Oh, Canada.
From today’s Globe and Mail,
Today, many Canadian children have never even seen a school librarian and never will. Nova Scotia has none, and the full-time equivalent of just three are left in all of New Brunswick. At least one school board in Ontario hasn’t had a teacher-librarian in 15 years, and numbers have declined in Alberta and British Columbia as well [certainly in our part of Alberta].
Spring is a hard season for bibliophiles, as school boards across the country set their budgets for next school year. In recent weeks at least two Ontario boards have decided to cut library staff.
Teacher-librarians have been among the first to be sacrificed when boards make cuts, and the digital innovations they help students navigate are now being used as the justification for eliminating their jobs, and Canada is bucking an international trend of investing in school libraries.
People for Education, an Ontario advocacy group, will release a special report on the decline of school libraries on Monday.
The study shows that less [erm, fewer...] than 12 per cent of Ontario elementary schools have a full-time librarian, and small communities, particularly in the north, are most likely to go without. Today, barely half have even a part-time librarian, down from 80 per cent in 1997/98.
The group’s concerns are about more than nostalgia: School libraries and librarians have been linked to several measures of student achievement, including standardized test scores and a love of reading. Most studies have come out of the United States and Australia, but Canadian researchers confirmed in 2006 that these benefits transcend borders and remain strong in a post-internet world.
“It’s not surprising that when you’ve got engaged teacher-librarians, they’re going to engage the students more and the more they engage our children the better they learn,” said Donald Klinger, the Queen’s University professor who led the new study.
What did surprise Prof. Klinger was the strength of the association between students’ performance on standardized tests and the presence of school librarians: His study showed scores were boosted by as much as 8 per cent.
If reading all of that makes you sad, this will make you even sadder [boldface mine]:
In April, declining enrolment forced the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board in southern Ontario to make up a projected $8-million to $10-million reduction in provincial funding. Trustees voted to lay off 16 secretaries, several teachers, and nearly all 39 library technicians. At the same time, Peterborough’s Catholic school board, east of Toronto, also said it is cutting library staff.
“We have to get past the old concept, the old tradition of what libraries used to be…” said Cathy Geml, associate director of education for the WECDSB. Books quickly become outdated and inaccurate, and the board is focusing its resources on internet research.
“We have people in various capacities in the secondary schools that are teachers and administrators who could support and teach digital literacy throughout the day.”
It gets worse. According to The Hamilton Spectator, the decision was made behind closed doors and with no public input:
In a controversial decision — which even some students are protesting — the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board has laid off all but four of its library technicians and is dismantling all its libraries.
It has started to divvy up the library books in its elementary schools and distribute them to individual classrooms instead.
Among the board’s reasons, according to Ms. Geml:
schoolchildren spend time walking to the library, choosing books and returning to class. “That’s lost instructional time,” she added.
Lost, indeed. I’m not quite sure how much anyone in the Windsor-Essex Catholic school district has been learning over the past few generations if school board members believe that that books are purely for research, reference, and information. Whatever happened to wisdom, knowledge, and a great story? How disappointing that there are trustees who think it comes down to Stephen Leacock vs. Google, Jane Austen vs. the current edition of the World Almanac, Billy Budd vs. Bing. Am I really surprised to find that there are school board members who believe this? No. It’s one of the reasons we home school, and one of the reasons we’ve made a good home library a priority.
The good news, if there is any, is that not everyone in Windsor agrees:
“We believe students’ physical well-being is important, so we have a gym. As a Catholic school, we believe religion is important, so we have a chapel. If we believe literacy and reading is important, why wouldn’t we have a library?” said Windsor-area parent Donna Tonus, who is banding together with others to fight the board’s decision. A student protest is also planned on Monday.
Interestingly, one of the links provided by The Globe & Mail in a sidebar is for a story last December about Victoria, B.C.’s booming public libraries — because, as reporter Tom Hawthorn wrote, “The Greater Victoria Public Library embraces technology while respecting the time-proven value of that fine medieval invention, the printed book”.
By the way, time-proven and respected, or outdated and inaccurate? Consider it a Rorschach test for school board trustees:
Filed under: Books, Canadiana, Children's Books, Education, Great Books, Libraries, Literature, Onward & Upward, Reading
Hey, I have that book! I have to tell you, it’s REALLY OLD.
I forgot to tell you: Public Speaking featured someone who argued that laptops were better than textbooks because they didn’t go out of date as fast, lol. Maybe that’s why R & I were the only ones rolling our eye – we were the ONLY ONES disagreeing with the premise…
The thing that gets to me is that even if you believe that electronic resources are the be all and end all, a librarian is STILL and incredibly valuable resource!
What is wrong with people!
As a parent who is also currently in library school, this just makes me feel sick and sad. Where are we headed in this country?
Sheila, I know. The book is old and so am I. And my outdated ideas, sigh. When will people realize that laptops are tools and books are, as Emily D. said, frigates?
apprenticemom, yes, you do need someone to help you learn all about those electronic resources and the nifty things that they can do.
Charity, all best wishes for your studies. Good to know that there will be sensible librarians graduating, to help stem the tide of general silliness.