As students around the country return to school, those in New York City are facing a future without certified school librarians, as the NYC Department of Education (DOE) has asked to be excused from a decades-old state mandate on minimum staffing requirements. The request for a “variance” from the law (Commissioner’s Regulation §91.2), filed August 9 with the New York State Education Department (see SLJ’s coverage, “Educators, Parents Fight NYC Bid to Bypass State Mandate for School Librarians,”), proclaims a sad lack of vision concerning the contribution librarians make to this great city. Mayor Bloomberg, surely this is not the kind of legacy you wish for? This is how we wisely invest in our future?

The Wall Street Journal reports that there are a meager 333 certified librarians serving the city’s 1,700 schools, after steady declines for years. We have reached a new, perhaps critical, low.

The timing couldn’t be worse for our schools. It’s been shown that kids in schools with librarians do better than those in schools without—a pretty simple and sufficient case. By whatever name (teacher librarian, media specialist, or librarian), these professionals deliver on basic literacy, digital literacy, research skills, college readiness, and much more. And, now, when all too many teachers lack training on the new Common Core standards, the city continues to defund this key human capital investment. This, just as the reaction to the first scores truly tests the implementation of the standards. We need the skills that media specialists bring to our schools.

The DOE should be positioning librarians to provide on-the-ground support for the implementation of the most significant educational initiative of our generation. School librarians are a natural source of professional development on materials—print or digital—and they can be a vital link to parents in explaining what to expect in the transition. Librarians, including those directly confronted by the NYC DOE’s move, are out front on the Common Core nationally. We’ve published several of them here.

The fact is there has been an ongoing disregard for the mandate itself. This law, in place for decades, articulates the will of the public for the public good. It is an expression of thoughtful process. Undermining it via a series of one-off executive decisions made by principals under immediate budgetary pressure is not how our social contract works best. Perhaps it is not such a bad thing that this penny-wise, pound-foolish cost-savings tactic has been brought out in the open—and back into the political process.

We don’t need what the DOE calls “equivalent service” in its August 9 letter. We don’t need vague assurances of “arrangements” and “steps” that will be taken to cope with this disinvestment. The NYC DOE’s request presents an opportunity for those of us who know what librarians do to challenge what’s been happening and to demand that the department take the lead in producing better educational results by supporting the deployment of the Common Core and those who are key to its success.

Will the DOE provide a vision of how to improve our children’s education? Or will it continue to cut costs in ways that at best seem small-minded?

Welcome back to school, people.

Rebecca T. Miller
Editor-in-Chief
rmiller@mediasourceinc.com

Such childhood delight and any attendant anxieties about friends and teachers are familiar enough. But my concern has shifted now that I am an adult, and one who feels a certain responsibility for the many children directly and indirectly involved in my life and work. The gap between the haves and the have-nots, which during my childhood sparked all kinds of unease, has grown wider and more deeply troubling.

Rising economic inequality and the persistent digital divide should have us all on high alert for the well-being of many of our children. In a recent Salon article, Andrew Leonard puts it in stark terms as he reflects on the rise of the Internet and rising economic inequality—and how they interrelate. “Twenty years after the Internet first started significantly transforming how we live, society has become more unequal and polarized,” he writes. (See, “The Internet’s greatest disruptive innovation: Inequality,” July 19, 2013)

“Today, the more skilled you are, the more you benefit from new technology. There is no question that for those with talent, drive and access to education, the connected society offers practically unlimited opportunity,” he writes. “But, if you are not so skilled, it’s a different story.” Leonard cites shifts in the job market brought by innovations in software, which continue to rattle the work world.

As the job landscape continues to shift, the mission of schools and libraries to address the gap intensifies, and the work of the key players, teachers and librarians, has never been more essential. Of course, they need support with infrastructure—like that provided by the recently proposed reforms to the E-rate program*—to level the playing field. And, as critically, we need enough teachers and librarians to go around, so we don’t keep exacerbating the other gaps with what’s been called an attention gap as class sizes grow and librarians get stretched thin. Our kids need all the engaged grown-ups they can get in their lives.

I know I am not alone as I fret. Luckily, librarians and other educators are full of new ideas, striving toward the common good for our children. Let’s give them what they need to do their work.

Rebecca T. Miller
Editor-in-Chief
rmiller@mediasourceinc.com

*This article has been amended to reflect that the updates to the E-rate program are not final. Comments from stakeholders, including librarians, are welcome and encouraged via the Electronic Comment Filing System before the FCC acts on Proceeding 13-184.

