[LM_NET] HIT: Magazines for Teachers

[Shonda Brisco <sbrisco@GMAIL.COM>]

I requested information about the types of magazines that you provide
for your teachers.  In previous years (and under other librarians) our
teachers have had access to various "fluff" periodicals such as "O"
(Oprah), Good Housekeeping, Real Simple, etc.  In other libraries I
have eliminated these types of magazines because they do not support
the curriculum and are generally not read as entertainment by even the
students.  Your responses reassured me that we are all in the same
situation and that this is definitely an unnecessary expense during
times of tight budgets. We will be making some significant changes and
move toward providing curriculum content materials.  Here are your
responses:

*******************************
Our policy doesn't allow the purchase of magazines for
teachers....even specialized magazines like Art Educators, etc.  It
keeps things simple if there is a policy in place already.
------------
I love the magazine Family Fun.  It is really for parents, but has
wonderful activities to do.  Mostly appropriate for elementary school.
 http://familyfun.go.com/magazine/  Has a great Web site as well.
------------
The Reading Teacher, Mailbox (for several grade levels), Teaching
Children Mathematics, Science Scope, T.H.E. Journal--these are a few
that I subscribe to.
-----------
I am a K-3 school.  I get the following professional magazines:
Mailbox K
Mailbox 1
Mailbox 2-3
Teacher's Helper k-1
"                     :         2-3
Last year I got The Reading Teacher but dropped it due to high cost
and very low use
I have gotten other requests for other prof magazines and have tried others.
I used to get   Instructor
I don't have a budget to buy recreational magazines for the staff.
(My predecessor did not get recreational magazines for teachers either
so I didn't have a precedent)
-------------
The Mailbox magazines are a "must" according to my elementary teachers. I do
provide some of the magazines that you mentioned; however, I bring them from
my home subscriptions after I have read them and do not use school money for
them. I also check the give-away table at my public library for some of
those same type of magazines and others for my male teachers.
---------------
Your instincts are correct.
----------------
I think you have set forth a good argument as is.  We do have limited funds,
and while I would love to provide entertainment publications for my faculty,
I don't have enough money to purchase all the professional journals I think
we should have.
That said, I do get Sports Illustrated, Consumer Reports, Time, and Newsweek
and though they are placed with student magazines, I think they are read
more by the faculty (except maybe Sports Illustrated).  I can, however, give
curricular reasons to have all of these publications in my media center.
-----------------
I quit subscribing to things like that several years ago.  I do tell
teachers that they can donate their older issues so that others can
read them, and sometimes a class will use pictures out of magazines
like these for picture collages.
----------------
One magazine that contains some useful ideas for class projects and
home projects is Family Fun.  I subscribe at home and take to school
after I read at home.  It is great for holidays!  The little projects
are usually inexpensive and darling!  As for the school, we only
subscribe to professional periodicals for the teachers to read and
use.
----------------
My budget is so limited that I do not provide this service (unless
they enjoy the standards that I get for the HS kids)
-----------------
A couple of years ago when the budget was being reduced, I formulated
a magazine policy which cut the hard copy magazine budget to one
fourth of its size.   If a teacher's desired subscription was
available through the Ebscohost Professional Collection and it was in
pdf, I cancelled the hard copy.  I sent out step by step instructions
on how to set up an alert so it would notify them when a new edition
was available.  I followed my own policy and now I access all my
library magazines in this manner and the reality of the situation was
that I now have access to a greater number of professional library
resources than I had before this policy. Reliance on hard copy was
financially and emotionally  self  limiting.  If you have your one
favorite hard copy, you may not feel the need to utilize the
Professional collection.  With the Alerts coming into the email box, I
am very likely to take a look at the other journals. As for the
recreational magazines, we do not have any.  I just don't think anyone
has the time, and if the did go out, they would probably be lost.
--------------
I agree with you, Shonda. I avoided purchasing entertainment magazines
for the faculty and staff in our building. The magazines I chose for
our adult population were Newsweek, Time, Consumer Reports, E--The
Environmental Magazine, Sports Illustrated, National Geographic, Texas
Monthly, and a host of professional titles, especially those geared
towards integrating technology in the classroom. You can't purchase
everthing!
------------
Instructor (appropriate for grades K-5)
Mailbox (grades K-5)
-----------
Two good ones that we do not provide yet, but may if
the teachers are agreeable are:
The Reading Teacher
ASCD
------------
Sorry, I don't have any suggestions at this moment. But it just struck
me that as we encourage the kids to read for pleasure, I'm not sure
that it's a bad idea to keep "fluff" entertainment for the teachers.
(In addition to the professional development periodicals you would
like to offer.) When I was a teacher, most of my thoughts, at work and
at home, were about teaching and school. So it was a great relief,
sometimes, to allow (or force!) myself to read a few "non-educational"
magazine articles. Of course, teachers can go outside the school
library to find this type of reading material, but I believe that the
more teachers come into my library to use the resources (instructional
or otherwise), the more likely I'll be able to interact with them
