To call yourself a librarian, you need to have that training and to be certified. If you replace a certified librarian with someone who’s just an expert in technology, you’re losing half of the role that school libraries are supposed to be serving.
You still need someone who is a champion of reading.
~Leslie Preddy, president of the American Association of School Librarians discussing Makerspaces. Kansas City Star. June 26, 2016,
School libraries are where students have access to books. Librarians assist students with reading, research, and a variety of language and reading activities. Children learning to read can find a book on any topic in the library.
We know that schools with excellent libraries have students that do better than those with insufficient or no libraries. From Phi Delta Kappan:
Data from more than 34 statewide studies suggest that students tend to earn better standardized test scores in schools that have strong library programs. Further, when administrators, teachers, and librarians themselves rated the importance and frequency of various library practices associated with student learning, their ratings correlated with student test scores, further substantiating claims of libraries’ benefits. In addition, newer studies, conducted over the last several years, show that strong school libraries are also linked to other important indicators of student success, including graduation rates and mastery of academic standards.
The mere presence of a librarian is associated with better student outcomes.
Libraries have always been places where students can work independently. But the Maker Movement appears to be about replacing school libraries and the role of librarians with digital learning.
There is a concerted effort to convert libraries to Makerspaces, Hackspaces, or Fab Labs. Why? Why can’t these places be set up in another room, or why can’t teachers include hands-on activities in their classes? Why can’t some part of the library be used for these activities without an overall library conversion to digital instruction?
We hear that the only way libraries and librarians will survive, is if they sign on to Makerspaces! Many librarians are being renamed “innovation specialists” and their role is changed to that of a facilitator for digital learning.
But if libraries are already such a known factor in student achievement, why would anyone tamper with their success?
The fear is that those who believe libraries are unnecessary, are using the space for students to make things, along with digital learning, to crowd out libraries and librarians.
According to the Kansas City Star:
The movement, taking place nationwide, is more about robotics than reading.
In fact, the word “librarian” didn’t come up in the job description for an innovation specialist at Merriam Park Elementary. “Stories” wasn’t there, either.
No mention of “books,” “literature” nor “shelves.”
“They’re replacing our retiring librarians with these innovation people…”
There might be benefit in children making things. Hands on activities have always been valued and help children better understand subjects. Teachers have always had students do class projects. But students still need access to books for reading and research. They also need qualified librarians to guide them.
We know that when schools have great libraries students do well. We have no idea whether Makerspaces alone improve a student’s understanding of subjects. Some see Makerspaces as a trend along with Common Core State Standards that will eventually end. When that happens, will there also be no more libraries?
…the Spacemakers have arrived and they’re trying to get rid of school libraries by turning them into “makerspaces.”
Instead of librarians, or even people remotely interested in reading and literacy, some schools are hiring “innovation specialists.”
Those who push Makerspaces also emphasize that students work on their own without adult interference. That students should collaborate with each other.
The American Library Association doesn’t seem worried. They promote the Maker Movement, which includes nonprofits, on their website. But we don’t know how turning school libraries into Makerspaces will turn out for students.
Many school districts around the country are reversing prior decisions to cut librarians, but it isn’t always what we might think. They claim that the school library can be at the heart of a broader digital transformation. But if librarians are being used to bring about the digital transformation, it isn’t about libraries and reading anymore. Students stand to lose a part of schooling that has helped them do well in the past.
Because of the vital role school libraries and librarians play, this makes no sense. School districts should celebrate their school libraries and the certified librarians that work there!
Parents and educators must be aware and pay close attention to changes that are being made to their school libraries and the librarian’s role.
Our school libraries and librarians are precious. School libraries work!
In a free society, children need to know they have access to books. The importance of reading is validated in a great school library. Libraries assist children in reading and comprehending the world around them. There is no reason why Makerspaces can’t be integrated into the school curriculum without destroying libraries and the librarian’s role.
Losing libraries to digital maker movements is a loss that will hurt our public schools, the children they serve, and the country, for years to come.
I want schools to keep libraries and qualified librarians. Hands-on activities can be done during other class time, eg. physics, art, even reading. The value of books and the ability to read must not be sacrificed for the notion of ‘building’ things.
When I asked my then 7-year old daughter what her favorite day was in school, she didn’t hesitate and said Tuesday! Why? Library Day. Her librarian read a book to the class, helped them select books to check out and read and hence introduced them to the wonderful world of reading.
NO WAY we can replace libraries and librarians without hindering the students’ ability to learn language, content, and critical thinking.
I fear that the elimination of libraries is yet another step in the willful dumbing down of our youth, keeping them from critical thought and information that would support skills they need as responsible citizens and voters.
I absolutely agree! We need libraries and librarians more than ever. Thank you, Renate.