Photograph by Rebecca T. Miller

“The most exciting time for a kindergarten teacher is when a kid looks up and says, ‘Hey, I can read!’” This is my favorite line from a conversation between two educators at the daylong “Fostering Lifelong Learners” event held April 25 at the Cambridge (MA) Public Library. The speaker, Jim St. Claire, a 39-year veteran of the classroom, teaches at the Amigos School in Cambridge, a dual-language immersion program. His counterpart on the stage was Anne Mackay; with 13 years under her belt, she’s a lower school reading specialist at nearby Buckingham Browne & Nichols School. The two shared many insights to apply in working with babies and toddlers.

The day itself was structured to reflect the partnerships needed to give wee ones and their caregivers what they need to arrive at that “aha!” moment. It was organized by SLJ’s sister publication, The Horn Book, in collaboration with the Cambridge Public Library, and Reach Out and Read, a nonprofit that integrates early literacy training into pediatric examinations. The goal of the event, sponsored by Penguin, DK, Junior Library Guild, and Charlesbridge, was to foster early learning—be it in the library, the doctor’s office, at daycare, or at home.

Mackay, for her part, noted the need to build the ability to hear the sounds in words—calling that the “biggest predictor of reading later in life.” She also stressed teaching early print concepts, comprehension of plot, and the development of writing skills. “Encourage parents to get rid of markers,” she said. Instead, use chalk, on the blackboard or sidewalk, as it gives “a ton of feedback” and “really works fine motor skills.”

Technology, too, has its place. “Kids can get a sense of mastery if they know more than the teacher,” said St. Claire, “but we have to be aware of the kids who don’t have tech.” Mackay acknowledged that the digital age has changed many things, not all for the worse, adding, “there are lots of good apps.”

Meanwhile, we at SLJ were developing this special issue dedicated to early learning. I was excited to see so many of the themes of the Lifelong Learners event dovetail with what we were planning. From the essential tastiness of board books (“Built to Last,” p. 28) and the tactile pleasure of play at Brooklyn Public Library (“Read, Play, Grow,” p. 24) to the thoughtful development of apps at Sesame Workshop (“The Early Bird,” p. 18), may the ideas presented here inspire you toward achieving your own “aha” moment in your work with the youngest among us.

SLJ’s new look

Print readers will see a few changes in the magazine this month. They derived, in part, from our migration to the K4 cross-media publishing platform and WordPress content management system. This issue was produced via K4, which will enable us to be more nimble across print, e-newsletters, and the Web.

A migration like this inspires an evaluation of what we do, where, and why. For SLJ, it meant a reconsideration of aspects of the all-important reviews section. A small fix: book titles are enhanced to be more readable. A pragmatic but difficult decision: we will no longer produce the review index, which had appeared in each issue. We recognize the value of this index, especially to researchers, but now offer the BookVerdict database of reviews to subscribers as an alternate way to find SLJ reviews. A vast improvement: fiction and nonfiction now have their own sections, with more specific grade-level groupings.

Faced with creating new templates, our creative director, Mark Tuchman, seized the opportunity to update the look and feel of the magazine with new colors and tweaks to the layouts of everything from the contributors’ page to the stars page. We hope you approve.

Rebecca T. Miller
Editor-in-Chief
rmiller@mediasourceinc.com

A

As I travel to the American Library Association (ALA) annual conference in Chicago later this month, I will inevitably carry the baggage of an unresolved disconnect. Those of us inside Libraryland know what our K–12 peers deliver, yet that value is clearly not understood by administrators, who are cutting school librarian positions nationwide. I can’t help but think that a key resource is being squandered out of sheer ignorance.

We have a perception problem. ALA’s current president, Maureen Sullivan, agrees. “I am concerned that school administrators may not fully understand the critical role school libraries and their librarians play in fostering academic achievement and student success in a technology-driven world,” she wrote recently on Huffington Post.

I think she’s right. Moreover, ALA has an obligation to help set the record straight and demonstrate to school leaders the value of the talented people and programs right under their noses. But this challenge calls for more than a task force. It requires a shift in strategy.

Don’t get me wrong. It was encouraging to see Sullivan’s “State of America’s School Libraries” (April 15). The post conveyed urgency and important background about school librarians’ role and their contribution to student learning. But, she buried the lead. The massive body of research that articulates how librarians directly affect student success was allotted only a short paragraph. I think administrators will care if they see what they are actually giving up.

So, what to do? Engage in radical advocacy. The last time ALA leadership really confronted a pressing perception problem—the refusal of publishers to offer ebooks for lending in public libraries—they broke the mold and made inroads with industry leaders through a persistent series of high-level meetings to raise awareness about the role libraries play in building a reading public and marketing publishers’ products—books.