(professionally and informally). In fact, I don't think it would be a
bad thing for kids to overhear us discussing, for instance, an article
from "O" magazine. In this exchange, we are demonstrating to students
our enjoyment of reading, of learning through reading, and of sharing
our reading with others-- even if the topic happens to something more
"lowbrow" like cooking or home decor!  :)
-------------------
I know I am in Australia and the situation is different of course, but
budget limitations and the needs of students are not.
In my collection policy I address the curriculum and professional needs
of students and staff, and the personal needs of students... not staff.
I maintain a staff swap shelf in the lunch room... read a book, replace
a book... add what you have finished with.. basis.  (My last school ,
these shelves got a life of their own and are still functioning after 15
years).  The one magazine I feel good about buying that staff use
personally, is Choice - the consumer magazine. Students also use this in
commerce.
HOWEVER, i buy all sorts of magazines for the students - TIme, Bulletin,
and also Vogue, teenvogue, Instyle, Hair, food, lifestyle for the girls
mainly.. all sorts of sports and cars mags for the boys - and staff will
borrow these if they wish.  I cannot afford full subs to these - I go
spend $100 4 times a year of one-offs so the kids get a taste of many
magazines.
-------------------
The librarian before me ordered some adult magazines that weren't
education-based, such as "People".  I canceled those subscriptions
immediately and now only buy a few subscriptions for the teachers,
such as Instructor, MailBox's Bookbag, and one other title (the name
escapes me right now) !
 ----------------------
With budgets being what they are, I believe Good Housekeeping, etc.
should be purchased by public libraries for the community, not school
libraries for their staff.
-----------------------
At what level are you now working? I am on school system number 5 in
state number 4 (planning on staying now--I miss a lot about elementary
school but like a lot about high school so far) and it has always been
specifically outlined that magazines are to be purchased in relation
to the curriculum, not for the teachers' lounge.
------------------------
One media specialist got 'warned' when I was in Michigan for buying
recreational reading for teachers instead of professional or
curriculum related magazines and periodicals.  I understood that she
was put on notice that it was considered a misuse of funds and should
not occur again.
---------------------------
Now that I am at high school, we do get Southern Living, House
Beautiful, etc. but they are used heavily in the family and consumer
science and botany classes.
-----------------------
I pushed Mailbox for teachers when I was at the elementary level.
When it came in, I attached a list of teachers' names for the
appropriate grade level and a checkoff list for it to circulate and
then be returned to the media center.  In two schools they loved it
and in one it was a waste of time.  I know there was another one along
the same lines as Mailbox that I bought but can't recall the name just
now.
------------------------------
Maybe to pacify the teachers you can make some kind of arrangement
with the public library like I had--they sent in a box of books for
recreational reading for teachers that had been donated to the public
library.  Or perhaps there are some parents or community groups that
would donate their gently used copies for the teachers when they are
finished?  I also had that going on.  Right now, we have a very
popular book exchange for teachers on a shelf in the teacher workroom.
-----------------------
What!!! I don't have that kind of money, but certainly not for this kind of
stuff. I read them all, but buy them myself!
--------------------
Science World (both science teachers), Career World (life skills/accounting
class), Artist's Magazine (for art teacher), Home (for home ec/life skills
teacher), Ahora (for the Spanish teacher, classroom set if he/she wants it),
Western Horseman, Texas Fish & Game (ag teacher). Depending on how they are
used, we log these in an either send them directly to the teacher or put
them on display and they use as needed. Personally, I subscribe to Reader's
Digest and bring it to school when I'm done and put it on display. A lot of
teachers will borrow it as well as some substitutes who need something to
read. Occasionally I will buy a Woman's Day myself and then put it on
display. Usually the teachers are the ones who pick it up.
------------------
I don't know what grades your library serves, but I would never buy
that type of magazine with my very limited funds.  For teachers, I
provide these magazines in my PreK-5 library:
Instructor
Mailbox (4 grade level editions)
Teacher's Helper (4 grade level editions)
Crinkles
Music K-8
SchoolArts
School Library Journal  (for me!)
------------------
We only subscribe to teacher magazines and journals related to our
curriculum and grade level.
-----------------
Here are some of the professional magazines I provide for my
K-8 building.
Connect K-8 Science & Math Teacher; Gifted Child Today; Horn Book (for
me); Instructor K-8; Magazine of History; Mailbox Bookbag (new this
year); Mailbox K-1; Mailbox Intermediate; Mailbox 2-3; Middle School
Journal; Music K-8; New for You - Teachers (new this year); Reading
Improvement; School Arts Magazine; School Library Journal; Teachers
Helper g1, g2-3; 4-5 and Kindergarten.
----------------------
I'm in a similar position. This is my third year at my
current school and I've been quietly and gradually eliminating some of
the fluff in the serials collection. I've ditched People, the Oprah
magazine, Latina (the content is often too adult for middle schoolers
and the teachers who did read it seemed to be more interested in
pictures of scantily clad women -- none of my business, really, but
that's not why I'm here and the money can be usefully spent elsewhere),
even Consumer Reports, which would actually be a useful classroom tool
if anybody used it for that instead of shopping for a new dishwasher.

