The research was conducted by IOE researchers Dr. Alice Sullivan and Matt Brown, who analyzed the reading behavior of approximately 6,000 children being followed by the 1970 British Cohort Study, which is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. They looked at how often the teenagers read during childhood and their test results in math, vocabulary, and spelling at ages 5, 10 and 16.

“It may seem surprising that reading for pleasure would help to improve children’s maths scores,” Sullivan says. “But it is likely that strong reading ability will enable children to absorb and understand new information and affect their attainment in all subjects.”

The researchers compared children from the same social backgrounds who had achieved the same test scores as each other at age 5 and at age 10. Their finding? Kids who read often at age 10 and more than once a week at age 16 gained higher results at age 16 than those who read less regularly.

The study also found that reading for pleasure was found to be more important for children’s cognitive development between ages 10 and 16 than their parents’ level of education. The combined effect on kids’ progress of reading books often, going to the library regularly, and reading newspapers at 16 was four times greater than the advantage kids gained from having a parent with a degree.

In addition, the study found that kids who were read to regularly by their parents at age 5 performed better in all three tests at age 16 than those who were not helped in this way.

So, what’s the goal of this orientation anyway? First, I’d like all students to learn that the library is a friendly, welcoming place, a safe haven in the storm that is high school. Sometimes all a student needs is a place to hide out. Secondly, I want all students to really know what we have to offer them: fiction, nonfiction, graphic novels, audiobooks, magazines, and reference books. I want them to actually log in and access our ebook collection. I want them to use the databases, save articles, and generate citations. All of this is a fairly large hope for a group of kids who’ll undoubtedly ask, “How many points is this worth?”  So knowing my audience fairly well, I’ve decided to resort to outright bribery, and I’m going to convince my staff to be open and prepared for the chaos I’m sure to unleash.

I’m putting together a scavenger hunt. Yes, I know, this is not a terribly new idea.  But I’m planning on throwing a few twists in to make it interesting and keep the students engaged.  Students will travel around the library in groups of no more than three. To begin, each group will receive a clue, in the form of a Call Number, which leads them to a different print location so not all students are converging on the same spot at the same time. I’ll need to develop at least 12 different scavenger paths so students touch on everything fabulous in the library without tripping over each other.  When students locate their book, they’ll find one of those old plastic VHS cases disguised as a book and containing candy (Smarties most likely) and their next clue, which will be one of a variety of things. Several will direct them to specific computer stations with directions to access a specific database. They’ll need to locate an article on a given topic, generate the citation, and email it to me along with their group number so we can keep everyone organized and on individual scavenger paths. I plan to have my assistant back in my office sending out the next clue when she receives correct emails. Other clues will lead to “books” containing QR codes linking to our website. One clue will direct them to check out an ebook. Yet another clue will lead them to iPads loaded with Aurasma videos demonstrating how to download newspapers and periodicals on their laptops and smartphones.

Ultimately, the real goal of this chaotic undertaking is to teach kids that the library is a place where questions are answered, passions are pursued, and where dreams are launched. Obviously, this is a work in progress, but as it takes shape, I’d love to hear what other librarians are doing to spice up their obligatory orientation.

For more ideas on how to spice up your orientation, check out Joyce Valenza‘s Orientation Inspiration post on her Neverending Search blog.

According to U.S. Census Bureau statistics released today, college enrollment in fall 2012 plunged by half a million (467,000) from one year earlier. This decline, which includes both graduate and undergraduate enrollment, follows a period of substantial growth ─ 3.2 million ─ between 2006 and 2011.

These statistics come from School Enrollment: 2012. As the nation’s students begin a new school year, the Census Bureau releases its annual set of tables on the characteristics of children and adults enrolled in school at all levels ─ from nursery to graduate school. Among the characteristics examined are age, sex, race, Hispanic origin, nativity and foreign-born parentage.

This decline in college enrollment was driven by older students ─ that is, those 25 and older. Their enrollment fell by 419,000, while the enrollment of younger students declined by 48,000.

Hispanics didn’t follow the trend, as the number enrolled in college grew by 447,000 from 2011 to 2012. Meanwhile, non-Hispanic white enrollment declined by 1.1 million and black enrollment by 108,000. From 2006 to 2012, the percentage of all college students who were Hispanic rose from 11 percent to 17 percent. The percentage who were black also rose (from 14 percent to 15 percent), but the percent of non-Hispanic white students declined from 67 percent to 58 percent.

“This increase in the number of Hispanics enrolled in college can be attributed to the combination of an increase in the adult Hispanic population and their climbing likelihood of being enrolled,” said Julie Siebens, a statistician in the Census Bureau’s Education and Social Stratification Branch.

The tables released today cover specific topics such as enrollment by grade, the attendance status of nursery school students and characteristics of their mothers, the type of school college students attend (two-year, four-year, etc.) and whether they attend full or part time, students taking vocational courses and the enrollment status of recent high school graduates. The information was collected in the October 2012 Current Population Survey.

Also released today was School Enrollment in the United States: 2011, a report that examines the characteristics of people enrolled in school at all levels using statistics from the Current Population Survey, American Community Survey and federal sources outside the Census Bureau. It covers some topics not typically covered in Census Bureau reports, such as Head Start, charter schools, home schooling and receipt of financial aid.

Although most of the statistics are national-level, some state-level data from the American Community Survey are presented. Updated 2012 American Community Survey statistics on school enrollment covering states and all geographic areas with populations of 65,000 or more will be published in September.

Other national highlights from the 2012 Current Population Survey tables:

–In 2012, 78 million people, or 26.4 percent of the population 3 or older, were enrolled in school.

–In 2012, there were 19.9 million college students, including 5.8 million enrolled in two-year colleges, 10.3 million in four-year colleges and 3.8 million in graduate school.

–In 2012, there were 4.2 million students enrolled in private elementary and high schools (first through 12th grade), down from 4.8 million in 2005.

–Non-Hispanic white children in 2012 comprised 53 percent of elementary school students, down from 58 percent in 2005. Hispanic children made up 24 percent of elementary students in 2012, up from 20 percent in 2005. Black children comprised 15 percent of elementary students in 2012, down from 16 percent in 2005.

–Students who were born in another country or whose parents were foreign-born comprised 32 percent of all those enrolled in school at all levels in 2012.

–While most students are under 25, there were 804,000 students age 50 and older enrolled in schools at all levels in 2012.

Direct to Data Tables

School Enrollment in the United States: 2011

How to counter the “summer slide”? Simple, kids during the out-of-school months should read more books, according to Annie Murphy Paul. And libraries play a critical role, as the journalist and author documents in a recent post, republished below.

Murphy Paul, who writes a weekly column for Time.com and has written several books, including The Cult of Personality (S&S, 2005) and the upcoming Brilliant: The New Science of Smart (Crown, 2014), specializes in how people learn.

This fall, she will deliver the keynote address at SLJ’s Leadership Summit held this year in Austin, TX, September 28-29.

Other articles of interest by Annie Murphy Paul:

Save The Readers! A Defense of “Deep Reading”

The Epidemic of Media Multitasking While Learning

Rules For Thinking In A Digital World

How To Stimulate Curiosity

To learn more about the summit and to register, visit the event page or email sljevents@mediasourceinc.com.

Photo by John Morgan.

We think of today’s youth as constantly connected. Smartphones serve as extra appendages, and the coolness factor goes up for whoever discovers the latest mobile app first.

More than ever, education is contingent upon Internet access. No problem, because today’s teens are digital natives, right? Wrong. Even if they are, not all have Internet access at home. How are teens who rely on library services being affected by public library budget cuts?

Recent data shows that students are usually compiling bibliographies, outlining papers, and synthesizing research between 8 and 10 p.m. during the school week. In other words, students tend to work when most libraries are closed.

