to understand why, the more confused I am.  At the academic level, we have maintained strong libraries.  Budgets may be cut, but the idea of eliminating academic libraries isn't generally broached.  I'd imagine anyone who might raise such an idea in the academic environment would be swiftly castigated.  Research requires access to high quality information and scholars demand access.  They understand that access to content carries a price and that, even from a financial standpoint, having a library as their link to that access makes sense.    In the public and school environment, however, decries against the need for libraries isn't uncommon.  I'm coming to the conclusion that there is a vast misunderstanding of what a library is and does in these circles that simply isn't as prevalent in higher education.

Libraries and librarians collect and archive work.  It is irrelevant what format.  Digital or print, it is still about curating content.  The library provides access to curated content for its users.  Public libraries are tasked with curating content specific to the interests and needs of a given community and making it available for access by community members of all different ages. They provide content to retirees and preschoolers, homeless citizens and bank presidents, parents and children outside of regular school hours. It is not free; it is paid for with a share of that community’s public funds. If a community library does not have content that it’s community wants to access, the community can appeal to the library for content changes.  Public libraries were originally founded upon liberal political views about free and equal access to information, but they are not political in how they operate. They are organized with a mindset toward access of information to all people within a community, not a particular contingent or set of ideals.  

Museums and archives are also creating access to their curated content with public funding.  They provide specific content related to the collections they house, like the Smithsonian Institution or the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Museums and archives pay to digitize content, organize it, host it on servers, and ensure that users are able to access it.  It is paid for through membership fees, donations and public (tax) funding.  In some cases, you must pay a membership fee for access to digital content.  It carries all the same rights of ownership that the non-digital versions carries and requires attribution regardless of whether the individual user pays for access.  

As a nation, we should all be concerned about a growing trend toward destruction of public access through non-partisan, non-profit entities.  Power, control, and influence of information determined by those who select and organize content, and who restrict its access to content based upon ability to pay or other selective criteria is not in the interests of a diverse democratic society.   If we move toward a system where all content is driven directly through publishers, booksellers, or companies that curate content for a fee, individual citizens will lose out.  Libraries are not free.  It costs money to curate, organize, and make content searchable.  Libraries do these things without gaining profit on the items they curate.  Collection development is driven by user needs.  We already have a growing digital divide based upon ability to pay and continuing to move toward this pay to view model of information access will create a vast information and literacy divide.

There is great power in what the Internet has brought to society. We now have the ability to use linked computers to connect curators of content and to make curated digital content accessible outside of the physical confines of an actual space. In addition, physical curated content, like books, is searchable outside of the confines of a physical repository.  But the Internet and search engines are about connection, not ubiquitous access to content.  As an example, type “history of libraries” into Google.   You will get a list of potential resources on the topic.  The first thing on the list will likely be a Wikipedia entry.  I have nothing against Wikipedia, but it’s an encyclopedia.  Entries are written by people who provide a basic overview and are not necessarily experts in the topic.  Even prior to the digital age, encyclopedia research was never meant to be more than a basic overview, primarily used with elementary students.  The greatest value of a good Wikipedia entry is its potential for leading students toward further resources through a list of cited resources at the end of the page, many of which can only be accessed for a fee.  Just about all of the other resources that will come up in this query on the “history of libraries” are also only available for a fee.  This includes Google book references.  Not only are online digital books still unwieldy, but the viewing access for many digitized books is quite limited in Google books.  In a search for “history of libraries”, Google will send you to an eBook for Michael Harris’s 1999 book History of Libraries of the Western World.  You can read a limited number of preview pages in Google Books, but then are given a link leading you to the full text for purchase at the bargain price of $37.12.  Imagine a full research paper with multiple resources at this cost?  It becomes cost prohibitive for individuals.  Libraries have the ability to provide resources to patrons within a school or community through collective purchasing power and sharing.  Even documents published under Open Access platforms have a cost.  Someone has to edit, digitize, organize, format, store (yes, even electronically, documents need to be stored), and create a portal to that information.  There is always a cost.

Unlike all other libraries, school libraries and librarians are geared toward specific teaching skills for finding and ethically using information, collection development skills linked to curriculum and pedagogy, strong relationships bridge between publishers and content creators, K12 focused content, understanding of copyright/fair use rules (and how they are evolving), access to diverse variety of pleasure reading with the goal of cultivating widespread literacy and independent learning, and an ability to provide scaffolded instruction of skills for students so that when they ultimately leave the K12 environment they can effectively use both the resources available via the connection of the Internet and academic, business and public libraries to research information.

So what about the role of the Internet?  Can't teachers just use the Internet to create all of this rich content?   That implies a misunderstanding of what the Internet is.  The Internet isn't really a thing, but the interconnection of servers, devices, and individual computers.  Internet search engines troll content according to tagging and popularity.  The Internet does not provide ubiquitous access.  It has the ability to point searchers to places where they can access, but does not give them the keys.  Keys cost money even if the resource is digital.   In fact, digital access costs more than print access and does not currently carrying the same rights of ownership.  But don't we have content experts in our school districts?  Isn't that what curriculum specialists do? The role of curriculum specialists is centered on finding a “package” that meets the needs of each grade within a school district.  School librarians are about finding and curating resources from a diverse array of publishers and providers to teach content that teachers and students can tailor toward individual needs, styles, and abilities.  

