You may remember that Sue Stroyan had not had an opportunity to reflect on our questions for the ALA presidential candidates before speaking with us at Affiliate Assembly at MidWinter. She has sent her thoughts to me and I am glad to post them for your consideration.
Nancy Dickinson, Chair
Affiliate Assembly 2011
1.
Many of our students across the country are not able to access quality library programs in their schools. How will you assure that the interests of our youngest patrons will be addressed under your administration?
In my preparation for running for ALA president I have spoken with a number of school librarians across the country. Although I already knew the situation was bad, I now better understand the depth of the deplorable condition we have allowed our school libraries to sink to across this country.
I'm from Illinois where we have always worked together and advocated for each other knowing that when one type of library is under funded all types of libraries are hurt.
I will work with key people in AASL to understand and be as knowledgeable as possible; I will be in Washington D.C. to press for national funding; and I will make this one of my highest priorities.
Because I am not a school librarian I think my voice will be heard better since I am advocating for others. It is like trustees advocating for public libraries, I think having an academic librarian speak for why it is so important to have a strong quality library program in every K-12 school can be very powerful. I recently was involved in an ethnographic research study on how college students perform their own research. Our results indicate that many of them have no idea how to conduct a simple search. They can't tell a journal article from a book chapter. I can call on this research as an example of why young people need certified librarians in their schools - so they come prepared to do college level work. This is just one example of some of the factual stories we will use to pummel legislators with when we need to support library programs in schools across the united states. I think using public and academic stories to tie in the relationship of the urgency of school library needs will help develop the power of the need. But as I said above, I will always look to AASL for more guidance on the crafting of the message.
2. What kinds of partnerships do you envision within the ALA structure to
promote strong school library programs?
Partnerships are struck through programming, mutual concerns or interests. It also involves staff time and resources which is scarce among ALA today and all of our member libraries. Therefore the goal of the partnership needs to be powerful enough and mutually beneficial that both parties will find it attractive to enter into the agreement. I don't think this is something an ALA President should or could impose on any of the units of the organization.
However, I do see some possible relationships that might naturally form given common interests. ACRL has a very strong interest in information literacy and I believe would be delighted to see a strong school library program where information literacy was carried out in the K-12 arena. Having students enter higher education with a good base knowledge in IL would dramatically change academic librarianship today. That's a powerful base for a partnership. Another possibility is with PLA who significantly supports school children's homework assignments since there are no school library's in many communities. By partnering with PLA and identifying the amount of funds being diverted to this activity could change the way they do business if school library programs were fully funded. Again, a very powerful partnership goal.
These are two examples but I suspect you know better than me where other possibilities lie. I'm trainable :) and willing to bring parties together to discuss the possibilities. I'm a good collaborator, listener and action oriented. I'm looking forward to making the impossible possible.
Sue