Somewhere along the way, ALA realized the necessity to reframe the conversation about libraries in light of ebooks. It needed to proactively engage the powers that be in the commercial sector to correct the misperception that a library sale is a lost sale. I’m sure some of those meetings were hard to arrange, and even felt risky. I sat in on one in New York that was undeniably confrontational. Facing differences of opinion and knowledge gaps can be like that.

I urge ALA leadership to step out of the comfort zone as it did on ebooks and advocate with education leaders they don’t normally talk to—district leaders, principals, superintendents, and departments of education—to correct the misperception that school librarians are expendable. Tap incoming president Barbara Stripling’s deep passion and knowledge to tip the scales. She managed one of the most complex school library systems in the United States, New York City’s, during a time of tremendous change, and she is past president of AASL. Stripling is uniquely positioned to tell this story in a compelling way.

Cuts to school libraries can’t just be one of ALA’s problems, and it’s not a challenge for the youth divisions to shoulder alone. These cuts impact all libraries and leave our kids in the lurch. If you care about the future of libraries, you have to care about the future of school libraries. Just as the association tackled ebooks head on, now is the time for ALA to drive a new advocacy strategy for school librarians.

  Rebecca T. Miller
Editor-in-Chief
rmiller@mediasourceinc.com

Her libraries are like the best children’s rooms extended to every corner of the library, and even out the door—Anythink’s Wright Farms library features a new “Explore Outdoors” garden to the delight of adults and kids alike. This extension of the principles of the children’s room is a natural for Sandlian Smith, who began her career in children’s services at the Denver Public Library. Her perspective may just define the library of the future.

“Creativity and innovation are two of the most important assets to success, but as a culture, we have few places that actively nurture creativity,” Sandlian Smith told attendees at SLJ’s Public Library Leadership Think Tank. Focusing on that gap, she’s transforming Anythink into what she calls a “participatory library.”

From “Playing for Keeps”
Photo by B.Mayer

This is informed by the thinking of the first Denver Public Library director and legendary librarian John Cotton Dana. He defined the library as “the center of public happiness first, of public education next.” How to get happier? At Anythink, this is addressed at every level: organizational structure, buildings, and programs, all inherently playful and designed to foster creativity among patrons of all ages.

Play, of course, is important in learning. “Genuine inquiry is fundamentally and inescapably playful,” writes Barbara Fister, a professor and librarian at Gustavus Adolphus College, in “Playing for Keeps.” And it’s not just for kids. Grown-ups, too, she adds, “need play to promote innovation and discovery.” Hence, retaining the ability to play as we think is essential.

John Hunter at
SLJ‘s Public Library Think Tank.
Photo credit: Matt Carr/Getty Images.

Taking play seriously can mean playing serious games. Just ask John Hunter. A teacher in Virginia’s Albemarle County Public Schools, Hunter is the creator of the World Peace Game, a complex role-playing enterprise that puts kids in charge of forging peace despite all kinds of social, economic, political, and environmental challenges. What he’s found out about kids along the way is incredible and is shared in his new book World Peace and Other 4th-Grade Achievements.

This resonates for me as I reflect on recent acts of violence and the enraged responses in the media and culture that fuel the cycle of negativity. Hunter fosters compassion instead. This inspiring teacher gives his students the tools to approach problems creatively, to work together to resolve an incidence of bullying, to witness the impact of bad and good choices as they reverberate through the interlocking aspects of the game.

What we play at most is what we practice; it’s what we master.

Librarians and educators like these—who create space to explore ideas, build skills to execute on creative impulses, and encourage a complex worldview—inspire us all to be happier human beings. I’d like to think that happy and more creative people will forge a path to a more peaceful future, locally and globally.

I’m going to go and play now, and I hope you will, too. Our futures might just depend on it.

Rebecca T. Miller
Editor-in-Chief
rmiller@mediasourceinc.com

I

John, now in kindergarten, has some lines memorized—the opening of Joyce Kilmer’s “Trees” is a favorite (“I think that I shall never see/A poem lovely as a tree”). Harper, four this month, often asks for prompts. “What comes after ‘fearful’?” Answer: “symmetry.” (Yes, Blake’s “The Tyger.”) My husband, Stephen, and I mine our memories or read poems off our devices. We often lean on Yeats’s “Gratitude to the Unknown Instructors” (“What they undertook to do/ They brought to pass;/All things hang like a drop of dew/Upon a blade of grass”).

Sometimes it’s a somber experience, focused and reverent. Sometimes it’s souped-up, speedy, and loud. Often it evolves quickly into wordplay and joking around. Somewhere in there we start to eat.

