Auditing Diversity in Library Collections by Rosalind A. Washington

Author:Rosalind A. Washington
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ABC-CLIO

5

Auditing School Library Collections

For many children, one of the only places they receive instruction in library skills is through their school library. How to use a library, the functions of a catalog, information literacy, and researching are skills often left to the school librarian to teach. School libraries also often serve as a primary center of technology instruction, where simple computer use and digital awareness to critical research skills are developed. The inclusion of library and technology instruction by a certified school librarian remains essential. Several studies discussed in this chapter affirm this. However, when funding becomes an issue for a school or school district, one of the first places to feel that hurt is the school library, either by the displacement of certified school librarians or the expectation that they will work at more than one school building, hampering program development and the opportunity to build relationships with staff and students alike. Unfortunately, having an overextended school librarian is often seen as the better option when faced with severe cuts to budgets for new materials or databases, or even closing whole libraries and eliminating positions altogether.

Keeping school libraries open and investing in their success is an investment in student potential that furthers the development of reading fluency and passionate advocacy of books. This is especially important for students coming from low-income households. In an article for Teacher Librarian, Courtney Pentland writes, “If school leaders want students living in poverty to become frequent readers, then students need to have more access to books than their household can currently supply.”1 The importance of access to reading materials, both age-appropriate and of high interest, is recognized and validated by school libraries, and multiple statewide studies support this assertion.

It had previously been thought that the disparity in school readiness, particularly when it comes to reading and reading comprehension, was twofold. While parents and caregivers clearly play important and ongoing roles in a children’s development, blame and “disparities in the frequency and quality of book reading are often attributed to the lack of parent effort or inclination among low-income families, rather than to the structural features of accessibility.”2 The data in question comes from the Pew Research Center in a 2015 study on parenting that concluded that 59 percent of white parents read to their young children every night compared to 39 percent of nonwhite parents and that 71 percent of parents who read to their children have a college degree, while 33 percent of parents with a high school degree or less do.3 The Pew study fails to acknowledge the systemic racism ingrained in education and employment opportunities that create this inequity in reading.

This data also fails to incorporate the inaccessibility of reading material. The U.S. Department of Education has developed a map of book access by assessing the concentration of lower-income students within a district in comparison to free book access through school libraries and local public library branches. The department offers chilling statistics: “2.5 million children across the country are enrolled

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.