How do they compensate? According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, many students are using free WiFi at McDonald’s restaurants to do schoolwork. There are almost as many WiFi access points in McDonald’s (12,000) as there are in public libraries (15,000) in the United States.

This trend is potentially detrimental to students. Obviously, if they have questions, a librarian isn’t available to help. We won’t even discuss the other negative impacts of spending hours at a fast food restaurant.

Defining the gap

We work as information literacy librarians and content developers for EasyBib, an online citation and research tool, and its new platform, ResearchReady. We estimate that our user base represents about 50 percent of the U.S. student population. Our research confirms what news outlets already report: There is a gap between when students need libraries and when libraries are open.

According to a 2010 Pew Internet study, one third of American households with an annual income under $30,000 did not have an Internet broadband connection at home. At the same time, many public libraries facing massive budget cuts reduced their hours when neighborhoods needed them most. Particularly in urban areas, community needs have shifted dramatically since the economic downturn, and more people rely on library resources. Additionally, many rural libraries are often closed before students even get out of school.

The Arkoma Public Library in rural Oklahoma, for example, was the source of over 1,500 visits to EasyBib during the 2011–2012 school year. But the library often closes between the hours of 5 and 7 p.m. By contrast, Seattle Public Library patrons made approximately 1,000 visits to EasyBib during the 2011–2012 school year. During the week of June 10–16, when EasyBib usage was at its peak there, Seattle libraries were in operation until 8 p.m.—pretty decent in terms of open hours. Nonetheless, neither setting could help students during their prime research hours of 8 to 10 p.m.

What are the trade-offs?

One could argue that this issue could be resolved by keeping the library open later. Given the costs of running a library, this is easier said than done. Keeping the lights on, paying staff, and running computers for two more hours every day adds up quickly—but it might be worth it to serve this key constituency better. Libraries face the difficult choice of weighing the costs against the benefits of staying open to serve a small but critical group of patrons. What are the trade-offs?

Finding a way to keep library doors open isn’t always easy. We urge local governments, libraries, and communities to consider all students and their research needs when proposing budgets and closing hours.

Emily Gover and Caity Selleck are information literacy librarians and content developers for EasyBib and its new platform, ResearchReady. Emily received her MSIS from the University at Albany and is a former academic librarian at Berry College in Georgia. Caity received her MLIS from Queens College and has worked at the Queens Public Library and the New York Transit Museum.

The report, “Younger Americans’ Library Habits and Expectations,” also finds that younger Americans—despite being heavy technology users overall—still believe, as do older adults, that print books should have a central place at libraries, with few young adult responders (only 23 percent) strongly supporting moving books out of public areas to create room for things such as technology centers, meeting rooms, and cultural events.

The report finds that—while nearly all of those surveyed aged 16–29 are actively online in their lives and are more likely than older patrons to use libraries’ computer and internet connections, access library websites, and use a library’s research databases—75 percent of young adults have read a printed book in the past year, compared with 64 percent for older adults.

Younger adults are also more likely than older adults to use libraries as quiet study spaces, and are just as likely as older adults to have visited libraries, borrowed print books, and browsed the stacks.

When it comes to new library services, young adults are more interested than older adults in technology-driven features, such as apps, for accessing library materials and for navigating library spaces, and in “Redbox”-style kiosks around town for convenient access to library materials. However, the report also shows that Americans under age 30 are strong supporters of traditional library services.

“Younger Americans’ reading habits and library use are still anchored by the printed page,” says Kathryn Zickuhr, research analyst at Pew’s nonprofit Internet & American Life Project and a co-author of the report. “Some of this stems from the demands of school or work, yet some likely lies in their current personal  preferences. And this group’s priorities and expectations for libraries likewise reflect a mix of traditional and technological services.”

Other major findings of the report:
• 85 percent of 16–17 year-olds read at least one print book in the past year, making them significantly more likely to have read a book in this format than any other age group.

• 60 percent of younger patrons say they go to the library to sit and read, study, or watch or listen to media, while only 45 percent of library visitors age 30 and older do this.

• 67 percent of younger Americans say they would be interested in a digital media lab for creating and uploading digital content; 27 percent say they would be “very likely” to use such a resource.

• 44 percent of library visitors under age 30 have used a library’s computers, internet, or a public WI-FI network, compared with just 27 percent of those age 30 and older.

When queried about what library services and resources are “very important” to offer:
• 80 percent of young Americans name librarians to help people find information they need
• 76 percent name research resources such as free databases
• 75 percent name free access to computers and the Internet
• 75 percent name books for people to borrow
• 72 percent name quiet study spaces
• 72 percent name programs and classes for children and teens
• 71 percent name job or career resources

Only one in three parents of children ages eight and under reads stories to their kids each night, according to a new survey by the literacy organization Reading is Fundamental (RIF) and Macy’s. Overall, 87 percent of the parents who participated in the online poll read to their kids at bedtime—but not every night. Half the parents said that their children spend more time watching TV and playing video games than reading.

The national online survey of 1,003 parents, conducted in April, also found that in households with salaries under $35,000, 40 percent of kids under nine watched TV, while 35 percent read books.

Parents still favor reading print over ebooks with their kids, as 76 percent choose print while reading with their children, the poll showed. Kids also like paper better: nearly twice as many (20 percent) of those whose parents read from both formats would choose print over ebooks (nine percent). 

In its release, RIF noted that kids who are poor readers by the end of third grade  are four times more likely to drop out of high school than their more proficient peers, according to statistics. Two-thirds of all American fourth graders don’t read proficiently, and among lower-income families, that number rises to four fifths.

The results were released as RIF, which delivers free books and literacy materials to underserved children from birth to age eight, kicks off its 10th annual month-long “Be Book Smart” campaign. From June 21 to July 21, shoppers at any Macy’s store can donate $3  at the register to provide a book to a child in their community.  Contributors receive $10 off a future Macy’s purchase of $50 or more. In a concurrent sweepstakes campaign, Macy’s will give a $500 gift certificate each week to one person who promotes RIF and reading on a Facebook app. Details: facebook.com/Macys or rif.org/sweeps.

Survey figures for race, ethnicity, education, region, household income, and number of children were weighted to be proportional to the overall population, according to an executive summary from Harris Interactive, the market research firm that compiled the online poll. Data was also weighted to reflect the mix of U.S. families nationally who have children under nine. Participants were chosen from those who agreed to participate in Harris Interactive polls.

Deb Delisle, Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education, U.S. Department of Education, and Richard Gonzales, Senior Advisor for Early Childhood Development, Department of Health and Human Services, joined Ralph Smith, Managing Director of the Campaign for Grade Level Reading, and Susan H. Hildreth, Director of IMLS, for a joint press event today highlighting the report.

“This report issues a call to action: Now is the time for policy makers and practitioners to fully use the capacity of libraries and museums in their early learning efforts,” says Hildreth in her introduction to the report. “Libraries and museums reach millions of children each year. It is exciting to bring that capacity into focus so that libraries and museums can more effectively engage in early learning strategies at the community, state, and national levels.”

For IMLS, the report is only the first step in a deeper and expanded commitment to the youngest and most at-risk children in the United States, Hildreth says. She notes, “We will be pursuing special efforts to assure that libraries and museums can reach under-served children and provide opportunities that can make a difference that will last a lifetime.”

According to the report, libraries and museums support learning are by increasing high-quality early learning experiences, engaging and supporting families as their child’s first teachers, supporting development of executive function and “deeper learning” through literacy and STEM-based experiences, creating seamless links across early learning and the early grades, positioning children for meeting expectations of the Common Core State Standards, addressing the summer slide, linking new digital technologies to learning, improving family health and nutrition, leveraging community partnerships, and adding capacity to early learning networks.

