"Just" a librarian

[Kim Carter <kcarter@SHS.MV.COM>]

I have a friend who, when asked what she does for a living, replies, "I am
in National Defense."  If the conversation proceeds, she explains that children
and a literate populace are our best national defense and that leads the action
in those areas through her invaluable work as a library media specialist.
  I do feel our jobs have changed and the connotation of librarian is too
strong for us to ignore -- I am an "Information Specialist" -- my sign by
my office says that, my business cards say that, and I say that - with pride.
It is hard to not get prickly when everyone, from "Mrs. Oncologist" to my
own parents, think of "librarian" as the book-stamping, finger-wagging,
"Did-you-try-the-card-catalog?" spinster.  I too had my life changed when I
was in high school by a library aide, who gave me a personal copy of "The Little
Prince" and recommended John Ciardi's "How Does a Poem Mean?" -- the age old
question is not just how do we share with the general population how valuable
what we do is (all librarians, not just school librarians), but even more im-
mediately, how do we better articulate our role in educational communities.
We are too often defined by the public library model (a worthy and inherently
valuable profession in itself, but nonetheless different from ours...) and
too often many of us in this profession are comfortable with that definition.
  I value this conversation and have hesitated to enter it largely because time
 constraints make it difficult to put together the kind of comment I would like.
However, I thought you might enjoy the "National Defense" answer - which belongs
to Susan Ballard, Director of Londonderry School Libraries and Secretary to
AASL.
Kim Carter
Souhegan High School
Amherst, NH   03031
kcarter@shs.mv.com

Oh -- I finished this and then realized I had more (of course!) to say!
I co-chair the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development's
Information Literacy Network.  I purposefully applied for the network to
be titled Information Literacy, rather than library and/or media specialists
etc.  because I suspected a wider range of people would engage in the conver-
sation.  This has most definitely proven to be the case.  We have about a
40% library media specialist membership, while the remainder of the network
members come from an incredibly diverse range -- administrators, consultants,
family literacy, adult education, subject area teachers, vendors, and on and
on -- and they are from all over the world.  The network was mentioned in
both the February and March, 1995 Education Updates from ASCD -- the Feb.
issue has a front-page feature titled "Developing Information Literacy --
Advocates promot resource-based learning" and the March issue has a page 6
article titled "Putting Resource-Based Learning to Work"...
   If you would like further info, please contact me at:
kcarter@shs.mv.com