Brian Kenney weighs in on the recent bloggers article in the March issue of American Libraries:
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6430153.htmlM
I don’t envy Leonard Kniffel’s job at all. AL has a huge array of issues to cover and serves many different constituencies, all of whom, I bet, are screaming for more ink. And I cringe at the idea of someone performing a similar analysis of SLJ’s content (yes, we are way overdue on a feature about middle schools).
But the truth is, in AL, libraries mean public libraries, youth is code for children’s and young adult services, and students refer to college students. And that’s a problem.
In part, the argument is as simple as “no taxation without representation.” The American Association of School Librarians represents one-sixth of ALA’s membership—and many of its members support ALA by joining other divisions as well. They want their piece of the pie.
Read the whole piece. We’ll be seeing Brian on campus at Dominican next week for the Lazerow Lecture. I urge anyone in the area to attend! I’ll be sharing this editorial with my classes as well to spark conversation. I know I have at least 10 school librarians-to-be in my 701.
OH! And I KNOW where Joyce is! She’s here: http://joycevalenza.edublogs.org/ and, like me, she is in depths of her dissertation. 🙂