This practice was inspired by Mira Dougherty-Johnson, a friend who also happens to be a very good librarian at a school in Southold, NY. She is married to poet Tim Wood, and told me about how they share poems at dinner with their kids. I thought we’d test it, and found we all took to it. What’s most surprising is that the kids continue to enjoy this ritual. They take pride in learning lines, and they clearly derive pleasure from the music and imagery in the language, and, of course, the surprising new words.

Their interest spurred mine, and I started seeing the poetry around me. New York City delivered with its lovely and now ongoing Poetry in Motion series of posters on the subway. I take snapshots of them to read at dinner—above is an example taken recently during my commute. These souvenirs from my day give me fodder for the developing ritual, and they inadvertently reinforce that poetry infuses our lives.

In Open the Door: How to Excite Young People about Poetry (coming this month from McSweeney’s Books and the Poetry Foundation), poet Matthea Harvey writes, “Our concerns as adults and children are not so different. We want to be surprised, transformed, challenged, delighted, understood.” Poetry did all those things for her, and can offer each of us the same.

Now, of course, poetry is everywhere because it’s National Poetry Month. A favorite part of this initiative by the Academy of American Poets is Poem in Your Pocket Day, coming April 18. I’ll be packing a folded copy of a poem by John Ashbery that’s integrated into the Irene Hixon Whitney Footbridge in Minneapolis (“And now I cannot remember how I would/have had it…”), and I’ll be happy to read it on demand.

Rebecca T. Miller
Editor-in-Chief
rmiller@mediasourceinc.com

Photo credit: iStockphoto

I’m usually a glass-half-full kind of person, but sometimes you can’t help reflecting on the emptiness—on what’s missing. When our schools cut librarians to save dollars, a critical contributor to student learning exits the building. And kids lose out.

This is the undeniable impact illustrated by a Pennsylvania study presented in our feature story, “Librarian Required,” by Debra E. Kachel and Keith Curry Lance (p. 28). The study joins a growing body of research that proves the efficacy of librarians in our schools. But this one goes further, showing how some 200,000 students are being denied in a state with deep cuts to school libraries. All this in light of the Common Core State Standards and the call for 21st-century skills. Given the responsibility for student achievement, anyone with control of the purse strings should seriously consider the lessons of the Pennsylvania study.

“Consistently, reading and writing scores are better for students who have a full-time, certified librarian than those who don’t,” note Kachel and Lance. On the flip side, “Below Basic” scores on reading and writing are higher in schools that do not have librarians. The inclusion of writing is an important element of this kind of research, which has often focused on reading scores
(see “Something to Shout About,” SLJ, September 2011, pp. 28–33).

This writing aspect is especially vital given the Common Core and its emphasis on students’ ability to produce meaningful materials in the learning process. “Advanced” writing scores are three times as likely in schools with a full-time librarian. And, it gets better with better budgets. “Students with access to well-resourced libraries are two to five times more likely to score ‘Advanced’ in writing than students without such libraries,” write Kachel and Lance. From the glass-half-full perspective, that’s inspiring. But then I think of the kids in schools without librarians.

The findings of this study alone should take the decision to cut a librarian off the table. Pennsylvania should serve as an example for all.

Of course, principals and superintendents make hard decisions based on much more than research—the decision to trim a library position is no doubt a complex one. This is why, inside the profession, we have to be ever more creative in surfacing this kind of data as we illustrate librarians’ value in terms of student achievement to principals, superintendents, and parents.

We have the research, now we have to get it into the right hands. Kachel and Lance call for each of us to take these findings to key stakeholders. As part of the profession, I’m committed to sharing the message in our publication and in my discussions with educators and partners. As a parent, I’m going to take these findings to the principal of my son’s school, which currently has no librarian despite strong library leadership in the district.

What will you do?

Too often, advocacy can take a defensive position. I’m not talking about defending what has been, but showing what librarians bring toward a successful future. The survey makes clear: one key staffer can make a huge difference in the overall learning in our schools. And that staffer is a librarian.

Rebecca T. Miller
Editor-in-Chief
rmiller@mediasourceinc.com

Drawing from Mei Li.

Of course, this year is even more special. As the Caldecott Medal turns 75, the party is even bigger, and it will keep going until the awards celebration at ALA annual in Chicago in late June. It’s wonderful, and, because of the enduring value of the Caldecott award, it’s not just recreational. This award matters, bringing a broad readership to the winning books and keeping them in print for years to come. It’s also not just recreational because evaluations like these are at the heart of what librarians do every day as they choose materials for their collections.

