School Library Musings: So You Think You Love Libraries?

Not long ago, we met with a top school administrator campaigning for office. Discussions ranged across the educational map and included the dangers of screen time, the expanding use of AI, why “kids aren’t reading,” and many other hot topics.

When asked about the school library and its role in addressing those challenges, the administrator smiled a big smile, leaned into the group, and proclaimed: “Oh, libraries! We love the library.” Heads nodded, smiles grew brighter, and all agreed that libraries are indeed special places.

We often get that same big smile in our conversations with school administrators—actually, with just about everyone—at all levels, along with anecdotes about how much students love going to the library and how great the resources are. We hear about the engaging storytimes in elementary school libraries and how important it is for students to pick out their own books to read. They fondly remember their own school libraries and happily share stories of the school librarians who always handed them the perfect book and provided a refuge whenever they needed it.

We love these conversations. They remind us that libraries are indeed an important and ongoing part of our lives.

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And yet—when we look at how these administrators, school board members, and other educational decision-makers actually interact with their libraries today, or make decisions on what role they play in their educational landscape, we aren’t so sure whether they do, indeed, love the library.

All across the country, we are seeing librarians attacked through censorship efforts, their positions eliminated, and school libraries closed. Statistics collected by the SLIDE Research Project (conducted under the auspices of Antioch University Seattle and funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services) show a 20 percent decline in school librarian positions nationally over the past decade—and that, in truth, access to school librarians is minimal in the US, with the rate of decline increasing every school year.

With fewer librarians, we are seeing increased workloads on other teachers who no longer have the curriculum support librarians provided. We are seeing reduced ability among students to evaluate sources, detect bias or disinformation, identify AI, safely navigate the internet, or ethically use or interpret what they encounter online. We are seeing the loss of evidence-based programs that promote recreational reading, resulting in compromised academic outcomes for students. Because of this, we are seeing schools all over the country paying significant amounts of money to specialists, consultants, and costly reading programs to counteract falling reading levels, which often target only small groups of students.

In a Facebook post for Reading Opens Doors, Elise Ellerman points out that when administrators eliminate just one teacher-librarian’s position, they end up eliminating a whole network of support that dramatically affects student academic, emotional, and social outcomes. As Ellerman writes, “Some costs don’t appear on a budget line.”

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OK, let’s take a deep dive: Imagine you are an elementary school administrator. Your school has a library staffed by a library clerk who is wonderful with kids, organized, and eager. Here is what you get with that clerk: storytime and book checkouts for four classes from 8:30 a.m.–12:00 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Your clerk covers lunch break in the cafeteria from 12:00–12:45 p.m., takes lunch from 12:45–1:15 p.m., and then squeezes in three more class visits before the school day ends. Because your budget only allows for a part-time clerk, the library is closed on the remaining days—unless you’ve enlisted parent volunteers to check books in and out for scheduled classes. Either way, you’ve got it covered!

OR maybe you are a secondary school administrator. The library is open throughout the day because your clerk is full-time—but again, with no teacher-librarian on staff. The clerk checks out books, laptops, textbooks, and other materials to those 800–2,000 students. At lunchtime, students can come to the library to read books, play games, work on puzzles, participate in maker-style activities, or simply hang out with friends. Again, you’ve got it covered.

OR perhaps you are lucky enough to have a full-time teacher-librarian on duty—but there is no assistant. This librarian also checks out books, laptops, textbooks, and other materials for your 800–2000 students. They staff the library at lunch, before and after school, and during breaks. They engage with teachers to provide curriculum-related books; coteach when possible to incorporate information literacy and digital literacy skills into classroom content; maintain the collection; and manage a myriad of other daily tasks.

Inevitably, in the middle of a lesson, the interruptions start: a student forgets a laptop at home or has a dead battery, a teacher sends someone for a cartload of research materials for next period, or an entire class arrives for a reading period with nothing to read—and there’s no one there to help other than . . . your librarian (well-qualified to provide all of those services, just not all at once). Covered again.

But wait. Where are those students going at lunchtime in the elementary school when the library is closed? Where can students go to find materials to satisfy both academic and personal inquiry? Who is teaching them practical issues like how to use the catalog, how to search for information in a book or online resource, or the larger ethical and societal issues surrounding the increasing role AI plays in our lives? Who is teaching our kids to think critically about information? Equally important: When can students casually pop into their school library and pick up something to read, just for fun?

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There is no doubt that everyone loves libraries. We also recognize that in today’s financially strapped educational world, it is difficult to make decisions about the best staffing ratios. We are simply asking decision-makers to consider—during those tough conversations about staffing and instructional priorities—the many ways a library team positively impacts all the students at each school site, and quite possibly eliminates the need for many of the specialized consultants and coaches.

What, then, does it actually mean to love your school library?

• Adequate staffing: a full-time credentialed school librarian supported by a full-time clerk (the library team)

• Reliable and consistent funding

• A board-adopted library policy to support collection development, defend book challenges, and support library staff

• Willingness to think about different ways to deliver what twenty-first-century learners need

And what do you get when you prioritize library staffing, funding, and out-of-the-box thinking?

You get a student body confident in their ability to ask questions, dig for answers, and interact effectively and ethically online—all of which lead to reading widely, which leads to . . . a schoolwide reading culture, rendering moot the complaint that “kids aren’t reading anymore.”

Isn’t the cost of one teacher-librarian’s salary worth that?

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