Erosion of school libraries has been a familiar theme in the repeated cuts that have been made at most BC schools in the past decade.
NEWS
BCTF: Chronic underfunding is creating severe inequities in school libraries, report finds
March 1, 2011
A decade of underfunding has compelled teacher-librarians and parents across BC to become fundraisers for their children’s school libraries, together raising more than $1.2 million to purchase books and electronic learning resources in 2009–10.
That’s only one of the worrisome facts reported in the BC Teacher-Librarians’ Association 29th annual survey of working and learning conditions in public school libraries.
While most schools raised up to $3,000 last year for library resources alone, 24 schools raised between $5,000 and $10,000, and one school was able to raise an astonishing $50,000. These figures point to the growing inequities between public schools in low-income neighbourhoods and those in affluent areas. Read more
2010 Archives
Victoria Times Colonist: MLAs need to know the value of school libraries
October 3, 2010
Joanna M Weston, Letter to the Editor
Now, the teacher-librarian teaches, provides library time where possible, even if only 40 minutes a week per class, and tries to support teachers and students with ongoing services.
It seems beyond ridiculous that newspapers should have fundraisers such as Raise-a-Reader when the government consistently cuts back on access to the primary resource, the library, for students and teachers in the schools. Perhaps our MLAs need to go back to school and try for time in the library? Read more
The Tyee: Ask Away Library service quits answering
School children used service the most
Shannon Smart, The Tyee.ca
June 30, 2010
This is the day B.C.’s libraries pull the plug on the AskAway! Program, which let patrons from all over the province ask questions of librarians online, in real time, and receive an immediate answer.
The provincial plan for libraries and literacy, set out in Gordon Campbell’s 2004 strategic planning document Libraries Without Walls, was to bring the “world within the reach” of anyone with Internet access (and a card to a B.C. library).
Back then, Campbell was optimistic about the potential for digital technologies to promote reading in B.C. Read more
Whistler Question: Teacher librarians’ work valuable, trustees told
May 19, 2010
Penelope Buswell
Budget discussions continued at last week’s Sea to Sky School Board meeting, with Chair Rick Price announcing that “it’s not going to be difficult for us to achieve a balanced budget, but not a happy budget. We are not able to provide all the services we wish for our students.”
After having announced on April 14 that staffing levels and wages would be frozen as a result of belt tightening at the provincial level, Price last Wednesday (May 12) said about future budgets, “The most effective advocate to get more money for public education is through parents at the B.C. Schools Trustees Association.”
After the recent cuts in hours, representatives of the Teacher Librarian Association made a presentation to the board at its meeting at Whistler Secondary School titled “Schools without libraries are at risk of becoming irrelevant.” Read more
Canadian Library Association statement on BC cuts
The latest cuts proposed in BC have drawn the attention and alarm of the national association representing school librarians, which issued the following media statement on April 29:
-FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE-
April 29, 2010, (Ottawa, ON) – The Canadian Library Association (CLA) and its school library division, the Canadian Association for School Libraries (CASL), has expressed dismay and alarm at the erosion of funding for education in British Columbia. This erosion is pushing districts into making cutbacks to personnel and programs to balance their budgets, resulting in the elimination of professional teacher-librarians in many schools in British Columbia. Teacher-librarians are those professional teachers who teach curriculum based information literacy skills to students at the elementary and secondary level.
Linda Shantz-Keresztes, President of CASL asks, “How can basic literacies and the essential new literacies of our digital world be achieved without qualified teacher-librarians in BC schools?”
Studies across North America for the last fifteen years have consistently demonstrated that students in schools with effective school library programs supported by teacher-librarians experience greater academic success than those in schools with no such programs and professional teaching.
In 2008 the Minister of Education in British Columbia stated at the Pan Canadian Literacy Forum in Vancouver that: “I am personally proud that British Columbia is the lead jurisdiction for literacy in our country.”
Parents in BC have to ask some hard questions. Do they want to abandon libraries and literacy programs in public schools, or do they urge the British Columbia government to recognize the importance of literacy education, school libraries and the essential role of teacher librarians in preparing B.C. students to be lifelong learners.
John Teskey, President of the CLA, urges the BC government to reconsider these cutbacks and to fund school library programs and hire qualified teacher librarians.
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The Canadian Library Association/Association canadienne des bibliothèques (CLA) is Canada’s largest national and broad-based library association, representing the interests of public, academic, school and special libraries, professional librarians and library workers, and all those concerned about enhancing the quality of life of Canadians through information and literacy.
For more information, please contact:
Kelly Moore, CLA Executive Director
Tel.: (613) 232-9625 Ext 306
Email: kmoore@cla.ca
Download the Canadian Library Association’s media statement