The report also outlined areas and questions that deserve further impact study, and specific recommendations for improving early learning outcomes and increasing school readiness through federal, state, and community efforts.

Federal policy makers, for example, should include museum/library grants in funding priorities, support research to identify best practices for early learning in museums and libraries, and invest in professional development for museum and library staff.

Communities, the report recommends, should include museums and libraries in initiatives designed to increase family engagement in school readiness, examine ways to help vulnerable, underserved families access museum and library services, and launch public information campaigns.

For districts and schools, the report calls for joint professional development to teachers and museum and library staff, and the establishment of partnerships between schools and local museums and libraries that support building content knowledge.

The report also highlights and details current successful programs in New York (the Children’s Museum of Manhattan); Idaho; Texas (Children’s Museum of Houston); Washington; Virginia (Richmond Public Library, Arlington County schools); Pennsylvania (the greater Pittsburgh region); Florida (Miami Science Museum); Massachusetts (Boston Children’s Museum); Maryland (city of Baltimore).

Here at last, the numbers you’ve been waiting for—the list of average book prices for 2012 and 2013 to date—are ready, produced in partnership with Baker & Taylor. We know this data helps you make sound decisions. Look for the next iteration in Spring of 2014.

The data, based on figures supplied by Baker & Taylor, shows average list prices for all books (including children’s books, young adult books, paperbacks and hardcover editions) that have been sold (not published) during the time frames listed. Separate calculations have been supplied for the school market and the public library market. Averages are calculated by total number of all book sales divided by the number of books sold.

Consider this: “summer reading loss accounts for roughly 80% of the reading achievement gap between more and less economically advantaged children” and this gap, which builds over a child’s school career, can be greater than four academic years, a staggering difference especially when considering the demands of the Common Core State Standards. Given that current strategies to raise reading achievement haven’t been successful, what does work? The research-based answer is fairly simple: increase children’s access to books and other print materials, combine access with targeted reading instruction, match text complexity to a student’s reading level (in order to keep struggling readers reading independently while building skills), and provide books and magazines that tap into kids’ interests.

While much of Summer Reading concentrates on research methods and data to build a case for the value of summer reading programs, a few chapters are written by educators that have experience with school programs designed to offset the gap. One program in rural Florida puts books into the hands of children from low-income families with weekly bookmobile visits and has evolved to include more intensive one-on-one tutoring, while a school district in Michigan combines pre-summer book giveaways with “mid-summer reading reunions” and other motivational activities that have become popular throughout the community. Data demonstrating the cost effectiveness of both programs is included. Additional options are described in another chapter which notes that public libraries have “historically organized summer reading events.” Pairing the efforts of public libraries with school initiatives is one way to maximize impact.

So, if how to get and keep kids reading over the summer isn’t a mystery, why isn’t it happening more often? Part of it has to do with allocating resources effectively, especially in neighborhoods with poorly funded schools and libraries. But it also has to do with understanding the extent of the problem and finding the will to solve it. As the editors conclude, “Will we choose to address narrowing the reading achievement gap by providing kids with books to read during the summers, or will we continue to do nothing in this regard?” Librarians know how to connect kids with books, and the summer could be the most important time to get the job done.

Todd and Gordon began looking to study NJ school libraries several years ago at the behest of Lucille Davy, then NJ Education Commissioner, who prompted the New Jersey Association of School Librarians (NJASL) to commission the study from CISSL. The New Jersey Study of School Libraries: One Common Goal—Student Learning had two phases: the first was a detailed survey of over 700 librarians, and the second involved focus groups with administrators, teachers, and librarians from 12 schools that were deemed to have successful libraries from diverse geographical regions, economic levels, and educational levels.

The findings of the second phase were released in 2012, and presented again at the American Library Association’s midwinter meeting in Seattle this year. School Library Journal checked in with Dr. Todd and Dr. Gordon to find out what steps they have been taking to promote the research this year, and their best practices recommendations for how other schools can better build successful libraries. They also shared with us some of their most surprising and illuminating findings.

How did you choose the schools that participated in the focus groups phase of the study? What criteria did you use to classify the schools that are “doing it right?”
Ross Todd: They had to have a certified librarian, and, first and foremost, [the librarian had to] distinguish themselves as playing a strong instructional role…centering on informational literacy, the engagement with information technology, and also their engagement with reading and literacy development. In other words, the hallmarks of quality school libraries.

Carol Gordon: Yes, we selected those 12 schools through the high levels of instructional collaboration between the school librarian and the classroom teachers. We weren’t looking at the size of the collections, how much money they spend on their materials, whether they had high test scores. We simply wanted to concentrate on the school librarian as the agent of this facility. Was she a collaborator? Was she a teacher? Did she exploit the instructional role, and if she did, what does her library look like? What do the teachers think, and what does her principal think?

There are hundreds of other factors that could explain why a school library is successful in a school, but I can tell you—we’ve been in many libraries that have beautiful collections and lots of computers, but they’re not successful in the way that these libraries perform. We were looking at the quality of teaching and learning from the perspective of the educators.

Were these instructional collaborations a product of good school leadership, or due to the ability of individual librarians to forge relationships with colleagues?
RT: Is it one factor, simply the school principal? Is it the school librarian? No it’s not. There are a whole lot of factors working together: the culture of learning in a school, the culture of collaboration, the personality of the librarian, the vision of the school librarian as a committed teacher in the school, the school librarian having a powerful vision for the nature of learning that is going to come through that role. [It was] the vision of the library [being] the mission of the school. All of these things work together.

How did you go about conducting the focus groups?
RT: What was really, really exciting was, in fact, the reported number of high levels of instructional collaboration. If you’ve got your ear to the grindstone with instructional library research, often the reporting of participation in instructional collaborations is actually quite low, even though it is part of the mantra, even though it’s part of the rhetoric. So we were really, really delighted.

Fundamentally, we put them to the test in many ways. This was a validation of the self-reporting, because when we approached these schools to understand what’s going on, and try to tease out perhaps the dimensions surrounding effective school libraries, they were prepared to do that. The principal was there, we often had either a curriculum supervisor in the school or a district curriculum leader, and up to five or six classroom teachers [that the librarian] collaborated with. It’s quite a coup!  And that was the exciting bit. We were welcomed with open arms when we went into these schools.

CG: We were really taken aback by the openness and the enthusiasm that the focus groups showed for the school library program, and of course the principal was a major player in these focus groups. And I think we found what surprised us was how the principal reacted to some of our questions.

What areas did the focus groups seek to address?
RT: The first question centered on identifying the dimensions of library infrastructure, personnel, services, and instruction, and their relationship—whatever they saw that was the foundation. Secondly we wanted to tease out what students actually learned, the learning outcomes in terms of engagement with the school library (and this is from the perspective of the principal and the classroom teachers.) The third area was asking them to think outside of the box: ‘if you could change things, if you had a magic wand, unlimited resources, what would you do?’ And that was really enlightening and surprising.

CG: This is when budget cuts were first on the horizon in a big way in New Jersey, and what they told us was, ‘we actually want a bigger library.’ This was pretty unanimous across the groups. And the reason was because they realized that it was important for all children to get this kind of instruction; they needed to teach more in this inquiry mode, integrating technology and literacy techniques into inquiry-based learning. And they wanted space where kids could collaborate with each other, where teachers could collaborate with each other, where teachers could collaborate with students. They saw the need for more technology, which takes up room. And so they had a vision of what this would look like if everyone could take advantage and benefit from it, and that was really a surprise to us.