As a comparative example of the potential for these different functions, let's look at two different schools.  School A has a packaged curriculum for each grade in math, language arts, social studies, and science.  They have no school library and supplement the language arts program with individual classroom libraries for silent reading.  During the month of March, students study fractions in math through math worksheets and drills, follow set reading, writing, and grammar lessons through the packaged LA curriculum, read about Japan in their social studies books, and read about the earth in their science books.   School B has a strong library program with rich resources centrally located within their school.  The library has two separate technology-rich classrooms capable of using Skype with a teacher and interviewee, sophisticated software programs and learning programs that use interactive gaming headphones.  The collection of resources is created with collaborative input from all of the teachers.  During March, the 3^rd graders study Japan.   Teachers create a rich curriculum with the librarian that includes versions of the Sadako story, a strong varied collection of books about Japan, and biographies of famous Japanese and Japanese-American people.  Students have Skype conversations with Japanese school children in the technology classrooms, letting them experience the connection of learning with real children their age in Japan.  Math lessons on fractions include measurements in recipes for Japanese foods from a collection of age appropriate cookbooks for children and examples of origami paper folding.  The library has age appropriate resources on the effects of nuclear bombs and radiation on health and the environment that are used in science lessons.  Art classes explore Japanese brush and ink work ( shodo) and the creation of maneki neko (lucky cat) paintings.  Examples of Japanese art are in the library collection.  Music classes teach Classical Japanese music and children explore Japanese instruments through videos in the library collection.  They also learn some basic Japanese language skills using the gaming headphones and a language learning program in the library technology classrooms.  Which style of school do you think will have the most engaged students – and which students are most likely going to retain what they learn?  The skills being taught are the same, but the content of School B is far richer leading to deeper inquiry and understanding.

Technology does mean exciting things for education, but technology is about the tools for access and content creation, not the content itself.  And technology without content is like having a car, but no fuel.  Technology is certainly opening up amazing possibilities.  We can search greater volumes, access content from a distance, communicate over long distances at a lower cost than ever before, and tailor learning in remarkable ways.  But all content has a cost; somewhere it still needs to be paid for. Booksellers, like Amazon, have an interest in selling books.  Each item accessed, by each individual, carries a specific fee.  They do not provide access to everything published.  They operate under a model according to popularity of sale.  Newspapers and magazines charge for access.  Look at what your cable bill costs.  You pay, either through advertisements or premium access, for content.  Internet access works the same way.  

Unfortunately, cuts to school libraries mean a huge number of school librarians and support staff have to rely upon single vendor solutions.  This means that the bulk of collection development relies heavily upon the vendor selecting content and offering it to the library “shelf ready” at a premium price.  Fewer and fewer school librarians are able to voraciously peruse review copies prior to selection and the budgets for collection development are continually shrinking.  This is bad for education.   We are rapidly losing rich and diverse content in K12 education.  The technological tools we all seem so enamored with are worthless without content.  A student may learn how to use this year’s version of Excel or PowerPoint, but doesn't have a clue that cutting and pasting things from Internet sites without attribution is plagiarism.  The tools will change and students will have to learn how to use new tools on their own, just like the rest of us have been doing as new technology has evolved.  If we haven't taught them how to write, research, cite, edit, organize and evaluate information, and think independently, they won't have the skills to navigate in the world on their own.  If we are to truly embrace this revolutionary time in education, we should be moving toward centralized school libraries that are the hub of learning with more, not fewer, highly skilled staff members who can, and have the time to, cost-effectively curate collections, find new funding sources, collaboratively teach with other staff members, and provide access to rich content for students and staff.

 

Works consulted:

American Association of School Librarians.  Standards for the 21^st Century Learner.  Chicago:  American Library Association, 2007.  www.ala.org/alsc/

Boelens, Helen.  “What is a school library?: International Guidelines.” International Association of School Librarianship (IASL).  Web. 28 Sept. 2014.www.iasl-online.org

Curry Lance, Keith. "School Library Impact Studies." Web. 28 Sept. 2014. .

Harris, Michael. History of Libraries of the Western World. Google EBook ed. (full Book Access Costs $37.12) Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1999.

National Library of New Zealand. "School Library: Purpose." Web. 29 Sept. 2014. 

Links to resources related to the impact of school libraries:

School Libraries Impact Studies

http://www.lrs.org/data-tools/school-libraries/impact-studies/

Latest Study: A full-time school librarian makes a critical difference in boosting student achievement

http://www.slj.com/2013/03/research/librarian-required-a-new-study-shows-that-a-full-time-school-librarian-makes-a-critical-difference-in-boosting-student-achievement/#_

The Importance of School Libraries

http://www.laurabushfoundation.com/Lance.pdf

Checking Out: Budget hawks see library programs as an easy out, but what's the cost to student achievement?

http://www.nea.org/home/43952.htm

School Libraries Work! (Research Foundation Paper)

http://www.scholastic.com/content/collateral_resources/pdf/s/slw3_2008.pdf

What You Can Do To Support School Libraries In Crisis

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carl-harvey-ii/post_2725_b_1136618.html

School Libraries Make The Difference

http://www.ilovelibraries.org/school-libraries-make-difference

A Librarian's Tricks For Finding Those 'Complex Texts' Cited In the Common Core

http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2012/07/k-12/a-librarians-tricks-for-finding-those-complex-texts-cited-in-the-common-core/

Starting A Local School Libraries Friends Group

http://www.ala.org/united/sites/ala.org.united/files/content/friends/orgtools/school-friends.pdf

International Association of School Librarianship -- list of studies on school libraries worldwide

http://www.iasl-online.org/advocacy/make-a-difference.html