Joyce Valenza’s Neverending Search

Make sure you read Doug Johnson’s full response to my post on obsolescence in his Blue Skunk Blog.

Doug addresses one of the really big elephants in the room–” How can we remove the individual as a factor in whether the library position in a school is in jeopardy?”  And Doug quotes some of his own strategies for reducing vulnerability to budget cuts.

And speaking of individuals, individual buildings have individual needs and a librarian’s true relevance has a lot to do with assessing and meeting those most pressing needs.  Doug shares a conversation with Mike Eisenberg:

You can build all the lists you want about why librarians are important. But in the end it comes down to “Why are librarians important in MY school?” I visited with library guru Mike Eisenberg last week. He believes we all need to be important in our own ways in meeting the needs of our individual buildings and teachers. Some schools will want a reading specialist, some a computer geek, some a Chief Information Officer or uber-reseacher, and some an information literacy teacher.  Be what your school needs you to be, he recommends.

I think we must also recognize that what some schools need is someone who not only responds to immediate needs, but someone who has the vision to invent and create and apply, someone who can help move learning and learning forward, beyond what is currently being assessed.  Someone ready to get on, no DRIVE the new bus, when it arrives.

Doug poses a question that invites our profession’s response:

If you won the lottery and retired tomorrow, would your school replace you - and why? Is your position librarian-proof?