So you weren’t expecting that to be on their wish lists?
RT: It was a surprise because there is so much discussion surrounding the closure of school libraries, that libraries as a physical space are redundant, and yet—without a flicker of an eyelid—everyone across the board said ‘we’d double the space of this library.’ At the heart of this desire to have a bigger physical space goes to what we saw as one of the key findings: the library [in these schools] was seen as a pedagogical center. It provided the instructional support for teachers [and] for students to engage with information in all of its forms to build knowledge. And also they saw it as a common ground across the school to develop the whole arena of digital citizenship.

So the library was portrayed very much as this learning center, this place that the whole school owned, where teachers could experiment, where teachers and school librarians could take risks and play with ideas and play with technology that supported inquiry. And of course, at the heart of this…was the primary conception of the school librarian as a co-teacher. In these schools, librarians [are] seen as teachers, because they play such a strong and pervasive teaching role.

Principals are in a position where they have to make very very difficult budget choices. When they see the school librarian as an effective teacher, as a powerful teacher—they’re not going to let that person go in budget cuts. And what’s more, principals were willing to invest the money to provide the instruction, the resources, and the technology to support that rich learning.

What did these schools have in common?
CG: It was interesting for us to analyze the different perspectives on the school library. The principals characterized their school libraries with metaphors: a “candy store,” “Emerald City,” “a place of business, where serious learning goes on.” The teachers saw it as a place where the disciplines come together, and also as a place that was an extension of their classroom, where they could find materials that enriched what they taught. So there were different perspectives, very interesting ways that they talked about their school libraries, but this culture was very similar from one school to the other.

The schools were very progressively run. The principals were participatory managers. They wanted teachers to work together, they wanted to see collaboration, they trusted their teachers, and they trusted their librarians, that good things were going to happen if they just let them do their jobs. They valued the school library as a place where learning went beyond testing.

The principals were very emphatic about the fact that they care about testing, but the most important thing to them was the kind of learning that went beyond testing—deep learning that called for thinking, inquiry, and discovery. They were very adamant about that.

Did that surprise you, too?
RT: This was one of the greatest surprises for me. We built as researchers a vast body of important research on the relationship between school libraries and test scores, achievement on standardized testing. And that research is highly important and very, very valuable. All of the school library impact studies, Keith Curry Lance’s work, the Ohio study—that’s really, really important work.

But this really opened my eyes: As I was listening to the classroom teachers and the school principals, they weren’t even wanting to be specific about test scores. They don’t even question that. They were saying that test score achievement is temporal, it’s transitory. School libraries give much more than test scores. There’s a value added: literacy development, empowering these kids to be critical thinkers in their engagement with information outside of school, the lifelong learning, the independent skills of working with information, the career support, giving them the skills to think critically.

What did these librarians have in common?
CG: We did tease out the qualities that the principal and the teachers mentioned about their school librarians, and one is, ‘she’s not judgmental about us. we feel safe, we feel comfortable in going to her to ask a question or to collaborate.’ I think a really important aspect of this is that the school librarian did not impose a curriculum. The librarian did not impose library language and labels in the conversion or in her practice. I think what we had here was a meeting of minds in terms of a common goal.

RT: In the work that we do, one of the things I pick up on is the bashing of teachers. The school library community has to stop this kind of putting down of others in the profession. We often so easily and so unwittingly get caught up in this kind of judgment. [In these schools] the teachers felt safe. They felt that they could make mistakes. They could do things together to learn together. There was this nurturing. They all talked about the school librarians and the culture of help.

CG: Yes. ‘The librarian never says no’ was the phrase we heard over and over again. For instance, the teachers felt, when asking for the materials they needed, that the librarian did everything she could to help them, and she listened to what they needed. There wasn’t a pre-conceived idea of what a good library is, and the type of collection [he or she had] to build. It wasn’t isolated like that. It was completely open, where the librarian was flexible and ready to listen and let her library become what people needed it to be. These librarians were very different people, but they were all very open-minded. They were good listeners. They were not judgmental. They were helpful. They were highly skilled. Definitely there were commonalities in attitude, personality, interpersonal skills, vision.

RT: And the vision was not a library-centered vision. It was a vision for helping that school reach the goals for learning for these kids.

CG: The commonality among these schools was striking.

What else emerged in your discussions?
RT: One of the other key things that came out was the notion of teacher of teachers. We had so many teachers who said that the school librarians help them be better teachers, and that’s the collaborative notion of opening up teachers to the insight of kids being more effective, inquiry-based researchers, engaging teachers with technology tools that will help the students. The librarians actually played a strong role in professional development in their schools; they were seen as having effective professional relationships with the teachers in their schools, and principals were prepared to invest money in the further education of their school librarians, to send the school librarians off to meetings and conferences. They knew that those librarians would come back and would be eager to run professional development in their schools…in the context of instructional collaboration.

CG: When the teachers began talking about their relationship with the school librarian, they became very emotional. We had a couple of teachers break down and cry, because they were overcome by the gratitude they had to the school librarian. And the principals brought this out, too, when they [said] that they don’t know how the school librarians do it—that the librarians seem to be the person they depended on in the school to keep up with the information explosion, to keep up with technological advances, so they felt as though their school was moving along and growing and keeping up with the pace of the information age. And this is a real revolution in a sense.

So the relationship between school librarians and classroom teachers is changing?
CG: In [these schools], the school librarian facilitated the technology integration in a context where teachers felt their students were learning all these other things, like authority, accuracy, plagiarism versus original work, issues of censorship, digital citizenship, Internet safety—all of the burning questions around the use of technology for children. [Teachers] felt as though all of this was being taken care of, but is wasn’t viewed as one more thing they had to do and still cover their curriculum. All the stress is taken away when they can teach in a situation where they are learning as they teach, where they feel as though they have a safety net, when they have someone they’re comfortable with to ask questions. So this is a dramatic revolution in the way we train teachers, and how we keep them trained.

The librarian is emerging in these data as a master teacher—not just a teacher of teachers, but as a master teacher of the digital age. And this is really significant, because librarians have had a difficult time in not being invisible, especially now with digital materials, where the print collections are getting smaller. This is the area where librarians can shine. They are seen as leaders. They’re far from invisible in these schools that we studied.

Your study also addressed the civil rights of school libraries. Can you tell us more?
RT: The schools that we went into with effective school libraries were all public schools. Some of them are actually in quite poor areas. And the principal of social justice emerged so strongly. The people working in these communities saw the school library as a center for equitable access, where all kids—no matter their circumstances, no matter their access to resources outside of school— have equal opportunity. The school library represents a great social equalizer. We use the terms “surrogate home” and “safe haven” because of the notion of safety, to engage with resources, multiple viewpoints and different opinions, in safety. To have access to expert help.

CG: It’s important to know that not all of these schools were well resourced, big budget schools. A lot of these schools were poor schools in poor areas. Some of the librarians [said] that, for many of these children, the library was the nicest place they could go to. It was a place they were comfortable in, where they could find lots of computers and lots of books. So I think the social justice aspect of these findings is important, because we still do have a digital divide.

How are you publicizing the data?
CG: We intend to present at administrative conferences, to educational leaders. We plan to try to publish something in Educational Leadership. The publicity around this study is really in the hands of NJASL, who commissioned the study, and the president of NJASL, Amy Rominiecki, is putting a lot of energy into that (and she was my partner in presenting at ALA). She is very supportive of the findings, and we have had a liaison from CISSL [partnering] with the NJASL board in publicizing this study.

RT: We’ve put out a number of scholarly publications, and we’re working really closely with NJASL. They have an evidence-based advocacy group, they’ve been working with the state legislature, they’ve been working with development of media releases based on the study, they’ve developed advocacy materials, they’ve developed a fantastic Youtube clip. I think they’re doing a fantastic job.

