August 2007 — Features
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The New Librarians
The More Things Change...
While the school library environment and the role of the librarian has transformed, the ultimate purpose of the building and its resources is no different. "The role of the library," says Barry Bishop, director of libraries for Houston's Spring Branch Independent School District, "hasn't changed: how to teach students to access and use information."
Bishop's been in the field for 30 years. He oversaw the cabling of 25 schools for a telecommunications network, assisted in the design of more than 30 new libraries, helped in purchasing new furniture and renovating libraries on more than 20 campuses, and is currently in charge of 38 Texas school libraries/library resource centers/learning resource centers. He's been a witness to the revolution, but Bishop maintains that no matter how many electronic devices find their way to the library, no matter how sophisticated the technology becomes, there will still be librarians. Students will be gathering information in new ways, but after all, he says, "we're information managers, not book managers."
Bishop says the changes have been difficult because the old stereotype of the school still exists, if only in the minds of school staff. "Almost everybody we're dealing with—principals, superintendents, the majority of teachers—have a view of librarians as 'shushers,'" he says. "There's a huge misperception. They don't understand that the librarian of today is a master teacher."
As Bishop says, the librarian, too, has to find money to replace old technologies, has to help revise curricula so that the technology is used effectively. Bishop recalls a superintendent asking a group of high school students, "When you come to school, do you power up or power down?" They answered that, except in the school library, they power down, because all the technology is outdated. But Bishop has faith in some of the old technology, too—namely, books. "As long as books add value to our lives," he says, "they'll be here."
It's a thought echoed by Blattman Elementary School's Miller. She says the traditional notion of the library as a book provider will last, because "a good story will never go out of style." Her students are still reading "Nancy Drew" and "The Hardy Boys." And her first-graders this past school year studied desert animals with both a nonfiction book and a fiction book, then made rattlesnakes out of egg cartons, using rice for the rattles.
Effective school librarians take the technology in stride, and they try to get their colleagues to do the same. Although Valenza does everything from running a website to facilitating in-services to buying materials, she describes her job simply: "I help teachers teach. I help learners learn."
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-Neal Starkman is a freelance writer based in Seattle.
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