Personal Reflections . . .

[Heather Norris <HGNorris@AOL.COM>]

. . . about the "Uneducated Librarians" thread . . .

I am a 53 year stay-at-home mom who had not been in a classroom for several
years after giving birth to my first child.  However, once my oldest child
entered kindergarten and beyond, I became very active in school volunteer
work--spending around 3 mornings a week in either my daughter's or son's
classroom and in the school clinic.  I thought about volunteering in the
library, a natural fit with my love of books--but they had an extremely
well-organized network of parent volunteers and when I first asked about
volunteering they already had 4 parents a day coming in--two morning and two
afternoon and didn't quite know what to do with me so I decided to go to the
clinic instead.

As luck would have it, I had grown very close to the school principal--having
run many fundraisers for her, etc.  When the library aide's husband moved to
Arizona in April one year, the principal asked me if I would like to "fill
in" until the end of the year.  Her original intention was to hire someone
permanently over the summer.  I found however, in those three short months
that I loved the work, enjoyed working with the librarian, and wanted to keep
the job.  Luckily the principal was glad to give it to me.  I then went for 3
more years in the position, learning more and more about the job school
librarians do by working with and watching the certified, MLS degreed,
qualified librarian.

Our school district (Fairfax County Virginia--just outside Washington, DC)
has had a huge need for librarians for the last few years due to retirements
and new schools being built.  With the encouragement of my mentor, the
librarian I worked with, I quit my job and went back to school full time to
get an MLS at the University of Maryland.  I have to admit that as much as I
learned from my excellent "on the job" training, I was AMAZED at the amount
of knowledge one has to assimilate in order to become a librarian.  It is
mind-boggling.

I had the opportunity to here the president of the ALA speak to one of my
classes--we were an intimate group of 24--and we had the opportunity to ask
questions of him afterwards.  Unfortunately, this thread had not started on
this board at that time.  If it had I would have encouraged the ALA to work
HARD to see that certified MLS holding personnel are in every school library
in the country.  BUT -- they should not displace the wonderful aides already
in place.  A good librarian and a good aide working together is a wonder to
behold and the school, the teachers, and most importantly the children all
benefit from having both.

I originally came to this board to post an inquiry about the availability of
school library media jobs in the state of Utah (we are moving there next
summer) and received several wonderful responses from your members but all
told me that Utah is one of those states that use either aides or parent
volunteers to run their libraries at the elementary level.  I was so sad to
hear that after going through the time, expense and WORK of getting my MLS
that if I want to work in the Utah schools, unless I am lucky enough to fall
into a high school job, I will be back where I started from--working as an
aide (that is IF they will even hire someone "overqualified" for the job).

It is sad so many states are like Utah, yet others like Virginia require
librarians at every level.  How can we organize to work to standardize this
across the country?  It seems we all agree that the best of all worlds would
have an MLS certified librarian in every school--aided by a paraprofessional
who is more than just "clerical" help.

Heather Norris
Springfield, VA
hgnorris@aol.com

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