A curmudgeonly look at public-school library cooperation

Ohio Libraries, Winter 2001 by Minkel, Walter

A view from both sides shows that public librarians have to go more than half way.

I spent 24 years as a public librarian on the West Coast before coming to work for a magazine aimed primarily at school librarians. I also spent five or so of those years doing outreach work and programming in the schools-everything from training fourth-grade classes how to use the automated catalog to telling urban legends to middle schoolers. I worked for two years on Multnomah County (Oregon) Library's School Corps program. (It's still going strong, and it's a great program-check out the site at www.multcolib.org/ schoolcorps/).

Now I monitor the voluminous LM_NET online discussion group for media specialists. Although this group sometimes has several hundred postings a day, few of these postings mention public libraries or public librarians. School media specialists are very centered on their own buildings.

It's incredibly clear to me that public and school libraries should cooperate more. But with a few exceptions here and there around the country, they really don't. Since I'm feeling particularly curmudgeonly, I'll share my opinion as to why, in the hope that it'll get some people thinking and talking. I'm directing my comments to public youth librarians, because they typically have the most motivation to get schools and public libraries to cooperate.

Public Youth Librarians (PYLs), it's (almost) all up to you. If I've learned anything on this subject over 24 years, it's this: If anyone is going to not only initiate but keep up school/public library cooperation, it'll be the public youth librarian. It is in about 95% of all cases I know about. This isn't because school librarians are slackers, I rush to add. Most of them work hard. It's because their jobs are very different.

PYLs believe that school librarians are their closest professional equivalents. School librarians, for the most part, believe that they are teachers more than librarians. Most media specialists are, indeed, certified teachers working with and supporting a district curriculum and state standards. For almost all the school librarians I know, the building they work in and the kids and teachers within it are their priority.

If you, as a PYL, want to meet with a school's teachers, always let the media specialist know. School librarians see their buildings as their turf. If you step onto this turf, you must acknowledge the school librarian and let him or her know what your plans are. Often he or she will help you make the best use of the time you have to visit a school.

Don't hold your breath waiting for teachers in local schools to fill out "assignment alert" forms. Teachers are even more building-- centered than media specialists. Their classrooms and their kids are their world. If you want to make teachers aware of all the great stuff the public library has and how it can help them, in most cases you must visit them and remind them constantly.

Most teachers and media specialists are unaware of your summer reading program-or if they're aware of it, they need to be reminded why it's important.

It has always amazed me how little most teachers and media specialists seem to know about summer reading programs and all the work PYLs do over the summer. Even after reading tens of thousands of LM_NET posts, I can't remember seeing more than one or two that acknowledged the existence of summer reading programs in public libraries.

Here's a sample: last fall, many of the media specialists on LM_NET got into a thread that discussed school reading programs, as in "Our principal wants to bring up our reading scores this year. We were thinking that if we had some kind of theme, like a trip around the world or the Old West, it might motivate the students. Does anyone know where we could get some theme ideas and materials?" In the discussion that ensued, I saw no one who suggested that PYLs had been doing this kind of thing for decades and might be able to help.

When you approach people in schools, don't just tell them what you have for them; ask them what they want. The very best thing you can do to build better relations between schools and public libraries is to ask everyone you can grab by the lapel in a school, from the principal to the football coach, what the public library can do for them. Remote access databases available from public library websites nationwide have been a great boon to public libraries trying to make themselves indispensable to schools-but you must often let the schools know they're available.

Get the URL for your public library website and catalog in front of teachers' (and parents') faces. Get it printed in the school newspaper, the parents' newsletter, and linked from the school's website. Never stop promoting how great the public library is.

Walter Minkel is the technology editor of School Library Journal.