The school library media center and the promotion of literature for Hispanic children

Library Trends, Wntr, 1993 by Adela Artola Allen

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TABLE 1.
SPANISH LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY PROFILE OF LIBRARY PERSONNEL
Personnel                           Self-reported Spanish Fluency
No
                    High   Medium   Low   None   Response
Librarians (n=62)    5       15      20    12       10
Parents (n=21)       6        4       2     7        2
Part Time (n=8)      1        2       -     5        -
Clerks (n=26)        8        4       4    10        -
Aides (n=6)          -        -       6     -        -

Interestingly, 62 percent of the school library media specialists who answered this question had either low or no proficiency in Spanish, 28 percent had medium, and only 10 percent considered themselves as being highly fluent in Spanish. These figures are significant: more than half of the personnel are unable to adequately communicate with Spanish primary students, thereby impeding equal access to services and library holdings, and impairing their ability to engage in the process of Spanish book selection and in bilingual activities performed in the library.

Further analysis was made to see if librarians were employing other personnel with Spanish language skills to accommodate the needs of non-English-dominant children. Table 2 shows the relationship between the Spanish fluency of media specialists and their support personnel.

TABLE 2.
SPANISH FLUENCY OF SUPPORT PERSONNEL IN LIBRARY MEDIA CENTERS
                     Available    Parent     Part-
Media Specialist's   Support      Volun-   time Em-
Spanish Fluency     in Library    teers    ployees   Clerk  Aide
                    Yes   No      HMLN    HMLN      HMLN   HMLN
None (n=12)          4     8       2         2        22      2
Low (n=20)           8    12      4121      2       2214      2
Medium (n=15)        3    12      2212    1         5223
High  n=5)           3     2         1    11        1

In summary, note first that thirty-eight of the fifty-six respondents to this question had no additional support in their libraries. Second, the lack of Spanish fluency in support personnel for librarians with little or no knowledge of Spanish is dramatic. This state of affairs could severely limit access for Spanish-dominant students. The non-Spanish-speaking librarians in this study do not have high Spanish-fluent parent volunteers, employees, clerks, or aides. Four of the twelve librarians with no Spanish used support from parents or employees, yet none of those people was highly fluent in Spanish. Low fluency librarians may have special appreciation for the need for Spanish fluency; four highly fluent Spanish-speaking parents were recruited and two highly fluent clerks were employed by these librarians. The librarians who reported themselves as being of medium fluency in Spanish tended to work with highly fluent clerks. The highly fluent librarians were too few to demonstrate any kind of a pattern.

Personal and telephone interviews revealed that the reasons that Spanish-fluent media specialists are not found in many school library media centers may be because, as the literature reports, there is no pool of Hispanic librarians to hire. In terms of the support staff, telephone interviews explained that school library media specialists do not hire their clerks and/or aides. Tests for these positions are administered at the district level and hiring is done at the central office or by the site administrator. Spanish-fluent aides are most often placed in classrooms which is where administrators feel the more crucial points for language assistance are needed. In addition, some support staff in library media centers were employed before the school's demographics changed.

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The school library media center and the promotion of literature for Hispanic children

Library Trends, Wntr, 1993 by Adela Artola Allen

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