Since the last such study by Pew in 2006, teens are making several aspects of their lives more public online, sharing both personal and contact information more liberally, the report shows. Currently, 91 percent of teens post their photos online, up from 79 percent three years ago. About 71 percent reveal their school name, a 22 percent jump since up from 2006, while 71 percent post their hometown or city name, an increase of 10 percent. About 53 percent share their email address, up from 29 percent, and 20 percent of teens now post their cell phone number, while a mere 2 percent did so in 2006.

Yet while they’re sharing more personal details than before, most teens feel they can adequately protect their online information, according to the report. Among teen Facebook users, the majority say they feel confident about controlling their privacy settings. Sixty percent of teens on Facebook designate their profiles as “private,” accessible by friends only. Less than one percent found managing their Facebook privacy settings “very difficult,” while 56 percent said that maintaining privacy is “not difficult at all.”

In addition, as Danah Boyd, a social media analyst, notes in a post on zephoria.org, the Pew report revealed how race factors into teens’ use social media. About 95 percent of white teens use their real names on at least one service, compared to 77 percent of African-American teens. Related to this, 21 percent of white teens say they post fake information, compared to 39 percent of African-Americans. On Facebook, 48 percent of African-Americans friended celebrities, musicians, or athletes, compared to 25 percent of white users.

As Boyd points out in her post, “Teens are more likely to interact with people of the same race and their norms, practices, and values are shaped by the people around them. So what we’re actually seeing is a manifestation of network effects.” She adds, “the differences in the Pew report point to black youth’s increased interest in being a part of public life, their heightened distrust of those who hold power over them, and their notable appreciation for pop culture.”

Other highlights of the report:

The report also analyzed social media use by age, gender, and ethnicity. Boys and girls post the same kind of content—school name, relationship status, and phone number—but older teens share more of it, the report found. Thirty-nine percent of African American teens use Twitter, as opposed to 23 percent among white teens. And younger teens online are less likely to “friend” people they haven’t met than older teens. In addition, girls limit access to their Facebook profiles more than boys do.

Fifty-eight percent of teens “share inside jokes or cloak their messages in some way” while using social media, the report found. Many teens lied about their age to access websites and online accounts, and one in six said they were contacted by “someone they did not know in a way that made them feel scared or uncomfortable.” And though teens may not have “a good sense” of how third-parties might use their data, the report concluded, 81 percent of parents expressed “high levels of concern” about what advertisers might learn about their children online.

The findings combine the results of several surveys: a national phone survey of 802 teens, ages 12–17, and their parents, conducted on cell phones and landlines in Spanish and English between July 26and September 30, 2012; 24 focus groups, starting in February 2013, comprised of 156 students; and two online focus groups that took place between June 20 and June 27, 2012. Participants were from varied ethnic, racial, regional, and socio-economic backgrounds.

Chart Designs by Mark Tuchman.

Igniting a love for reading is primarily what drives job satisfaction for librarians who work with teens. And satisfied they are—seven out of ten school media specialists and public librarians working directly with children and/or teens report they are either satisfied or very satisfied with their jobs. SLJ set out to learn more about the motivations and challenges in the profession in a recent national job satisfaction survey of just over 1,000 school and public librarians.

We asked librarians to identify the many rewards of their jobs and to pinpoint their top-most satisfaction. Connecting young people to reading and lifelong learning was by far their single biggest gratification. “I love when I am able to find a book for a student who is resisting reading, and that book changes their outlook on reading,” says Carrie Kausch, school librarian for Osbourn Park High School in Manassas, Virginia.

“There is very little that gives me as much satisfaction as hearing a student say, ‘I loved that book! What else can I read?’” adds Melanie Gibson, a private school librarian in Dallas, Texas. Clearly there is a lot of passion for the work at hand. Service is the priority, not prestige or income, when working in the library. “I love the meaningful investment I get to make on a daily basis in the lives of young people,” writes a high school librarian from rural Tennessee.

Another high school teacher-librarian from suburban Illinois gushes, “This job is a dream. I get to buy books, plan projects collaboratively, teach [technology] skills, talk to students about books, and throw parties for students in the form of library programs. What’s not to love?”

The library is a program, not a room

While the rewards for the job are many, there are also some drawbacks. Public librarians are more likely than their school counterparts to identify them as low salary and problems with management, coworkers, or even library users. On the flip side, lack of respect and recognition, inadequate library funding, and the expectation to perform nonlibrary-related tasks are especially irksome for school librarians.

School librarians feel less appreciated by those who hold the purse strings than do public librarians. Fewer than half feel they get the recognition or respect they deserve from their superintendent or school board. “It is a constant uphill fight for administration to understand, acknowledge, and support collaboration and information-fluency skills, and to get them to understand that the library is a program, not a room,” laments Stephanie Rosalia, a teacher-librarian in New York City.

Just over half of the public librarians surveyed express confidence that library administrators and local community leaders give them the appropriate respect and recognition.

Challenges to overcome

Regardless of where librarians work, their biggest on-the-job challenge is lack of time to get everything accomplished. “Performing nonlibrarian tasks such as emptying the book drop, shelving books, paging, and other technical tasks keeps me from doing things like outreach, marketing, and promotion of library services to the community,” writes one California public librarian.

Other shared hurdles include ever-present budgetary constraints and increased demand on the library with fewer resources (especially support staff). Managing unruly patrons also figures prominently as one of public librarians’ biggest challenges.

Future challenges anticipated by school librarians include adapting to Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) proposals, meeting the needs brought by the Common Core State Standards initiative, and the ongoing transition to digital resources and tools. Steven Alcorta of California’s Sonoma County Library sums up the challenge for public librarians as, “changing technologies and the expectation that staff will be expert on all of them.”

Professional latecomers

It may be surprising to learn that about three-quarters of school media specialists and half of public librarians working with children chose librarianship as their second, and sometimes third, career. Most of these school media specialists were previously classroom teachers. Some had grown tired of the planning, testing, and grading associated with that profession. They desired more autonomy and the chance to be creative while still meeting education goals. When the library opportunity arose, they went for it.

For some, changing positions within a school resulted in an initial drop in respect from faculty and students alike. “I heard a lot of ‘Oh, you are not a teacher anymore,’” writes one elementary media specialist from suburban Illinois. “After much effort personally and professionally, I have turned our library into an extension of the classroom.”

Many transplanted school librarians acknowledge they had to work hard and grow into the position, but they are not disappointed. In fact, satisfaction levels for school librarians entering the profession later in their careers far exceed first-career librarians—by 15 percentage points. “I am much more suited to the multitasking of librarianship and love [the] connection I make with students and teachers,” a high school media specialist and former classroom teacher from Charleston, South Carolina, reveals.

Salary, security, and advancement

The median annual salary for a full-time children’s or youth services librarian working at a public library is $44,700. This is considerably less than the median school librarian salary of $57,000. School librarians with an MLS degree earn significantly more than those without an MLS (median of $58,400 versus $37,500).

Public librarians feel far more secure in their jobs overall than do school media specialists (82% of public librarians and 63% of school librarians feel either secure or very secure). But, insecurity is not widespread. Only one in ten school librarians reported that their jobs are either not too or not at all secure. There is a strong correlation between respondents feeling job insecurity and having low job satisfaction.

Prospects for advancement are low but tend not to impact satisfaction. About three-quarters of public and school librarians say their advancement opportunities are fair to poor. Despite this outlook, 88% would choose their careers again.

Nearly a third of public librarians and one-fifth of school librarians actively searched for a new job in the previous 12 months. Only a quarter of those looked for a position outside librarianship.

Satisfaction by school type

Librarians teaching at the middle or high school level reported higher satisfaction with their jobs than elementary school media specialists (73% and 72% very satisfied or satisfied, respectively, versus 65% very satisfied or satisfied). This is not necessarily correlated with pay—although secondary school librarians do generally make more. Instead, the data suggests that elementary librarian dissatisfaction is tied to being stretched too thin with little or no support staff.

