Re: [LM_NET] Vent: Literacy coaches & Resources and libraries

[Shonda Brisco <sbrisco@GMAIL.COM>]

I must agree that many times the "book room" becomes a duplication of
what SHOULD be in the school's library.  Just recently during an
inventory hunt (for equipment) throughout the school, I went through 6
different "book rooms" (one for each of the different levels being
taught).  What I discovered were copies of individual titles NOT sets
of books for classroom use.  In addition, I discovered (by accident
when a box of videos were delivered to the library and not to the 5th
grade team leader's book room) that each grade level was also
purchasing video tapes (some of them were Disney tapes which are NOT
allowed by the district since they have had their hands slapped by
Disney in the past for showing "entertainment videos" as rewards).
---Obviously if the librarian doesn't know what is being purchased,
then she isn't aware of what is also being shown in the classroom
after the testing is completed. (Not!)

As I walked through these rooms, I realized that the contents were
more up-to-date than the school's library collection and were
completely duplicated at various levels.  In fact, in two different
books rooms for two different grade levels I found video tapes that
were duplicated.  None of these items are cataloged, no one knows what
is in each room and no one is held accountable for items "borrowed"
and never returned, yet each grade level group receives $500 to
purchase items for the "classroom" as a team.  With 7 teams, this
allows the teachers to purchase $3500 worth of materials (books and
videos) that are often duplicated (or already available in video
formats since the library subscribes to United Streaming and
PowerMedia Plus---but no one uses them because of access issues within
the classroom).

Last year my budget for a school of 650+ students was $2500.  Imagine
how we could have updated the collection AND utilized the materials
more effeciently IF administrators would realize how wasteful this
type of funding has become.

Yet....after addressing this with my administrators they felt that the
teachers knew what was best for their groups---I'm not sure if this
was because of the "old guard" which demands specific things to remain
the same (circa 1980) or if it's favoritism by administrators who just
want to keep the masses happy by throwing money at them.  Even though
we discussed collaborating on the items being purchased and the
reasons why we need for these resources to be placed in the library,
this was dismissed as an "issue" that would be create problems if
these funds were not given to the teachers to purchase what they
wanted when they needed it.  Even when I encouraged the teachers to
share with me the titles that could be added to the library, it was
dismissed as something that was just too involved --- cataloging and
processing takes too much time.....and then there's the visiting the
library to actually GET the item when you need it.)

Until administrators and teachers have a better understanding of WHAT
a library is and WHAT a librarian can do, these types of situations
which undermind the library program and its budget will continue.  In
the meantime, reporting the "waste" (and violations) to the higher
powers within the district seems to be the only alternative to
addressing the problem.

~Shonda



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

"Digital Resources" columnist
School Library Journal

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