School Librarian, Where Art Thou?

On March 16, 2018, School Library Journal published a group of articles under the banner “School Librarian State of the Union.” My main article in that group is School Librarian, Where Art Thou? Drawing on the Common Core of Data (CCD) for U.S. elementary and secondary schools, this article presents a detailed analysis of the statistical trends for employment of librarians, library support staff, and selected other school personnel. It examines these trends by state and by district enrollment. Most importantly, however, this article questions the validity of school librarian employment data, due to its being based on an outdated definition which makes no reference to educational technology or information literacy–both of which have radically altered the job descriptions (and in many cases the job titles) of school librarians.

Comments are closed.