Of course, this award is not without controversy—what award is? Among the issues is that the Caldecott is decided by committee, leading some to think the best books get left aside in the search for the ones everyone will agree on, and some of the choices don’t hold up over time. But the highly controlled judging process itself is key, and the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) continues to protect the integrity of the librarian judges and the privacy of the proceedings. (For the rules, see the Caldecott Medal Manual.) Getting to a decision requires artful mastery.

There will always be books that didn’t win the Caldecott that many argue should have. That is part of the fun. SLJ contributing editor Rocco Staino is collecting librarians’ picks of what’s gotten missed over the years in a series of video interviews we’ll post on SLJ.com in the months to come. There are also deeper reflections on the early award winners in a series of articles from
The Horn Book, rich discussion coming from bloggers, and much more in the pipeline.

I look forward to more conversation on where picture books fit into the lives of our kids. SLJ’s Trevelyn Jones, for one, hopes they’ll be better used to help kids appreciate and talk about art, even long past what’s considered to be the standard picture-book audience ages and on into the seventh and eighth grades. As a parent, I keep tapping the Caldecott winners and honor books as I read to my children, reaching for works that will enrich their language and their sense of what the world looks like and those that will spark their imaginations or transport them. I am delighted, for instance, by the pull of 1988 winner Owl Moon (illustrated by John Schoenherr, text by Jane Yolen) in the heat of the summer.

I had a special encounter with one Caldecott winner, Thomas Handforth’s Mei Li, when I visited Lisa Von Drasek, formerly at Bank Street, now the curator of the University of Minnesota’s Children’s Literature Research Collections in Minneapolis. Von Drasek showed me just a few of the choice pieces of art in the collection, including draft drawings of Caldecott-free Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown, and one from Mei Li (pictured). Mei Li, the winner of the second Caldecott Medal in 1939, was in the process of being digitized so it can be accessed more often for research.

It’s delightful that librarians made Mei Li a winner and now a librarian is preserving the art for the future. That’s the kind of difference librarians can make.

Rebecca T. Miller
Editor-in-Chief
rmiller@mediasourceinc.com

For our part, we saw a disconnect when SLJ’s public library spending survey revealed that a mere nine percent of public librarians actively collaborate with their peers in K–12. After we published the results in “It Takes Two” (May 2012, pp. 26–29), we learned about many partnerships, and we also heard from many from both school and public librarians who seemed burned out by failed outreach attempts.

Yoder and Lowry may be a rare breed, but, as is abundantly clear in our cover story, “Partners in Success” (pp. 22–28), they’re not alone. Many like-minded librarians are reaching across institutional walls and redefining their turf—and their institutions are changing, too. Considering the yawning gap between what kids need from libraries and the resources currently available to them, innovation in this area is urgent.

At first, I was inspired by the spark between two professionals that ignites a new partnership. I still am. This kind of grassroots initiative is grounded in knowing the kids, and, when it works, helps build the case for more. Now, however, I’m even more convinced that our institutions need to act with the same responsiveness and creativity.

We need more of what’s happening in Nashville. Talking with Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools’ Kathryn Bennett brought this home. I met Bennett, a library lead teacher, at Library Journal’s December 14 Design Institute at the wonderful Warrensville Heights Branch of the Cuyahoga County (OH) Public Library. It was great to see her at this public library event—after all, there’s plenty of insight into learning spaces in any good library.

Naturally, we fell into talking about Nashville’s Limitless Libraries initiative. Bennett is a big fan of the project, which, she says, wouldn’t be nearly what it is without the “Memorandum of Understanding” between the school and Nashville Public Library (NPL).

As NPL’s Tricia Racke Bengel details in her overview of how Limitless Libraries came to be, the memorandum enables the library to use information about students, with parental permission, so their student IDs serve as library cards, streamlining access to the collections. Racke Bengel, who was named a 2012 LJ Mover & Shaker for this work, describes a process that was certainly disruptive. The project keeps expanding as it enriches the lives of Nashville’s kids.

After reading cover story writer Marta Murvosh’s exploration of the state of public and/school library collaborations, I’m even more convinced of the need for us be actively reimagine how we serve our kids. And we must break down the silos that stymie that work.

Toward that end, SLJ will be giving more attention to collaboration in 2013 in an effort to forge a model to help us join together to approach challenges as a greater community. We’ll focus on these partnerships as part of the first SLJ Public Library Leadership Think Tank, currently in planning for April 5 in New York City. The daylong event aims to provide a public library companion to SLJ’s dynamic Leadership Summit, aimed at tackling school library issues. My hope is that the two events will, in a sense, ping pong off of one another to foster deeper dialog on the commonalities shared by all librarians serving kids. Collaboration will also be a theme in the upcoming Be the Change webcast series, which we bet will be the start of a robust leadership initiative.

