Concern: There are no current national recommendations on school library staffing.
The students of today and tomorrow are being short-changed by the lack of understanding of the value that libraries and school librarians play in their educational lives.
Without real guidelines for school boards and departments of education the staffing of school libraries has become haphazard nation-wide. Increasingly the teaching capabilities of school librarians have been trivialized. Recognition of the value of teaching reading through use of a trained librarian is being ignored.
As we know and agree, trained librarians provide a consistent teaching standard for information literacy and for promoting reading.
We feel that students of America need and deserve the highest quality of education; that includes recognizing the integral part that trained school librarians provide.
Action: Both the Affiliate Assembly Executive Committee and the Affiliate Assembly body approved this concern. It was sent to the AASL Board.
Action: A recommendation on staffing is included in the Position Statement on Appropriate Staffing for School Libraries.
At the ALA 2012 Midwinter Meeting, the AASL Board approved the creation of the Quantitative Measures Task Force charged with investigating quantitative measures and recommending a direction for AASL.
