LISNews: Librarian News

D.C. cutting school librarians
At a time when D.C. public schools is pushing hard on literacy education to increase the number of students who can read proficiently, officials are proposing to cut funding for dozens of school librarian positions for the 2012-13 academic year as a cost-cutting move .

Librarians becoming a rare breed

Brian Rosson, one of the Human Resources directors with ECISD, said during the past two years, the district has really felt the repercussions of what he called a statewide librarian shortage. The Texas Education Agency has specific qualifications that a librarian must have, and according to Rosson, the most challenging qualification to meet is a master’s degree in library science.

“What we’ve seen over the last five years are less and less people going back to school for a degree in that,” Rosson said. “And there are only a few universities in the state that offer that degree.”

Public Radio had an article this morning about school libraries in Washington, DC. They write:

Earlier this spring, the D.C. public school system distributed funding guidelines for the new fiscal year, and DCPS Chief of Staff Lisa Ruda says rising costs led to some tough decisions.

"At the end of the day, we had to balance our budget, and the library allocation at our smallest schools was one of the hard choices we had to make," she says.

For fiscal year 2013, schools such as Hearst -- with projected enrollments of fewer than 300 students -- will no longer receive a specific funding allocation for a librarian. This is a change from the previous years. For fiscal year 2012, schools with fewer than 250 students received an allocation for a part-time librarian. Schools with greater than 250 students received an allocation for a full-time librarian.

But for the coming year, the librarian position at all schools shifted from "core" funding to "flexible" funding, so principals could choose whether to pay for it or not. In the past, most principals had to petition the school system for permission to forego a librarian.

Read more about it, or hear the broadcast, at: http://wamu.org/programs/metro_connection/12/04/06/dc_librarians_face_an_uncertain_future

Libraries in schools keeping up with times

Today, students sit at computers, read Kindles, work on netbooks, and browse online databases for the information they need. The high school library is no longer just a room with books on a shelf. It is a multifunctional space meant to unite a community and aid the creative and innovative learning and teaching process.