Nearly one-quarter of media specialists working at the elementary school level divides his or her time between two or more locations (16% work in two locations, 7% work in three or more). Thirteen percent gained responsibility for an additional library within the last two years. This has resulted in more time spent managing/troubleshooting and less time interacting with children.

Working on a fixed schedule, where library media center hours are heavily scheduled and students visit as a class at a set time, is common at the elementary level—and it restricts librarians’ ability to collaborate with faculty, a key component of the job. “I have a full schedule of classes in which I am supposed to supplement what the teachers are doing, but I can’t plan with the teachers,” explains Karen Valentine a school librarian at Pleasant Ridge Elementary in North Carolina. “Their planning period is while the students are with me.”

Just over a quarter (29%) of elementary school librarians report that in the last year they were assigned mundane tasks that squander their expertise, compared to 17% of middle school and 20% of high school librarians. Having to perform duties such as administering tests or minding study halls leave elementary school librarians feeling underappreciated.

Overall, elementary school librarians are less likely than their secondary school counterparts to believe they get the recognition they deserve from classroom teachers and feel less secure in their jobs. Twenty-five percent have searched for a new job in the last year, as opposed to 20% of high school and 16% of middle school librarians.

Drive to be flexible and diverse

Carrie Cline, library director for McDonald County Library in rural Missouri, has some guidance to offer those entering the profession. “It’s nothing like you hear in college! You have to get along with parents, learn to entertain the children, even the ones who are misbehaving, and you can’t take yourself too seriously!” she urges.

The advice applies to librarians at any stage of their careers. “Be extremely flexible. The job description is a fluid one, and the face of librarianship is changing. You need to be able to change with it,” encourages Jennifer Powers, a teacher-librarian at St. John’s Episcopal School in Dallas.

“The more you can do, the more valuable you are,” adds Maggie Bokelman of Eagle View Middle School in Pennsylvania. “Be willing to be a technology specialist, an instructional coach, a research guide, and a reading motivator. I like the fact that our profession is changing, and that I have the opportunity to come up with new ideas and new ways of doing things. It’s an exciting time to be a librarian.”

Method: A job satisfaction survey invite and reminder were emailed to SLJ Extra Helping newsletter subscribers in October 2012. The survey link was also advertised in Extra Helping. Results are based on the responses of 713 U.S. school librarians and 294 U.S. public librarians working directly with children or teens. The data shown in total was weighted to represent national regional breakdowns obtained from the Institute of Museum and Library Services and National Center for Education Statistics.

Laura Girmscheid is research manager for School Library Journal and Library Journal.

The immigration experience: Immigration is an important issue today not only in the news but also in the lives of many students and their families, making it a topic that’s relevant for discussion in classes across the curriculum. This spring, the Smithsonian is presenting two online education conferences—“From Where I Stand”—featuring historians, curators, and educators.

Curators L. Stephen Velasquez and Nancy Davis of the National Museum of American History will present “A Closer Look at Understanding Immigration/Migration Experiences in the United States” on April 10 at 1 pm ET. Latino program director Magdalena Mieri of the National Museum of American History and educator Ashley Naranjo of the Smithsonian Center for Education and Museum Studies will be present “Immigration/Migration Stories in the Classroom” on May 8, 4 pm ET. The session is educator-focused and will “highlight techniques for sparking classroom conversations.”

In addition, through its Smithsonian Quests program, students will have the opportunity to earn two new digital badges. Kids in kindergarten through fourth grade can earn the Proud Publisher badge by making a book that “features a person, place, and object that represents their heritage.” Middle and high school students can earn a Cultural Storyteller badge by “analyzing an object that represents their identity and heritage.”

Video analysis: Subscribers of Shmoop’s online digital curriculum service can connect with students in a new way. Shmoop has added 26 new Video Activities to their teacher’s guides (with more on the way) that are all aligned with Common Core. George Orwell’s Animals Farm, John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, Hamlet’s Romeo and Juliet, Lois Lowry’s The Giver, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mocking Bird are just some of the titles that now have an added video feature with analysis and more.

Additionally, Shmoop offers a free online library of more than 150 videos covering literature, math, and history called Shmoopsterpiece Theater. Video reading guides are offered for classics like Lord of the Flies and Romeo and Juliet, and more contemporary fiction, like The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

Research Competition

Serving the Latino population: Have you conducted research that focuses on the library and/or informational needs of the Latino population in your community and how those needs are being met? REFORMA, the National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish-speaking, and the American Library Association’s Library Research Round Table, is asking librarians, information professionals, master’s students, doctoral students, researchers, and others to submit their latest research by April 15 for a chance to make a 15-minute presentation at the “Investigaciones par servirles/Research at your service” forum at the American Library Association’s (ALA) Annual Conference in Chicago.

REFORMA will present the three winners with a $250 honorarium. The proposal should be sent via email and should include a cover page with the author’s name, title of the paper, contact information, and email address. The second page should include the paper’s title and a 500-word abstract summarizing the proposed presentation (must be based on original research). Send your submission to Sandra Rios Balderrama, REFORMA Office Manager.

Industry News

Manga: Julie Kagawa’s The Iron King (Harlequin Teen, 2010), a popular young adult novel, is going to be transformed into a manga book. She’s partnering with Bluewater Productions using Indiegogo to crowdsource $10,000 to hire top talent to produce it. The Iron King is one title in her popular “Iron Fey” quartet.  Fans can support the project by making contributions ranging from $10 to $2,500. All donations must be received by April 22. Prizes to contributors include a t-shirt, a signed bookplate, an original sketch by Kagawa, a handmade sculpture of one of the book’s characters, and more. “We are really excited to be working with Julie and Indiegogo to transform her novels into a manga series, like they did with ‘Twilight’. The Iron King is a great novel that was made to be experienced visually,” noted publisher Darren G. Davis. “Not only are these comic books fun, but they can be used as a tool for reluctant readers.”

Awarded

Book awards: The finalists in the Children’s Choice Book Award program, sponsored by the Children’s Book Council and Every Child a Reader have been announced. It’s the only national book awards program that gives children and teens the chance to vote for their favorites from the group of finalists. Librarians and teachers are encouraged to spread the word with the online digital toolkit and have their students participate by voting for Book, Author, and Illustrator of the Year. Kids can vote individually, or you can make it a class project. Online voting is open through May 3. Winners will be announced at the 6th Annual Children’s Choice Book Awards gala on May 13 at the Liberty Theatre in New York City.

The finalists in all categories are:

K–Grade 2 Book of the Year: Big Mean Mike by Michelle Knudsen, illustrated by Scott Magoon (Candlewick); The Duckling Gets a Cookie!? by Mo Willems (Hyperion/Disney); I’ll Save You Bobo! by Eileen Rosenthal, illustrated by Marc Rosenthal (S & S/Atheneum); Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons created and illustrated by James Dean, story by Eric Litwin (HarperCollins); Nighttime Ninja by Barbara DaCosta, illustrated by Ed Young (Little, Brown).

Grade 3–4 Book of the Year: Bad Kitty for President by Nick Bruel (Macmillan/Roaring Brook); Get the Scoop on Animal Poop! by Dawn Cusick (Charlesbridge/Imagine); Homer by Shelley Rotner, illustrated by Diane deGroat (Scholastic); Just Joking by National Geographic Kids (National Geographic); Pluto Visits Earth! by Steve Metzger, illustrated by Jared Lee (Scholastic).

Grade 5–6 Book of the Year: Dork Diaries 4: Tales from a Not-So-Graceful Ice Princess by Rachel Renée Russell (S & S/Aladdin); Liar & Spy by Rebecca Stead (Random/Wendy Lamb Bks.); Pickle: The (Formerly) Anonymous Prank Club of Fountain Point Middle School by Kim Baker, illustrated by Tim Probert (Macmillan/Roaring Brook); Rebel McKenzie by Candice Ransom (Hyperion/Disney); Stickman Odyssey, Book 2: The Wrath of Zozimos by Christopher Ford (Philomel).

