January 14, 2005

LETTERS2theEDITOR

Gratitude for Colleen Cortese’s history column

Editor,
I would like to send a “Thank You” to Colleen Cortese for her articles on the Chaboya family [Paths to Evergreen].

I descend from Antonio and Pedro’s brother, Anastacio. Since August 2004 I have resumed my genealogical research on the Chaboyas and have spent many hours at the Santa Clara City Library. 

On one of my many visits to Santa Clara, I drove to the Evergreen district to get a feel for my ancestors’ homeland and took pictures of the area. I must say the area is beautiful.

Thank you again Colleen for providing your readers and me with the stories on the Chaboya family.

Rose Gonzales-Hardy
Chico, Calif.

Understanding the value of library services in our communities

Editor,
The Evergreen Branch library is closed and the new library at that location is scheduled to reopen in 2006, affecting the community’s access to public library services.

Evergreen Elementary School District and the East Side Union High School District facing difficult budget decisions consider cutting certified library services as a cost saving measure; reducing services to the students in our community. Are libraries an outmoded commodity in today’s high tech world?

As the library media teacher at Evergreen Valley High School, I am not convinced that our services aren’t valuable to our communities. I finished my Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science in June 2004.

In the four years that I worked on this degree, I learned that the services provided by librarians are more critical than ever in our high tech world. Information is speeding toward us at a faster and faster rate.

Students have ready access to varieties of information via the Internet. Yet how do they learn what’s good and what’s bad? How do they learn how to synthesize and use the information properly?

Many classroom teachers have an overloaded plate with standardized testing and curriculum standards. The library media teachers in our elementary, middle and high schools are the qualified professional when it comes to information literacy and helping students make informed selection of materials to use for research and how to use the information properly.

Many have the perception that the librarian is just the person who “checks out the books.” While we can and do check out books, a less qualified person or machine can do that task. We do much more than check out books.

“Information Power,” national guidelines for school libraries, describes four components of the position:

- Collaboration, leadership and technology—working with teachers to create meaningful activities for students
- Learning and teaching—providing instruction that goes beyond the curriculum
- Information access and delivery—the resources made available
- Program administration—overseeing the management of the library.

These components may be broad and general, so how does it translate for me and other credentialed school library media teachers?

We may work with a teacher or group of teachers on a unit that supports specific classroom curriculum. For just one example, an English teacher had her students do biographical research and make classroom presentations. The students came to the library to find the biography to read. I created the worksheet for recording the bibliographic information and provided instructions on how to use the electronic bibliography tool.

Teachers bring students to the library for instruction specific to the library environment, i.e. book selection and/or research.

Access is a huge issue in our school libraries. We have computers for those who don’t have access at home. We are open before/after school for students to use resources they may not have access to at home. If the public library is closed temporarily for over a year and the school library services cut back, where do these students go?

Administration—selecting and ordering books, videos and other materials to support curriculum, maintaining the library Web site, creating recommendation lists, fundraising and supervising students are just a few examples of the ongoing responsibilities.

California as a whole doesn’t value the importance of credentialed school librarians. We rank 51st in the United States for library media teachers to students (1:4363) according to a survey of state departments of education conducted in 2002 by Nancy Everhart of St. John’s University in New York.

As a basis of comparison, Utah is 50th with a ratio of 1:1650 and North Dakota is first with 1: 312. Is it any wonder we receive reports of how public schools fail our students?

Do I believe these facts will influence our school boards, legislators or communities? Not really, but it saddens me to think that our students will suffer and receive a poorer quality education.

LeighAnn McCready
Library Media Teacher
Evergreen Valley High School

[Editor’s note: This letter is in response to the proposal from the East Side Union High School District to reduce library services by 50 percent in all of the district’s schools starting in the second semester of the current school year. The estimated annual savings will total $180,000.]

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