Let’s change the world together. Happy New Year!

Rebecca T. Miller
Editor-in-Chief
rmiller@mediasourceinc.com

The small daylong confab has been taking advantage of the August doldrums since 2009, pulling in librarians from the region to help spur innovative thinking in children’s services and professional skill development, with an eye toward technology integration. Kiera Parrott, who has taken the helm of children’s services at Darien from Gretchen Caserotti, now assistant director of public services, set the tone, mapped the sessions based on a show of hands, and then freed participants to plot a new future for libraries. That’s what it felt like.

Primarily peopled by public librarians, the event had key diversity: four school librarians shared their perspectives, and, the organizers noted with glee, three participants were men. Any librarian would have benefited. Major threads included how to work with tablets and apps, tech for tweens and teens, collection reorganization à la Dumping Dewey, designing children’s spaces, and the arrival of the Common Core.

The discussion on the Common Core, for one, revealed how united public and school librarians are in their goals, and how an issue that seems to dominate one type of library (schools) has all sorts of implications for another (think homework help, collection balance, and more in public libraries). Ironically, it’s often at informal gatherings like KidLibCamp that these essential intersections are most formally (and fruitfully) recognized.

To pull off a KidLibCamp requires initiative, space, and time. It also requires leaders who recognize the value of brief time-outs from the daily pace and encourage their staffs to develop or attend forums like this. (Darien director Louise Berry has demonstrated on ongoing commitment to innovation in the field.) Every director and manager should seek out these opportunities for their teams. In a space like KidLibCamp, professionals who can feel overwhelmed by their growing workloads get an opportunity to explore new ideas and extend to others their mastery of the matters at hand.

Of course, I came away thinking about what SLJ is doing to help you innovate in your organizations. In this issue, you can explore Travis Jonker’s experimentation with ereaders (see “Travis’s Excellent Adventure,”), get guidance on how to collect Spanish-language titles and program with them effectively in our new “Libro por libro” series by Tim Wadham, and reflect on bringing parents up to speed on Common Core. And be on the lookout: Jonker will be coming your way here when his 100 Scope Notes joins the fray at SLJ’s blog network and a webcast series on implementing Common Core is in the works to launch in October..

Still, I have a long “to-do” list for SLJ. I’m excited to help share the best of the critical creative thinking that happens in libraries every day—be it through surfacing more experimentation with technology, providing deeper programming guidance, or taking in-depth dives into professional development needs around big shifts in the field.

The best feeling, however, came as I was driving home, more confident than ever that our libraries are in excellent hands. KidLibCamp was a reminder of just how much peer know-how we have within our reach. As we all get back into the pace of the school year, with homework help ramping up in public libraries and school libraries in full throttle all day, it might be helpful to remember that one of your best sources of inspiration, calm, and problem-solving is probably hard at work in the closest library nearby.

Rebecca T. Miller
Editor-in-Chief
rmiller@mediasourceinc.com

Dare I say, it’s also more stylish. WordPress allows us to readily present the many images that are part of the work we all do–be they pictures from the field, infographics, illustrations from the print magazine, book covers and illustrations, or author photos.

Among the big changes: major menus to help you readily discover areas of coverage, better integration of SLJ Blog Network content, and tech stories folded into the overall content flow.

So, welcome! Take a look. Let us know what you think, but also let us know if something doesn’t work. We’ll keep refining the site, so any bug sightings are invaluable. Please send those to Josh Hadro and more general reactions to me.

Enjoy!

Rebecca T. Miller
Editor-in-Chief
rmiller@mediasourceinc.com

This tragedy is most pressing where people are suffering in “pockets of language poverty,” Myers noted, exacerbated by high and long-lasting unemployment. When parents don’t work, he added, kids lose the secondary benefit of casual access to workplace words. Each word counts. Just hearing the technical terms that are part of any job enriches a child’s worldview. Each word enables a connection to the next and a visualization of a place where things happen beyond the familiar daily environment. Each feeds the energy of the imagination. Each helps build a vision of a potential future.

Increasingly, kids are not getting the words they need to see and strive for a better future—much less take joy in reading a transporting story, or writing one. Worse yet, Myers argued, our society glosses over both the problem of a growing illiteracy rate and a rising incarceration rate because of who is affected: it is poor people who suffer most. “One of the biggest problems is that we don’t talk about it,” he said.

Myers, the current National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, grew up underprivileged in Harlem. “I came out through literature,” he said. It offered a “different worldview that I could use beyond my own misery. And eventually that different worldview took over.”

