Presidential task force to focus on school library programs
Printer-friendly version
For Immediate Release
Tue, 09/20/2011 - 15:09
Contact: Marci Merola
Office for Library Advocacy (OLA)
CHICAGO — To combat increased reports of threats to school library instructional programs, ALA President Molly Raphael has launched a Special Presidential Task Force on School Libraries. This task force will lead a campaign addressing the urgent need for advocacy for school libraries, as well as the impact of the de-professionalization and curtailment of school library instructional programs on students and student achievement. Raphael has asked for librarians of all types to get involved.
“It’s impossible to disregard the impact the cuts will have on future generations,” says Raphael, “as well as the impact this will have on all of the library community. As such, I’m calling for an all-hands-on-deck approach to this potential crisis.”
The task force will collaborate with member groups around the association, and work at the local, state and national levels to galvanize support for school library programs. It will appeal to the entire library community to work with external partners and public advocates.
Co-chaired by 2012-2013 American Association of School Librarians (AASL) President-Elect Susan Ballard and ALA Committee on Library Advocacy (COLA) Chair Pat Tumulty, task force members include ALA Executive Board members Sylvia Norton and J. Linda Williams; AASL Immediate Past-President Nancy Everhart; AASL members Cindy Pfeiffer and Krista Taracuk; COLA representatives Ann Dutton Ewbank and Debra Logan; Public Awareness Committee Chair Sonia Alcantara-Antoine; Committee on Legislation Chair Eva Poole; Chapter Relations Chair Cynthia Czesak; Public Library Association President Marcia Warner; Association of College and Research Libraries representative Scott Walter; and Association of Library Trustees, Friends and Foundations President Donna McDonald.
The task force will convene for a one-year term, ending at close of the ALA 2012 Annual Conference in Anaheim, Calif. At that time, the charge and outcomes of the task force will be evaluated, and recommendations for follow-up will be made.
American Libraries Magazine | 50 East Huron | Chicago, IL 60611 | 2013© American Library Association | Staff Login
Comments
This is sooo overdue...
Where was this fervor 10 years ago when libraries were being dismantled by the Bush Administration. Why was there no general outcry when libraries in rural schools and inner city schools were being marginalized. Now that the poor and minorities aren’t the only ones being affected there is this national outcry. Suddenly now its “all hands on deck”. What hypocrisy.
AASL: Where are programs for me?
This year AASL is having their annual convention in Minneapolis and I was really looking forward to suggestions for making my library program as effective as possible. But I didn’t find anything that will help me with teaching 15 elementary skills classes in 8 hours a week, or running a high school library on only 2 hours a week, which is what my library position has been minimalized to. There were lots of things for people with access to iPads, which I would have had if my grant I had written had been financed, but it was not. We have 1 student computer in my elementary library for student use. There was nothing on using smartboards in library instruction, which I do have. How I’d love to be one of those school librarians who have access to technology, but the grant I wrote wasn’t funded, so I got placed teaching in a classroom. Incidentally, the critique of my federal school library grant included that I had textbooks in the library catalog (yes, we use that for inventory), that sponsoring book clubs is the role of the English department, not the library (!) and I should have applied for a grant that upgraded the infrastructure of the whole school instead of just my elementary library!
Anyway, there were actually more useful workshops happening at my state convention for all librarians, than your convention specifically for school librarians, which I am.
<>