Berg

=Things that keep me awake at night...= I hope you all have taken the time to read the SLJ article by Joyce Valenza and Doug Johnson that I handed out at our last class. The first paragraph should have gotten your attention.

//The library, as we once knew it, may no longer be relevant. School librarians, as we once knew them, may no longer be relevant.//

As newcomers to the profession, you all had preconceived ideas of what the job would be like. Virtually every prospective library media student tells me that they want to become a librarian because they love books and want to encourage kids to read. This is certainly an important part of the job but there is so much more.

Everything that Valenza and Johnson worry about, I worry about too. It depresses me when I see library programs with outdated collections, librarians who are passive rather than proactive, and new school libraries that are build by architects who don't provide good space for instruction or "bookstore" cozy features. I am frustrated by school districts who block access to new technology tools.

I hope that you, my students, will take the challenge to help change our profession. I hope that your coursework at WSU helps gives you the knowledge, skills, and dispositions you need to do this. Because I also agree with Valenza and Johnson that //And, yet, this is undoubtedly the most exciting time in history to be a librarian.//