Stories from Library World: Missing Teacher Librarians and More

Library World is becoming stranger and stranger.  Everyone, it seems, knows better how to do the work of a librarian, though I have always believed the librarian's credentials are particularly difficult and rigorous.  One simply has to shake one's head and heave sighs of relief these things only happen elsewhere!

We heard about the "witch hunts" and trials of TLs in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), a school district intent on determining whether or not TLs' have any qualifications to teach, their careers hanging on their success in these "kangaroo courts."  

And did you read my May 9 posting from Jamie McKenzie, the one appropriately entitled, "Jamie McKenzie and the Apocalypse"?  Can it get stranger?  

Here are a few Canadian contenders for weirdest of the weird stories:  

Dude, Where's My Teacher Librarian?

Editorial/blog from You Don't Know Spitt, by Steve Spitt (June 2013): Spitt comments -- and invites comments on -- the strange case of the replacement of District TL Janice Reynolds in the Near North School District (Ontario) with a District Principal of Library, Literacy, and Math (PLLM).  That should do it!

Closer to home is this stranger-than-strange account from the Fraser Valley:

Trustee and librarian head to head over 'book burning' claim

By Jessica Peters - Agassiz Observer
Published: June 07, 2013 11:00 AM 

Hmmm!  Is Agassiz beyond Hope?!!  This is certainly beyond anything imaginable in my iteration of Library World.

In rummaging around in the internet to see about other strange library stories, I came across this one from looty in Daily Kos (January 20, 2012), suggesting that Harvard had determined that cataloging librarians were a remnant of the past.  Ask my school library colleagues about this:

"The Great Librarian Massacre of 2012": a cataloging librarian's view

But my search also brought me ultimately to Donalyn Miller in Texas, a classroom teacher who had a gift for bringing even the most reluctant reader into the reading world.  A recognized leader in Literacy, Donalyn -- The Book Whisperer -- eschews Lexiles, she challenges a guest blogger to connect the Kardashians to reading (he suggests that, in re-branding themselves, despite their underwhelming realities, they offer a model that works for reading re-branding), and she is clearly a follower, like me, of Dr Stephen Krashen.  The Book Whisperer does Literacy in her classroom in terms I clearly understand and wholly endorse.

Check out:  The Book Whisperer.

Speaking of Stephen Krashen, guess who is our Keynote Speaker for the BCTLA Summer Institute on August 27 at Hamber Secondary School? 

You guessed it!  Stephen Krashen himself.  Hope to see you there.

Check out the event here:  BCTLA Summer Institute Information and Registration.