School librarians unite against stark budget cuts

Image by Timm Suess via Flickr

Remember Ty’Sheoma Bethea, the young girl who was singled out in President Obama’s speech to Congress last year after she wrote a letter pleading for help for her dilapidated school? Well, the good news is that the South Carolina school is being rebuilt, thanks to $25 million in stimulus funds.

But remember how poignant it was that Ty’Sheoma had to go to the public library to write that famous letter? In the Information Age, schools need well-staffed, well-stocked libraries, and alas,  librarians are lamenting that the President’s education budget completely eliminates a school library grant program and doesn’t even mention the word library at all.

The budget proposal, which includes $400 billion for education, scraps the Improving Literacy for School Libraries grant program, which provides funds to boost academic achievement by beefing up school libraries in high poverty areas. For all the talk about the importance of literacy, the proposed budget does not earmark a penny specifically for libraries. And the nation’s librarians are none too thrilled.

I’m shocked,” says Cassandra Barnett, president of the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) and a media specialist at Fayetteville High School in Arkansas. “On one level, I’m angry, and on another level, I’m highly disappointed. This is a real morale killer.

via President Obama Proposes Eliminating Federal School Library Funds – 2/1/2010 – School Library Journal.

The AASL is launching a grassroots effort to alert lawmakers of this oversight.  Their colleagues at the American Library Association are raising their voices as well. Word is out, and these are not shy literacy professionals.  In fact, Buffy Hamilton,  who calls herself  The Unquiet Librarian, wrote a stern letter to Obama and dubbed it “An Indecent Proposal.” To the point:

You must not marginalize school libraries and librarians, and consequently, the students we serve. The very fact that the words “library, libraries, and librarians” are missing from the Department of Education budget speaks volumes about how you perceive our role in educating today’s youth and that you do not have an authentic commitment to helping today’s young people acquire this form of literacy capital so vitally needed for today’s world.

via An Indecent Proposal « The Unquiet Librarian.

My mother was a librarian, and I grew up surrounded by books and was instilled with the notion that information feeds not just the mind, but the soul. This is more important than ever, at a time when literacy in all media is critical to participating fully in  school, work, and life.

It’s one thing to rethink the concept of a 21st century library and eliminate all the books, as one fancy prep school did recently, turning its library into a “learning center” and spending $500,000 on flat-screen TVs, laptop-friendly carrels, electronic readers, and a $12,000 cappuccino machine. (Caffeine is oh, so important to the learning process.)

But the librarians who are up in arms here are simply trying to bring the world of information to the neediest students. Cutting programs and neglecting to mention libraries is not a great message to send, especially when folks in Washington can’t mention the word “education” without pairing it with “21st century skills.” School libraries are a focal point for teaching those skills, and the kids who don’t have access to a cappuccino machine computers and books and other media resources ought to be getting those things in their schools. Libraries matter. So do books.