I imagine Myers would like to meet a young man Jonathan Kozol refers to as Jeremy (in this month’s cover story, “The Other America”). Jeremy grew up in Mott Haven, which Kozol calls “the poorest section in all of the South Bronx.” He was a smart kid and ended up making it to a top college. Key to his escape: a steady stream of interesting reading provided by a neighborhood poet. A good school librarian also helped build his capacity when he made it to a better school in 10th grade.

Kozol, who revisits the kids of Mott Haven in his new book, Fire in the Ashes, echoes Myers when it comes to what we need to do to help all children learn to read and gain the ability to make their own lives. They agree that we have to put more good books into kids’ hands. They agree that school and public libraries are essential to getting it done right.

Parents are key, too. Of those children behind in reading when they enter school, Myers said, “only 15 percent catch up. If they don’t, they won’t be readers. We have to take the leap of faith that parents will read to their kids. If we don’t, we have to accept the world we will inherit.”

As a society, Kozol argues, we simply haven’t mustered the political will to care enough about the kids who are at risk to focus real resources on the problem.

Myers’s description of how new words enable a child to imagine a world beyond his or her immediate surroundings gave me new insight into the power of each word a child learns. Where those words cease to flow, the world closes in. On the flip side, the world opens for children who are exposed to words, stories, and the imaginations of others by reading.

For those in libraries, this is obvious and essential to our work. Literacy gaps (including digital literacy) are unforgivable in a nation as wealthy as ours. We can look to the kids who succeeded because they were inspired about reading and learning and celebrate those who transcended their environments. Then we must give all kids, no matter where they come from, the many words they need to see and build a better future for themselves.

Rebecca T. Miller
Editor-in-Chief
rmiller@mediasourceinc.com

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I can’t help worrying that the article, which had 241,829 views when this page went to press, will deter many people from venturing into our field. I imagine this is how those in lower-ranked colleges feel when U.S. News & World Report’s new list of “Best Colleges” comes out. But as Malcolm Gladwell so eloquently showed us in his analysis of those rankings in the New Yorker (“The Order of Things,” February 14, 2011), we should recognize the limitations of one-dimensional rankings such as these. Inevitably, some factors are given little or no weight. In this case, Forbes doesn’t count job satisfaction, for instance.

We can wonder how satisfied physician’s assistants and computer scientists are—working in presumably large and expensive urban centers. But we do know that people working in library roles have extremely high job satisfaction. Even in the face of stagnant pay and increased workloads as budgets have been ratcheted down, an overwhelming majority like their jobs and would enter the profession again (see Library Journal’s 2011 survey “Rocked by Recession, Buoyed by Service”). Such a benefit is rare enough to find in boom times and it’s even rarer for recent graduates, whatever their degrees, who are having such a hard time finding a job.

Nevertheless, folks living outside of Libraryland are looking at the Forbes list and evaluating the value of an MLIS degree. Part of that analysis will inevitably include salary. So, of course, pay matters. The fact is those who win jobs with their MLIS can expect an average starting salary of $42,556 (“The Long Wait”), moving up to a mid-career median of $59,000, according to Forbes. And nowadays, graduates begin these jobs with a load of student debt on their backs. Librarians should be able to say they love their jobs, and do the work for more than the love of it. What should we do about that?

Make a better case for what libraries and librarians deliver to voters. They are the ones who pay us, ultimately. Identify what an MLIS gives to the professionals it prepares for institutions that need to innovate in the face of ongoing budget challenges. Moreover, let’s be clear about the full range of jobs the MLIS degree prepares a student for—now, in an age dominated by information, big data, and the ever-essential links between technology and the human experience. The next generation of librarians will have friends with MLIS degrees in a wide range of information industries. Tell the whole story about the great work that librarians do, in all of their roles, every day, and the satisfaction it brings. Watch out for the simple one-dimensional measures of value.

Let’s start with this month’s cover story, “Role Call”. In it, Betsy Bird, New York Public Library’s youth materials collections specialist and the “Fuse #8” blogger at slj.com, shares her insight into what it’s like to work with kids in one environment, public libraries. Along the way, she reinforces just how powerful the right match is between a person and his or her true calling.

Rebecca T. Miller
Editor-in-Chief
rmiller@mediasourceinc.com

Felder, a librarian in New York City’s (NYC) school system, described her approach in a fast-flowing Q&A period after a panel discussion on “points of entry for collaboration” on the Common Core at the NYC Department of Education’s (DOE) Library Services Spring Exploratorium, May 16. The panel was a forum for library staffers who had participated in a four-day course designed by the NYC DOE. Panelists shared their experiences bringing what they had learned about Common Core to their colleagues and administrators. These are steps toward what Olga Nesi, a library coordinator in the NYC DOE’s Office of Library Services and a former school librarian, refers to as a “mind shift” in the school environment: librarians can command the tools and strategies they need to take a leadership role in their schools as the entire system engages with the standards.