As far as professional reading, I've been lucky. Our principal gives us
all of her copies of Phi Beta Kappan, Middle School Journal, and
National Association of Secondary School Principals Bulletin (for those
interested in becoming administrators), and a couple others -- and she
reads them pretty quickly, so we're mostly up to date. For more
user-friendly professional reading, I think Teacher and Education Week
are the best I've come across. Teacher is a wonderful "glossy" magazine
with interesting features and a generalist viewpoint. Ed Week is, of
course, the benchmark for education world news -- they stack up quickly
but every week there's something worth reading. I'm sure lots of
department chairs would love to have me pick up their subscriptions to
niche publications, but that doesn't seem to me to serve the broader
mission.
-----------------------
My predecdessor seems not to have purchased professional materials since
some time in the 80s, so I've been making that a priority, too. Our
speech therapist recently moved out of a tiny office here in the
Library, so I moved in, creating a small sitting area with a TV for
previewing videos and a small but growing collection of books on
teaching and related topics, like Marc Prensky's and James Paul Gee's
books on video games in education, Richard Mayer's book on Multimedia
Education, Don Tapscott's book, Wikinomics, about mass collaboration,
etc. It seems to be catching on, but slowly.
-------------------------
I don't have any entertainment-type of magazines in my library, my
budget simply does not allow for anything that's not a professional
journal or subject-related.  Even if I did, I don't think I would
include them, the ones that you mentioned seem like they should be
ordered personally.  I suppose you could have just one or two, to
avoid complaints, but not more.
--------------------------

~Shonda
-- 
Shonda Brisco, MLIS
Library Media / Technology Specialist
Digital Bookends wiki / blog:
http://digitalbookends.pbwiki.com
http://shonda.edublogs.org/
sbrisco@gmail.com

Resources for Texas School Librarians:
http://txschoollibrarians.ning.com/
http://txschoollibrarians.wikispaces.com/

"Digital Resources" columnist
School Library Journal

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