a view from the ivory tower: reflections for the school librarian

doris cruger dale
professor
department of curriculum, instruction, and media
southern illinois university
carbondale, illinois

You are a librarian, a media specialist, an audiovisual educator, a learning resources specialist, an educational materials resource person, an instructional designer, a curriculum planner, and a computer specialist. You wear many hats and perform a myriad of duties in a library, a media center, a learning center, an instructional materials center, a self-instruction laboratory. You are both a teacher and a librarian. Above all, you are vitally interested in the students who use your library and eager to get the students who do not use the library to come in.

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The term library has been in a state of neglect as other terms have been applied to the heart of school and as the librarian has assumed responsibility for audiovisual materials and microcomputers. It is an honorable term, one that will not disappear even as we call it by another name. The title of your room may be Learning Centeror Instructional Materials Center, but if you answer the telephone "IMC," your caller might say, "I have the wrong number, I really wanted the library." You may have Learning Resources Center etched on your door or on a plaque designating your room, but the sign you put on the door or in the window will probably say "library hours."

How do you manage your time when you wear so many hats? You work long hours, may or may not have student assistants or aides to help you, teach the students bibliographic and library skills so they can help themselves, and take additional courses on the use of computers and television in education in order to try to keep up-to-date in an ever-changing field.

You are constantly plagued by budget restraints which make it difficult to dream and plan innovative and creative programs. How can you get the students in to use the library if you do not have the time to work with the faculty to plan library assignments and library programs, especially when you must often teach a course or two in addition to managing the library?

What can we do in higher education to help you? Evening courses and courses in the summer are offered on a variety of subjects useful to you. These courses might be offered by a university or a community college. Workshops, demonstrations, state and regional conferences where faculty members present their research findings — are all useful ways to avoid that frightening state called "burnout."

One route might be to change careers by going on for an advanced degree so that you could join the club in the ivory tower and bring to school library programs much-needed practical experience. Here again money places restraints on you, for tuition costs and loss of salary are stumbling blocks hard to overcome. Family responsibilities are often heavy especially in a single-parent family. Scholarships, fellowships, and graduate assistantships at universities with suitable graduate programs are available but require much time to fill out the forms. It is necessary to plan ahead. But it is a rewarding career path to follow, not so much in terms of salary, but in terms of satisfaction. Serving as a mentor to an intelligent student who has had practical experience is very rewarding. I often learn more from my students than I am able to teach them. Having time for study and research are two other advantages. In a bureaucratic public school system with a pyramidal organization structure, only one person can reach the top. In an academic setting, all can aspire to the exalted but often low-paying rank of full professor.

You will still be wearing many hats, working long hours, with budget restraints, and sometimes in inadequate facilities; but there are advantages. One of them is a change of scenery and of atmosphere with a minimum amount of supervision and flexible working hours. Another advantage is the opportunity to help educate the school librarians of the future. We need quality people in both settings.

Another route to follow, but also one involving graduate education, is to return to the university to study educational administration to prepare yourself for a certificated position such as an elementary school principal, a secondary school principal, a curriculum coordinator, and eventually to go on for a superintendency endorsement. This means leaving the work you love to do — working in the library to influence the minds and hearts of children and young people — but the best school library programs that I have seen are those where there is a great deal of support from the superintendent. If you become the superintendent you can provide that support — both monetary and professional — and you can then in turn encourage young school librarians to develop professionally.

As school librarians, you need to plan on a long-range basis both for your professional growth and for your career development. Let us help you develop your skills and increase your satisfaction in your present job, or come join us and bring to school library education your experience and insight. I am planning my retirement, one of you must be prepared to take my place.

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