feature stories

Not just a ‘book checker-outer’

by Dorothy Callaci

Feb 2, 2006 1:35 PM

School library media specialists’ expertise crucial to student achievement

School libraries work! But they work only when the enthusiasm, energy and professional skills of the school librarian — known today as the library media specialist — make a school library come to life.

Dee Ratterree, one who does just that, is sure that “any good school library will increase reading scores and test scores.” She is very busy making that happen at her colorful and inviting K-8 library at PS 75 in Manhattan.

Research in schools across the country over the last decade shows a direct correlation between student achievement and school library programs. But the data stresses that the correlation works only when library programs are headed by certified library media specialists — licensed teachers of library.

A good school library program, the researchers insist, must be much more than books and computers. In scores of New York City public schools, but not in enough, library media specialists are hard at work strengthening that correlation every day.

Ratterree’s library is small for the 1,000 students it serves. It doesn’t have, as she puts it, “great computer capability,” but it does have a fine book collection.

And Ratterree keeps the place humming.

“You don’t have to be quiet in here,” she said. “This is a noisy library.” And she’s part of that noise, advising, discussing and recommending books. She seems to know them all — and how to match them up with readers.

“Glad to see you with your glasses,” she tells one student as she hands another one a book and suggests, “Go read a few pages and see what you think.”

Ratterree and her colleagues agree that connecting personally with students is the key to a successful and educationally stimulating library program.

“Once you get them in, they don’t go out of here empty-handed,” Ratterree beamed.

Grades K to 3 are in the library every other week. And if students don’t come to her, she goes to them, working collaboratively with teachers to enrich the curriculum — bundling books appropriate to classroom needs, arranging book talks for older students and regular “assemblies for the arts” for grades 2 to 5 that include read-alouds, class presentations of poems and short plays, all library motivated.

“After the read-aloud of the first chapter of ‘My Father’s Dragon,’ every single 2nd-grader came in to take out the book,” Ratterree noted.

Although her enthusiasm for library work began as a parent volunteer, she credits her training to become a certified school librarian with moving her far beyond being “a glorified book checker-outer.” She’s sharing her skills with other librarians by presenting a workshop on nonfiction for elementary students at an upcoming librarian conference at Queens College.

“I see work happening here that really changes children’s lives,” she said. Although fully supported by her principal, Ratterree would like to reach more children more often — “I could see 3rd-graders every week instead of every other week” — with “more space, more money, more time and more help.”

In sharp contrast to PS 75, Bayside HS’s wireless library, a large, sunny space, is a technological wonder. It provides access to laptops and computers so students can research term papers, save them on disks and print them out. They can even access the library catalog and databases from home. More than 800 students of the school’s almost-4,000 population keep three librarians jumping for 11 periods from 7:15 a.m. to 4:10 p.m. every day.

June Schwarz, chair of the UFT Library/Media Committee, points out that “having this technological capability in the library closes the digital divide between the haves and have-nots among our students.”

Suzanne Miller, whose mother and brother are also librarians, calls this school library “the real school center.”

Rowena Li, well on her way to a Ph.D., rounds out the trio of library media specialists always ready to anticipate and meet the needs of staff as well as students.

At the sound of the lunch bells, students pour in, heading straight for the 12 computers — never enough to go around. Work tables fill up quickly as students unload backpacks and settle down to work. The librarians are everywhere, helping, advising, answering questions, and in a quiet corner, teachers work on their laptops, read and mark papers.

An important part of the steady, daily library traffic includes the many class visits teachers and librarians work on together to integrate the library’s resources into teaching and learning so that students become effective users of ideas and information — an important element in maintaining this Queens school’s high academic rating.

The principal backs and applauds the librarians’ efforts, including all the extras the trio has created to encourage reading: the faculty book club, the student book club, the Barnes and Noble Book Fair and special events for special times, such as Black History Month in February.

Miller reports that “English classes book well in advance for the poetry read-alouds at which 60 to 70 students recite their own work — which is later bound into a book for them — during National Library Week in April.”

In Brooklyn, it was mid-morning in the IS 278 library when librarian Esther Lewenstein gave the ready-set-go signal to 32 6th-graders on a quest to find a book. First there was a review of how to get started, use the computer for a catalog search and finally comb the stacks — “the hardest part for them is going to the shelves to look,” Lewenstein explained.

As soon as she handed each student an index card with an individual assignment and cautioned them to “work quietly and calmly,” the race to the 10 student computers was on.

Honing research skills is an important part of what Lewenstein sees as her responsibility to prepare her intermediate school students to handle the more arduous and complicated assignments that will be expected of them in high school.

“It makes me happy to see how well-used the library is and to see students going through, exploring,” she said, pointing to the empty spaces on the book shelves caused by “so much borrowing.”

She’s also acutely aware of the needs of reluctant readers. For them she is expanding the collection of graphic novels — books in comic book format — and audio books — books students read and listen to at the same time two or three times a week in a library work station setting. “Listening helps these students learn pronunciation and cadence,” she explained.

Lewenstein will also be at the Queens College conference heading a workshop to make other librarians aware of how these books boost at-risk readers’ interest and ability.

Of a librarian’s job, she said, “You have to be good at multi-tasking and that includes being a technology mechanic. There’s little or no time to sit down.”

Like most of her colleagues, Lewenstein says, “I can’t get to as many students as I would like.”
While the state requires a certified librarian at intermediate schools for every 1,000 students, she’s serving 1,200, so “a para or a parent volunteer would be helpful” to make the library more accessible. Fortunately she has supporters: a principal who “accommodates the library in every way she can,” and a city councilman’s grant for structural upgrading of wiring, lighting and book shelves.

The librarian’s job is constantly evolving — technology has changed libraries dramatically — and constantly busy. In addition to working with students, librarians need to keep upgrading their collections to keep them timely by reading reviews and deciding which books and magazines, media materials and software to add and which to weed out, always with an eye to stimulating reading and supporting research.

Not all city students are lucky enough to have access to libraries like these three. While the Department of Education is committed to making all school libraries wireless, they have failed to staff most elementary school libraries with certified library media specialists, the essential ingredient to boosting achievement.