Nesi herself has taken the lead, diving deep into the Common Core’s nitty gritty in order to surface with insights on its potential for student learning, especially how to think about materials, curriculum, and the learning process in light of it, and how to help classroom teachers get up to speed. The professional development series that she and her colleagues have designed is lauded for its vision of an expanded role for librarians and the provision of practical tools for them to take back into their schools.

In “Seize the Opportunity”, she reflects on the fit between librarians’ mastery of inquiry and the new standards’ highest goals. Nesi’s is the first of a new series of opinion pieces SLJ will publish, dubbed “On Common Core,” as the standards become real. It’s both a call to action and an acknowledgment of the evolving work ahead.

That work, of course, involves showing teachers, curriculum writers, and administrators what you can do to help them meet the new standards. “It is one thing for us to see our work all over the Common Core,” writes Nesi, “but it is another to get others to see it, and yet another to position ourselves as instructional leaders in the implementation of the standards.”

According to the Exploratorium panelists and participants, such inroads are unmapped and necessarily experimental. Nevertheless, panelists reported a number of tactics that have served as entry points. The most direct range from simply giving the principal a report about what has been learned about Common Core during professional development time to sharing the learning with teachers in casual conversations or in group presentations. Others explained how they are working one on one with teachers to model how they can help design a unit or specific projects toward Common Core—with an eye to bringing others on board when they see it succeed. Still others will be involved in curriculum mapping, utilizing their training on the Common Core.

These efforts are not without barriers. Some roadblocks raised in the discussion: overworked classroom teachers, some of whom fear the standards, and rigid schedules that allow no time for their own professional development. Those very barriers are opportunities, however, said panelist Brenda Shufelt, a librarian at PS 30 in Manhattan, noting that librarians have a lot of professional training to bring to bear (book evaluation, collection development, readers’ advisory, creating diversified reading lists, collaborative lesson planning, etc.) in helping other educators implement the standards.

“People are overwhelmed,” added Nesi. “We bring solutions.”

Rebecca T. Miller
Editor-in-Chief
rmiller@mediasourceinc.com

Another number: 30 percent. That’s how many respondents say they collaborate with local schools to coordinate book purchases that support curriculum. Which is to say most don’t. We have a problem.

Collaboration is a two-way street, of course. Clearly, the librarians who answered yes to those questions collaborate with someone on the school side. Do we just need to find more collaborators? Maybe. But surely we need instigators as well. Too many of us are taking a more passive approach. Twenty-one percent say they have access to homework via student activity in the public library. Finding out the scoop from the kids is great, but it’s not nearly as proactive as directly connecting with those who create the assignments. This isn’t the time for hand-wringing. It’s a chance to get public and school libraries working together to better support kids—and better support the initiatives of colleagues in each setting.

This got me thinking about Bill Crowley’s concept of “Lifecycle Librarianship”. Crowley, a library professor at Dominican University, argues that all libraries should embrace the role each type of library plays in the lifetime of patrons, “from lapsit to the nursing home.” Apply that comprehensive service philosophy to what kids need as they try to finish their homework or find fun ways to explore their worlds. Hopefully, they’re using a school library and a public library in those pursuits. If libraries would work, or even play, in tandem to make that a seamless and supported process, both would meet more of their goals.

In a bigger sense, working together could also excite an expectation for what libraries can provide, which would then lead to more support for libraries throughout kids’ lives. Won’t adults who grew up with great librarians helping them achieve in school and do fun and enriching things with their free time be more likely to expect, even ask for, good libraries for their own kids?

Forget about protecting your turf. Even in the most robust times, libraries weren’t able to meet all of their communities’ needs. In this era of budget cuts and reduced services in school and public settings, the last thing we need is to put public and school libraries in separate silos. Librarians need to know about the realities and aspirations of their peers—across town. As librarian Andy Woodworth noted when he called for “Big Tent Librarianship”, we all have to embrace interconnected approaches.

Our survey results show we have a long way to go. But at SLJ, we want to help you make the most of this missed opportunity. We plan to follow up on this subject in future surveys. We plan to identify how the libraries with the strongest partnerships pull it off, and pinpoint the barriers to success.

Strategic collaboration among school and public librarians helps fill the gaps created by budget cuts. It’ll get you tag-teaming, designing programs that take advantage of what each library does best.

Rebecca T. Miller
Editor-in-Chief
rmiller@mediasourceinc.com