Upon recommendation of Washington State Librarian Rand Simmons, the Office of the Secretary of State supported Senate Bill No. (SB) 6105 at a recent hearing. The bill addresses teacher-librarians and the provision of resources and materials for the operation of school library information and technology programs. It changes the name of “school-library media programs” to the “school library information and technology programs” thus updating the criteria for school library programs bringing them into the 21st Century!

Katie Blinn, Deputy Policy Director for the Office of the Secretary of State, said, “The bill reinforces the idea of libraries providing technology, not just books.” Certainly school libraries have been battered by the budget woes of the past few years. “Too often, it seems, cutting the school library is an easy budget reduction,” said State Librarian Rand Simmons. “But, I believe that teacher-librarians are integral to the education of students and this bill clarifies their role.”

The bill is a request of the Washington Library Media Association (WLMA). Sharyn Merrigan, the teacher-librarian at Marshall Middle School in Olympia and President-Elect of WLMA noted in her testimony before Committee on Early Learning & K-12 Education

“Teacher-librarians play a central role in their schools and in the education of students. At WLMA, we have identified the three main responsibilities of the 21st century teacher-librarian. Those responsibilities are:
• Support for information and technology literacy instruction
• Reading advocacy for lifelong learning and enrichment
• Equitable access to information resources and services
As an organization, we have adopted a framework for these three responsibilities, which can be summed up as Library, Information, and Technology, or LIT . . .”

WLMA’s legislative liaison, Sara Glass, teacher-librarian at Tumwater’s Peter G. Schmidt Elementary School supported the new language in SB 6105, by stating, “teacher-librarian in the school library information and technology program … describes how we provide both the vision and the leadership for emerging technologies that can transform student learning and the classroom curriculum.”

By the way, have you noticed the term “school librarian” hasn’t been mentioned? For at least a decade school librarians have adopted the term teacher-librarian because it both clarifies they are certified professional teachers and points to their focus on teaching.

The bill is supported by the Washington Education Association (WEA). Chief Lobbyist Lucinda Young says WEA will introduce a bill that “. . . would provide the funding for school districts to hire enough teacher-librarians for all our schools and return para-educators to full employment.”

SB 6105 was heard in committee of January 22, voted out of committee on January 24, and passed to Rules Committee on January 27. The next step will be a vote of the Senate. WLMA leaders are optimistic that the bill will receive favorable treatment in the House.

Public librarians and teacher-librarians met with legislators on Friday, January 24. The buzz over the reception of legislators to SB 6105 was both electrifying and gratifying.

This past week (Oct. 8-13) I had the privilege and pleasure of visiting several libraries on the Eastern side of the mountains. I hope to post some pictures and additional details in later blog entries, time permitting!

My trip culminated in attending the WLMA (Washington Library Media Association) conference in Yakima, where the Washington State Library as is our custom, sponsored a booth in the exhibit hall. I attended several informative conference program sessions as well as spending time staffing the WSL booth. This trip provided me with the opportunity to visit and talk with librarians, library staff, and teacher librarians along the way, in various venues and settings.

During the course of my visits, it came to my attention that information about the “new” statewide ProQuest contract, and the revised content that came with it, had somehow not trickled down, or gotten through to everyone. A number of people were not aware of some of the content that should be available to them through the Statewide Database Licensing (SDL) project’s current contract with ProQuest.

The new SDL contract with ProQuest went into effect on July 1, 2011. Under the terms of the new contract, some of the previous content was removed from Washington accounts, and some new content was added in its place.

The new content consists of:

• SIRS Discoverer
• History Study Center
• ProQuest Learning: Literature
• ProQuest Family Health (included in “ProQuest”)

All of these, except ProQuest Family Health, are specifically aimed at the K-12 audience, and the SIRS Discoverer interface and significant content are aimed at the lower grades. Material in both SIRS Discoverer and eLibrary are identified by reading level, and searches can be limited or sorted by reading level.

More recently, a larger newspaper database, the Western Newsstand (included in “ProQuest”), was added to the package, to compensate for the loss of three Washington newspapers.

Previous content that is no longer included in the Washington contract is as follows:

• eLibrary Elementary (the standard eLibrary is still included)
• World Conflicts Today (this content is now included in the History Study Center)
• Ethnic NewsWatch (was included in “ProQuest”)
• Alt-Press Watch (was included in “ProQuest”)

Unchanged content that we had previously, and still have now includes:

• eLibrary
• ProQuest Research Library (included in “ProQuest”)
• ABI/INFORM Trade & Industry (included in “ProQuest”)
• ProQuest National Newspaper Core (included in “ProQuest”)
• ProQuest Washington Newsstand (now down to only 5 current titles; included in “ProQuest”)

You will find a complete list of the current and the previous package contents, along with the relevant links, product descriptions, title, lists, etc., on the SDL ProQuest package web page here: http://www.sos.wa.gov/quicklinks/PQ

Please note: Items listed above that are described as “included in ProQuest” are items that you access through the standard ProQuest search platform. The items NOT so described run on their own platforms, and require separate individual links for access.

If you are a school librarian, I recommend that you check your school or district’s web site, and if you do not have access to the “new” content, please make every effort to contact whoever is in charge, and ask them to add links to the new content, and drop links to the content that is no longer available. Without these links, you are not getting full value for your subscription.

If you are a public librarian, you may want to double check that your library is offering all of these resources to your staff and patrons.

Keep in mind that access to ProQuest for K-12 school (public or private) is via your local ESD. That is, while the State Library pays half the cost of the statewide contract centrally using federal LSTA (Library Services and Technology Act) funding made available through IMLS (The Institute for Museum and Library Services), the other half of the cost is divided between all of the participating libraries, and access, while inexpensive, is not free. Your school or district needs to pay its share of the subscription cost through your local ESD.

Without the participation of ALL Washington libraries, this project would not succeed. It’s the combined purchasing power of practically the ENTIRE state (K-12, public, private academic, community college, and even hospital and medical libraries) that makes this project sustainable.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions. Thank you for your participation and support!

Will Stuivenga, Cooperative Projects Manager
Washington State Library | Office of the Secretary of State
360.704.5217 | fax: 360.586.7575
[email protected]