Teen Book of the Year: Cinder: (The Lunar Chronicles, Bk. 1  by Marissa Meyer (Macmillan/Feiwel & Friends); City of Lost Souls (Mortal Instruments) by Cassandra Clare (S & S/Margaret K. McElderry Bks.); The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (Dutton); Insurgent by Veronica Roth (HarperCollins/Katherine Tegen Bks.); Rapture: A Fallen Novel by Lauren Kate (Delacorte).

Author of the Year: John Green for The Fault in Our Stars (Dutton); Jeff Kinney for Diary of a Wimpy Kid 7: The Third Wheel

(Abrams/Amulet); R. J. Palacio for Wonder (Knopf); Rick Riordan for The Mark of Athena: Heroes of Olympus, Book 3 (Hyperion/Disney); Veronica Roth for Insurgent (HarperCollins/Katherine Tegen Bks.).

Illustrator of the Year: James Dean for Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons (HarperCollins); Anna Dewdney for Llama Llama Time to Share (Viking); Ian Falconer for Olivia and the Fairy Princesses (S & S/Atheneum); Robin Preiss Glasser for Fancy Nancy and the Mermaid Ballet (HarperCollins); and Mo Willems for The Duckling Gets a Cookie!?(Hyperion/Disney).

Illustration by David Flaherty.

Imagine trying to teach kids how to swim in an empty pool.

That’s exactly what Baruch Kintisch envisioned when he took a hard look at the effects of his city’s deep education cuts. Philadelphia’s “schools are underfunded; classrooms are crowded; libraries, labs, and special-education services are outdated or nonexistent,” writes Kintisch, the director of policy advocacy and a senior staff attorney at the Education Law Center (see the Philadelphia Inquirer’s “City Schools’ Real Problem,” August 9, 2012).

Simply put, students suffer when they don’t have adequate resources—and, in particular, we’ve found that student achievement suffers when schools lack libraries that are staffed by full-time librarians. “Nearly every public school in Bucks, Delaware, and Montgomery Counties has a library with certified staff, which has been proven to increase student reading and comprehension,” notes Kintisch. “In contrast, most public schools in Philadelphia do not employ a certified librarian, and more than 140 do not have a library.”

He’s right. More than half of Philadelphia’s public schools are currently without a library. And according to the recent Pennsylvania School Library Study, a comprehensive study of school library services in publicly funded K–12 schools, 56 percent of the state’s schools don’t have a full-time school librarian. During the current school year, 2012–2013, the School District of Philadelphia, the state’s largest district, provided only 17 percent of its schools with professional librarians—that’s an anemic 43 of 249 schools. The picture is almost as bleak in the Pittsburgh School District, where just 27 percent of schools have full-time librarians—or a measly 14 out of 51 schools. Yet that hasn’t deterred many districts from getting rid of media specialists.

Even wealthy suburban districts find library reductions acceptable. For example, Manheim Township in Lancaster County, PA, has slashed librarian positions by 80 percent since 2010, going from 10.5 to 2.5 media specialists. At the same time, other districts employ full-time librarians in every building, many with support staff and annual budgets that enable them to update their collections and technology. How do these inequities affect teacher effectiveness and student achievement? And why is the research that shows the impact of quality school library programs and librarians on students being ignored?

Background

In 2007, when the trend to cut library programs and staffing became apparent to us, the Pennsylvania School Librarians Association (PSLA) teamed up with the Education Law Center (ELC), a nonprofit educational advocacy organization that has made substantial gains for the state’s most vulnerable children—including poor kids, kids of color, kids with disabilities, English-language learners, and others. PSLA and ELC discovered that they had many similar interests and goals, including a strong urge to ensure a quality public education for every child. The two groups began to lobby for statewide regulations and reforms to ensure library equity for Pennsylvania’s 1.8 million K–12 students.

When representatives of the two organizations approached influential state legislators, they quickly discovered that some lawmakers didn’t know that schools weren’t required to have libraries, and others had no idea how rapidly these programs were being eliminated. Among many legislators’ first questions were, “How many schools do not have libraries or librarians?” and “How do school librarians improve student achievement and by how much?” Clearly, research and verifiable data were needed to influence these policymakers.

In the absence of data to answer their questions, PSLA persuaded the state’s House of Representatives to commission the Pennsylvania School Library Study of 2011—a “snapshot” of library programs in which 73 percent of public schools participated. While the study uncovered huge inequities among various districts, according to PSLA surveys, school library programs and staff have continued to be cut. For instance, in 2011–2012, an additional seven percent of librarians were let go, and, in 2012–2013, another six percent were jettisoned. As a result, “almost 200,000 students have been affected by elimination or severe curtailment of school library services throughout the Commonwealth,” says PSLA’s president, Eileen Kern.

Research and key findings

Joining forces with the Education Law Center and the Health Sciences Library Consortium (a nonprofit group that manages ACCESS PA and POWER Library electronic databases), PSLA was awarded an Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) National Leadership research grant to determine what school library infrastructure contributes most to student achievement, the costs and benefits associated with it, and what’s needed to develop students with 21st-century learning skills. Although more than two decades of similar research has been conducted in over 22 states, the Pennsylvania study uncovered the following new and significant findings:

Quality school library programs significantly impact the most vulnerable students. For the first time, the impact of library programs on selected student groups that tend to experience achievement gaps was examined directly. The Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA), which measures how well schoolchildren are doing in reading, writing, math, and science according to the state’s education standards, maintains separate test scores for subgroups of students who are economically disadvantaged, black, Hispanic, and have Individualized Education Programs (IEPs). PSSA scores range from “Advanced,” which indicates an in-depth understanding of the subject and superior academic performance, to “Below Basic,” which reflects poor understanding and inadequate academic performance.

Consistently, reading and writing scores are better for students who have a full-time certified librarian than those who don’t. Students who are economically disadvantaged, black, Hispanic, and have IEPs (i.e., students with disabilities) benefit proportionally more than students generally. These findings suggest that staffing libraries with certified librarians can help close achievement gaps. What are some of the other key findings?

• Students who are poor, minority, and have IEPs, but who have full-time librarians, are at least twice as likely to have “Advanced” writing scores as their counterparts without full-time librarians.

• Generally, the benefits associated with larger staffing and collections and increased access to technology, databases, and to the library itself are proportionally greater for students who are poor, black, Hispanic, and disabled.

• For black and Hispanic students, access to more books more than doubles their chances of obtaining “Advanced” writing scores and cuts their risk of “Below Basic” writing scores in half.

• The association between flexible scheduling and writing scores is more pronounced. With flexible scheduling, all students are about four times more likely to earn “Advanced” writing scores, and Hispanic students are almost seven times more likely to earn “Advanced” scores with flexible scheduling.

Writing scores are more positively impacted than reading scores. Since 21st-century learners must be effective knowledge producers as well as information consumers, examining the relationship between writing scores and quality school library programs was essential. Writing scores of students were studied at both the “Advanced” and “Below Basic” levels. Interestingly, the impact of school library programs was greater proportionally on writing than reading scores. Students with access to well-resourced libraries are two to five times more likely to score “Advanced” in writing than students without such libraries. Other significant findings include:

• For all students, those with full-time librarians are almost three times as likely to have “Advanced” writing scores as students without full-time librarians.

• The differential impact of librarians suggests that writing rather than reading scores may be a better indicator of a student’s mastery of 21st-Century Learner and Pennsylvania/Common Core standards.

