社区黑料

Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for 社区黑料 Newsletter

School librarians hear the question all the time: Why do we need school libraries and school librarians when students have the internet?

The perception is that a computer and Wi-Fi are all students need for their informational and recreational needs.

Meanwhile, the number of school librarians in the U.S. has  over the past decade, according to a July 2021 study funded by the . Many states, including Arizona, Texas and Pennsylvania, . And an analysis from the  revealed that Hispanic, nonwhite and nonnative English speakers are the students most affected by the decline in librarian positions.

鈥淎ccess to school librarians has become a major educational equity issue,鈥� says , who with  led the IMLS study. In a recent email he told me, 鈥淪chool districts losing librarians tend to be ones that can least afford the loss in a society characterized by increasing economic inequality.鈥�

As a former school librarian who  and , I know that  demonstrate that K-12 school librarians have a significant impact on student achievement.

Here are four functions that school librarians carry out that I believe make their role more important now than ever.

1 Foster digital literacy

As bestselling author  put it, 鈥淕oogle can bring you back 100,000 answers. A librarian can bring you back the right one.鈥�

Recently, there has been an alarming rise in . This is . A 2016 Stanford University study found that nearly 80% of high school students  of a source.

A 2012 Pew Research study revealed that  think the amount of information available online today is 鈥渙verwhelming for most students.鈥� Over 70% believe that today鈥檚 digital technologies 鈥渄iscourage students from finding and using a wide range of sources for their research.鈥�

School librarians are information literacy experts trained to teach students how to access and navigate the tsunami of digital information available to them, and how to determine the authenticity of that information.

2 Champion the joy of reading

School librarians collect and curate high-quality print and digital materials that help students develop a lifelong love of reading. Take, for example, , librarian at  in Piedmont, South Carolina, and winner of the American Library Association鈥檚  in 2018. Cox partnered with the county election commission to bring in voting machines for a book award contest to creatively encourage both reading and civic education.

Findings from studies such as the 2014 South Carolina Association of School Librarians鈥�  affirm that students who attend schools with full-time certified school librarians  on standardized reading tests.

3 Help teachers enhance their lessons

School librarians聽聽to locate resources that enhance and support authentic classroom instruction. For example, Cindy Symonds, the librarian at聽聽in Blythewood, South Carolina, collaborated with fourth-grade teachers to have students use databases to research a historic weather event, such as聽聽in 2005 or the聽聽in 2011. Then, with the help of a technology instructor, the students filmed themselves using a聽聽to create a weather report.

School librarians also work to ensure that students are taught issues of . They collaborate with teachers to help students understand the ethical use of ideas and information. These include lessons about acknowledging authorship, properly citing content and developing an understanding of how to correctly use and reproduce others鈥� work.

4 Seek out creative, diverse materials

School librarians select inclusive materials that represent diverse points of views. This ensures that students have materials that reflect their own experiences as well as the experiences of others.

Librarians often provide innovative and creative programs that promote  where students share ideas, equipment and knowledge while they work on projects. For example, during Hispanic Heritage month, the students at  in Charleston, South Carolina, read books by Latino authors and researched the authors鈥� countries of origin. They also , such as national flags and maps with landmarks and used  invention kits to code and present their facts on interactive displays. The project combined research, literacy, coding, circuitry, self-expression and creativity.

, who oversaw the project, says observers might be 鈥渢aken aback by my library鈥檚 apparent disorder, the lack of desks, the constant movement of students, cardboard everywhere, the constant chatter and the energy level.鈥�

鈥淏ut,鈥� Herold adds, 鈥渟pend more than a cursory look, more than a quick investigation and you will find the future of education.鈥�

This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license. Read the .

Did you use this article in your work?

We鈥檇 love to hear how 社区黑料鈥檚 reporting is helping educators, researchers, and policymakers.