Opinion
Education Letter to the Editor

Where Are the School Librarians?

July 17, 2018 1 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

To the Editor:

Although there may have seemed to be a drop in the number of library media specialists (sometimes also referred to as school librarians), they have not been merely fired (“Number of Librarians Plummets in Schools, Data Find,” May 30, 2018). Some have had their duties changed unofficially.

After the Great Recession of 2008, school librarian jobs were scarce. As a library media specialist in Maryland, I found that only one librarian was allocated for every two schools. School librarians still worked full-time, but they were required to split their time between two schools. This meant not only trying to update libraries that had been closed since 2008, but also trying to meet the social-emotional demands of students who were being bullied.

As a library media specialist, I had to develop various programs that would not only help to update and organize the library but also supplement the students’ daily lessons. I reached out to authors who donated books, invited guest speakers, gained sponsorships, obtained equipment, and applied for a grant that awarded the library $2,000 worth of milkweed flats for a butterfly garden.

This job was not without additional challenges: I would often be asked to cover a teacher as a spur-of-the-moment substitute, supplementing the teacher’s lessons with library and media-themed topics. My irregular schedule, split between two schools, also impeded students’ comprehension of library lessons and programming. And, finally, special school events, standard testing, and other schedule changes often interfered with my normal meeting times with students.

The library media specialist or school librarian job position has been updated to fit the needs of the individual school. The school librarians are not gone.

Lorette S. J. Weldon

Independent Library Media Specialist

College Park, Md.

A version of this article appeared in the July 18, 2018 edition of Education Week as Where Are the School Librarians?

Events

Jobs Virtual Career Fair for Teachers and K-12 Staff
Find teaching jobs and other jobs in K-12 education at the EdWeek Top School Jobs virtual career fair.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Education Briefly Stated: October 11, 2023
Here's a look at some recent Education Week articles you may have missed.
8 min read
Education Briefly Stated: September 27, 2023
Here's a look at some recent Education Week articles you may have missed.
9 min read
Education Briefly Stated: September 20, 2023
Here's a look at some recent Education Week articles you may have missed.
8 min read
Education From Our Research Center What's on the Minds of Educators, in Charts
Politics, gender equity, and technology—how teachers and administrators say these issues are affecting the field.
1 min read
Stylized illustration of a pie chart
Traci Daberko for Education Week