The role of the school library program and academic standards. This is the first statewide study to assess the roles of librarians in teaching the American Association of School Librarians’ (AASL) Standards for the 21st-Century Learner as well as Common Core standards. We and our associates at RSL Research Group in Louisville, CO, surveyed more than 1,850 librarians, teachers, and school administrators to determine the extent to which these standards are addressed by school library programs and the instruction by librarians. To verify their perceptions, survey results were then correlated with the reading and writing scores of the respondents’ schools. This study provides the first evidence that what librarians teach both addresses academic standards and impacts students’ standardized test scores.

• These relationships are especially strong for the Pennsylvania/Common Core standards for English language arts and reading and writing for history and social studies.

• Notably, the positive association of the librarian’s role in teaching AASL’s Standards for the 21st-Century Learner with “Advanced” writing scores is dramatically higher than with “Advanced” reading scores.

• Consistently, students are less likely to score “Below Basic” on reading and writing in schools in which administrators, teachers, and librarians assess as “excellent” the library program’s teaching of inquiry-based learning.

As Carol Heinsdorf, a National Board–certified school librarian at Philadelphia’s Youth Study Center High School, explains, “These nationally adopted academic aspirations, supported by empirical evidence of school librarians’ effectiveness, are at odds with the 87 percent of Philadelphia’s incoming ninth graders who have never experienced an adequately resourced school library managed by a certified librarian, don’t know how books are arranged on a library shelf, do not know to, or how to, cite sources, and have not read a book from beginning to end for either academic purposes or pleasure. How are these students being prepared to successfully complete a two- or four-year college program? How are they to be reading role models as their children’s first teachers? How are those policy and decision makers shepherding public education as a public good for the future of our democracy going to prioritize adequately resourced school libraries managed by certified school librarians, to align with the evidence?”

Staffing remains the key factor. This study suggests that there’s no substitute for a full-time, certified school librarian who’s fully engaged in the teaching and learning process. Key findings include:

• With a full-time librarian, students are more likely to score “Advanced” and less likely to score “Below Basic” on reading and writing tests.

• Consistently, reading scores are better for elementary, middle, and high school students who have full-time certified librarians. In schools with full-time librarians, “Below Basic” scores not only improve, but improve more from elementary to middle to high school as well.

• The proportional difference in “Advanced” reading scores associated with a full-time librarian grows from elementary to middle to high school.

• Students who are Hispanic and whose full-time librarians have support staff are three times as likely to earn “Advanced” writing scores as their counterparts whose full-time librarians lack such support staff.

• On average, almost nine percent more students score “Advanced” in reading where students have a full-time, certified librarian with support staff than where they have a full-time, certified librarian alone. Further, almost eight percent more students score “Advanced” in reading where students have a full-time, certified librarian than where they do not.

• On average, the percentage of students scoring “Advanced” in writing is two and a half times higher for schools with a full-time, certified librarian than those without one. Similarly, the average percentage of students scoring “Advanced” in writing is almost twice as high for schools with a full-time, certified librarian with support staff as for those with only a full-time certified librarian.

As Jessie B. Ramey, a parent of two Pittsburgh public school students, wrote on her educational advocacy blog, Yinzercation, “Without a full-time librarian in each of our schools, we are still short-changing our kids…. As this most recent study clearly found, librarians are even more significant for our most struggling students, yet these are often the very kids forced to go without books, staff, or space.”

We couldn’t agree more. Of all the factors examined in this study, the one with the most impact on students is the presence of a full-time certified librarian in the school library.

Conclusion

This study adds to the evidence that all K–12 students need and deserve quality school library programs with full-time certified staff. Students are more likely to succeed when they have library programs that are well staffed, well funded, technologically well equipped, well stocked, and more accessible. And, the neediest learners may benefit the most from trained librarians and quality library programs.

However, much work still needs to be done to use this research to reach influential stakeholders who control the future of school library programs and their staffing. While many states are pursuing state reforms and regulations, this doesn’t negate the role of the individual school librarian to learn and share these findings locally. Everyone needs to nurture library champions who will defend the position that all K–12 school students need and deserve full-time school librarians and well-resourced school libraries in order to develop the skills needed to be productive in the 21st century.

Debra E. Kachel teaches online library science and technology courses at Mansfield (PA) University. Keith Curry Lance is a consultant with the RSL Research Group in Louisville, CO. To read a complete report of the study, see Pennsylvania School Libraries Pay Off: Investments in Student Achievement and Academic Standards. The research was presented at SLJ’s 2012 Leadership Summit.

The primary goal is to inspire kids to explore their own interests through a series of online activities and related incentive badges. The second goal is to enhance students’ cognitive capabilities by incorporating knowledge and skill building into the quests. The online conferences and quests are interdisciplinary in nature, offering students an opportunity to choose what they most care about. All quests will be reviewed and badges awarded by a team of Smithsonian experts. Register now to share the wonderful resources of the Smithsonian with your students!

Every year, several kids will spend 10 minutes on a Web search and say, “Google has nothing on this.” My first response to them is “did you open the links or just read the snippet in the search results page?” If the answer’s no, I send them back to access the links and search within those pages. To help them determine if a page contains what they’re looking for, I teach my students to use “command + F” on a Mac keyboard and “control + F” on Windows. Those shortcuts enable students to search within the contents of a page for a key term or phrase.

Ref Seek (refseek.com) is a search engine whose intention is to only serve links that have potential academic use. Ref Seek seems to eliminate the advertising and paid links found on Google, Ask, Yahoo, and other commercial search tools. To discern the advantage of Ref Seek over a generic Google search, you need to look below the top returns. As you compare search results between the two, you’ll find that the second and third pages of results on Ref Seek will contain more academic resources than you’d typically find in a generic Google search. Students can then sort Ref Seek results into “links only” or “documents only” views.

Yolink (yolink.com) quietly powers the search boxes found on many websites today. Yolink’s technology is included in Sweet Search (sweetsearch.com), a popular tool among teachers, which was profiled in January 2012. But Yolink can also be used as a browser add-on (www.yolinkeducation.com/education) for Chrome and Safari. Yolink for Chrome and Safari allows students to search within the contents of a webpage, highlight important parts of a page, and send those highlights directly to a Google Doc.

K–12 students tend to undertake common searches. So our students don’t need to reinvent the wheel with every research task. Direct them to publicly shared bookmarking services such as Diigo (diigo.com) and Delicious (delicious.com) to discover what others have found on the same topic. After they’ve grabbed a few links from those public bookmarks, ask your students to contribute some bookmarks of their own.

Finally, there’s Google Scholar (scholar.google.com), which indexes published research. Students looking here, however, shouldn’t expect quick answers to their questions. Perusing Google Scholar is a lot like looking in the bibliography of a good book to identify the best sources on a topic. Google Scholar can lead students to a variety of resources, including abstracts, papers, books, patent records, and court opinions.

The tool lists how many times a particular item has been cited in scholarly works and allows you to click through to see the titles of those works. Some of these items may be available for viewing online, in Google Books, for example. However, certain results in Google Scholar will link to papers and journals contained in subscription-required databases. Those cases are a perfect opportunity to introduce students to the databases available in your school or library and demonstrate that Google is not the be-all and end-all when it comes to research.

Sweet Search | Screencast tutorial from School Library Journal on Vimeo.

The report—the first in a Pew/Berkman series that’ll explore youth privacy issues—features information from interviews with focus groups that were conducted by Berkman’s Youth and Media team and a national phone survey of parents and their teens that examines the use of social networking sites.

The findings are based on a phone survey of 802 parents and their 802 teens ages 12 to 17, conducted between July 26 and September 30, 2012. Interviews were done in English and Spanish and on landline and cell phones. The research team also conducted 16 focus group interviews with roughly 120 students. The report is fully downloadable, and may also be searched online.