Where, who and how did they come up with “Makerspace”?
Duane, I think it came from DIY (Do it Yourself). I’m not sure how schools picked up on it.
“Data from more than 34 statewide studies suggest that students tend to earn better standardized test scores in schools that have strong library programs. ”
Why even do such a study? Do we need a study to prove the sun rises? Who in their right mind would question the need for a library? The librarian follows, as Shakespeare said, “as the night the day..”
The real problem with libraries at school is that we have never funded them. Interaction with the printed word and the art juxtaposed wit extensive discussion is irreplaceable. To this now is added the capability of watching video that is informative in a way books cannot do. Think of watching an internal combustion engine while you hear.
Duane, much of the origins of the Maker Movement comes from the work of Dr. Seymour Papert at MIT and Dr. Gary Stager. Stager wrote a great book about the Maker Movement and education “Invent to Learn” . I think libraries and Librarians have always pushed the envelop when it comes to education. I think there’s still needs to be a place for a more traditional book centered libraries, but I also think that libraries can be areas for more student center innovation. Many librarians/media center directors I have worked with are the people fostering the changes to more traditional libraries.
Diane Ravitch reprinted my post and the responses there about what the Maker Movement is doing to libraries is heartbreaking.
https://dianeravitch.net/2018/10/14/nancy-bailey-dont-turn-libraries-into-makerspaces-for-technology/
I don’t care who’s climbing on board this movement, Peter. They’re tampering with the role of librarians, libraries, and how children learn to read. I stand by what I wrote in my post. There’s something else going on here.
I had thought that the Maker Movement had been dismissed. This posting came as a shock. The Movement reeks of finanacial chicanery, using our responsibility (and love) for children to vacuum the public purse. Librarians are every neighborhood’s own public intellectual, and books are the mind’s solace. As the Catholic Church fought against the freedom of mind that reading and unfettered access to knowledge through books without priestly mediation, so Silicon Valley will in this fashion (among others) create a new aristocracy to control what we possess of knowledge. Dreadful business.
On a more prosaic level, this “movement,” like much that emanates from Silicon Valley, is a financialized solution in search of a problem — and sales/money, not culture or education, is the goal. Public- and school libraries partake of the public purse — that’s low-hanging fruit for minds that believe asset stripping and destruction are the same as creativity. The claims to liberating children’s minds are not born out by serious clinical or academic studies.
Libraries and librarians have educated and protected culures since before the burning of Alexandria… Always to mankind’s benefit. They, as the scribes of yore, are the first to be eliminated in a conquest and they are the first to recognize the danger to a culture when barbarians knock. What better prey?
Biology teaches us that humans are social animals. We can interact — collaborate, play, fight, war, build pyramids, whatever — sans digital anything. Silicon Valley’s engineers, MBAs, and venture capitalists need to engage in the daily experience of teaching and *hands-on* engagement before they eliminate a three-millennia practice for digital software. Their business model: Analyze a traditional business or organization, (viz., the taxi business) look for any inefficiency, then devise a means to “cut costs” by eliminating labor or the responsibility of the owner for his workers and their tools (e.g., Uber).
The “digital learning and engagement” model — online universities, the Makers’ Movement — is as inadequate to true education as the use of ‘televisions to replace teachers was in the 1950s and early 1960s. The problem here is that the elimination of librarians and libraries is far more difficult to repair than ditching console televisions was in 1958.
Something similar occurred at Columbia University, a school with a great computer sciences program, in the 1980s and 1990s: the library school was closed and the main library was purged of thousands of books. Tossed into dumpsters, when not moved to a NJ warehouse. If a book had not been checked out within a certain number of years, pfffft!
A little knowledge can cause a lot of trouble over time.
Our district, too, has fallen for this concept.
As part of a $20 million renovation, our high school library threw out thousands of books, and then moved into a smaller space with far less bookshelves and restaurant-style booths, as well as large glass windows looking right into the school cafeteria. And worst of all, the library is no longer known as a library. It is officially now called the (Ugh!) Student Success Center.
That’s sad, Eleanor. I appreciate your sharing this though because I’m afraid some people don’t believe this is happening. Thank you.
Bravo!!! This is exactly how I’ve felt about this movement. I despise the term “makerspace” and “maker”. In the “old days” kids did exactly what students are doing in these spaces now. We called it “playing” and “being creative”. Old-fashioned, I know. Also, who decided to make us the technology experts and dump the teaching of coding on us? Why isn’t promoting a love of reading and teaching valuable research and media literacy skills enough? It should be, as these are lifelong skills. Thank you for your essay.
You’re very welcome! Thank you for your comment, Dorothy. I agree with you completely!
Hi!
I am a teacher. I teaching grade 2 and 3