Media Release For immediate release – January 20 2005 Contacts: Jan Greer Langley (work) 506.457.1227 (home) 506.459.5219 Patricia Johnston – UNB Harriet Irving Library – 506.453.4742 Stan Jones – Principal researcher literacy study – 902.742.1978 (Education assessment and evaluation) Mr. Ian E. Wilson – Librarian and archivist of Canada (Ottawa) – 613-996-3262 (Carrol Lunau (Luna))

School libraries fundamental to learning

Fredericton – In some schools across the province, school libraries are going the way of the dinosaur and this has the Literacy Coalition of New Brunswick (LCNB) concerned.

“In a province where the government boasts of its Quality Learning Agenda, reducing the hours that students can access resources in their school library seems a mighty step backward,” says Marian Zaichkowski, LCNB President. “Students may be there to learn to read, but whatever happened to reading to learn?”

“The school library is where children, regardless of their socio-economic background have equal access to reading resources and library experience,” adds Jan Greer Langley, LCNB Executive Director.

The Literacy Coalition says that school library assistant’s hours have already been reduced and a plan in some school districts to further reduce access by two hours per week per year over five years is simply unacceptable. In some cases, school libraries are open a few hours a week thanks to a volunteer.

Access to the resources, including books and other informational resources that libraries provide is a criterion for academic success. New Brunswick students fortunate enough to learn to read while in the New Brunswick system and who make it to post-secondary education will lack the skills to navigate their way around a library in order to carry out research and write papers. Public school students used to get a library skills program, but with the serious reduction in the librarian assistant’s hours and student’s access, this program has been cut.

Mr. Ian E. Wilson, Librarian and archivist of Canada, states, “School libraries play a vital role in the development of literacy and learning skills of children and youth in Canada."

Patricia Johnston, Librarian at the University of New Brunswick’s (UNB) Harriet Irving Library and author of the School Libraries Survey Report, sees the impact of poor access to school libraries. “Without good research skills, students tend to rely too heavily on often unverified and inauthentic information they find on the Internet.”

Sixty percent of New Brunswick adults aged 16 and over have literacy challenges that affect their daily lives at work, at school, at home and in the community. In order to neutralize this embarrassing statistic, children and families need greater access in their communities to enriched literacy and library resources, not less.

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Additional resources:
The UNESCO school library manifesto
http://www.collectionscanada.ca/bulletin/015017-9905-06-e.html

School libraries across Canada are in distress. (There are many quotes on this web page from across Canada including Roch Carrier’s quote on page 163 in the PDF file.)
http://www.cla.ca/slip/quotes.pdf

“… We must all make the effort to ensure that our schools have the resources to provide the print and electronic resources, the technology, and the professional library staff to give all our children the skills and the tools they need to navigate their way in this knowledge society. For without this investment in our children, how can Canada maintain the distinction of being the best country in the world in which to live?” Roch Carrier, National Librarian of Canada, June 8, 2000.

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