With increasing debates about the function and necessity of the library, specifically in schools, the Los Angeles Unified School District set up interrogations over the summer to question the qualifications of librarians in the classroom in preparation to cut almost 100 library media specialists in their school district.
Here are two links to articles written about the situation:
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/may/13/local/la-me-0513-tobar-20110513
and
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/slj/home/890644-312/layoffs_interrogations_l.a._school_librarians.csp
After reading these articles it made me really think about how the library is perceived by students, by teachers and administration, and even by parents and outsiders in the system. To cut librarians based on their lack of current experience in a formal classroom setting seems absurd to me. While the library is viewed as an extended classroom, and I do agree with that perception, the issue becomes what do librarians teach. Well, while we may not have a curriculum filled with set topics that need to be covered, we do teach. We teach how to be self-sufficient learners, how to go out on your own and find useful and valid information. Librarians are information specialists. How do we expect students, and even public library users, to learn how to find information, and the right information, if we have no one supporting them? There are techniques and resources that need to be provided that librarians are trained to provide. Your librarian knows a little bit about everything, and to boil down their ability to the last time they taught in a formal classroom is incredibly limiting. I hope that people begin to realize, especially in the dawn of a society where information is so widespread and easily accessible, how important it is to know what is valuable and what is not, and that the librarian is the source for this information.
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