Mapping Loss
There’s no easy way to deal with the fact that school librarians are losing their footing in the race to stay employed. I’ve always posited that, to date, the great majority of school librarian cuts have been “choiceless choices,” e.g., districts that simply have no other personnel left to cut. Or, in some cases, an administrator removing an ineffective or outdated school librarian.
This week’s news in the state of Oklahoma, though, have sent a frisson of panic through me. To save money, legislators in Oklahoma have been considering relaxing some state mandates, including the requirement that schools have credentialed school librarians. Textbooks, early childhood, and class size requirements would also be exempted through 2012. The story has changed since November, when Oklahoma was actively pursuing school librarians (though, it must be said, sometimes at extensive per-librarian cost).
Shonda Brisco, an assistant professor and education materials librarian at Oklahoma State, has decided that it’s time to start tracking what’s happening with school librarians, harnessing the power of crowdsourcing. She’s created an open Google Map onto which anyone can add a pin describing their school or district’s reductions, eliminations, or other situations. It’s been scary over the past 12 hours to watch the map populate.
As far as I know, it’s the first attempt at graphically representing the loss of school librarians. And it’s another example of how Web 2.0 is transforming the way that librarians come together as activists. It’s a groundswell activity; a grassroots effort; not something created by an association. Shonda got the idea and almost immediately was able to get people acting.
Will the map change our employment outlook? Uncertain. Will it help us see our own individual power as leaders and information gatherers? Absolutely.
Updated 4:30pm - Here’s Joyce Valenza’s take.