The actions that ALA, OGR and OITP are taking around the National Broadband Plan (NBP) are specifically designed to help preserve E-Rate funding. E-Rate is absolutely essential to the future health and vitality of school librarians. Diverting funds from E-Rate to fund a Digital Literacy Corps is ALA’s primary concern.

Thank you again for posting this informative recap and connecting the dots for the reader. I will reiterate here that in my opinion, what happened was a case of going up the ladder of inference. And now that we have deconstructed the event, I would like to invite members to begin a conversation about what lessons we can learn from this.

And, I say this because I think it would be more cost effective, I am no expert, just seems logical.

As for doing thing beyond the library service area, libraries have extended beyond the service area with bookmobiles and virtual with chat and the good old telephone. There are mobile classrooms that could be purchased and library could use them to get closer to remote communities.

I don’t see why library couldn’t visits people’s homes if digital corps could be charged to do so.

I’ll concede there might be reasons well established that might not make that possible, but I can’t think of any that I know of off the top of my head.

I haven’t read anything indicating that the digital corps would do something library staff can’t do.

So again, my point is if the goal is to get more people to utilize the internet and this is what libraries are doing, why create another organization instead of investing in libraries?

This question is open to anyone to answer.

why not just make the money available to libraries to hire more people?

1) Preserving and protecting school librarians and for some of the reasons that you list regarding the fact that they are teachers. That makes sense for addressing digital literacy for students. School librarians are pretty vulnerable because the library is not considered a classroom, school librarians are generally not considered teachers within school districts, and there is still a serious image problem in which people imagine them as a high paid book minders. It’s something that really, really, REALLY needs to be addressed.

BUT, given the anecdotal work loads I hear about, I would not want school librarians to take on the additional duty of teaching parents. This might run counter to my last point about image and I may get some pushback on this, but I’m reluctant to add any duty to an already heavy work load.

2) That’s where the digital literacy volunteers come in. In working with a school as a base in tandem with the staff, they can address teaching parents and other adults. I see the digital literacy volunteers as a possible outlet for the library science graduate glut we have here at a time when digital literacy is a hot topic and one that looks to be solved by the NBP. Why train people from scratch when there are people out there right now with the skills and tools to do it already?

tl;dr version: Save school librarians and hire unemployed or underemployed library science graduates for the digital literacy corps.

What I think is weird about all this is that there is no clear answer to the question of why there is a need for a Digital Library Corps instead of funding the library?

At each point in the description of Digital Library Corps from here http://www.broadband.gov/plan/9-adoption-and-utilization/#s9-3, it just sounds like you need more librarians to train people, for example…

“This training should ensure that Corps members gain a sufficient understanding of digital literacy and learn how to teach relevant lesson plans. It should also be designed to improve Corps members’ own digital literacy skills, as well as other professional skills that can enhance future career prospects.”

…that is what libraries have been working on for some time.

Also consider…“Some Corps members might be based out of urban schools where they could work with teachers, staff and administrators to create digital literacy lesson plans and integrate digital skills into the teaching of other subjects (see Box 9-2).”…sounds like a school librarian. Unless the Digital Library Corps are cheaper to hire, which I’m guessing will be true.

Some other elements sounds like things librarians went through in library school…“Beyond their service terms, former Corps members would bring technology teaching skills back to their own communities, magnifying the impact of the program. As happens in numerous CNCS programs currently, Corps members would build other basic work skills: time management, team leadership, planning, contingency management and critical thinking.”…and are teaching patrons in different programs.

I don’t think it would be wise of ALA to be associated with hiring a librarian to do what seems like a librarian job as a Digital Library Corps member instead of a librarian when there is such grave concern over de-professionalization of the profession.

“We have talented young people graduating college committed to doing volunteer work in their communities, who may be unable to find jobs right away. And we have workers laid-off mid-career searching for employment opportunities that require a new set of skills. The Corps can put these people to work building our nation’s digital skills and building upon its history of grassroots action and community service. Then our country and all of our people will be prepared to compete in the 21st Century”
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-296738A1.pdf

Some of those people are librarians.

Second it is much to OITP’s credit that e-rate funding hasn’t been touched. In that document you can read “The FCC does not have authority to use E-rate to support digital literacy training.” and :”ALA respectfully suggests that incorporating digital literacy training into the Lifeline and Link Up programs is more legally sustainable than attempting to use the E-rate program.

I know in times of fear it can be easy to see any action that is not explicitly for you as action against you. Please let me assure you that everything I have seen as a Task Force member and a member of the OITP Advisory Committee this is NOT the case.

I appreciate you taking the time to try to understand what happened and get the truth behind the matter.

We are all in this together

Here’s the problem. School librarians have been burned over and over by reports and committees and task forces that do not specifically say the “School Library” words. It’s not just ALA that leaves out the words but we really need our professional organization to look at almost everything they do to see if those words are there if the work has ANYTHING to do with school libraries–and not much doesn’t. People from the Carnegie Corporation apologized a couple of years ago for not being specific enough in one of their reports; they admitted that they assumed all smart people knew school libraries were crucial to student success. I wish it were so. ALA is so much better about it than many others but sometimes needs reminding. The ALA Task Force on School Library Advocacy crosses divisions and offices and that matters a lot.

Right now, this month, so many pink slips are being handed out to so many school librarians, often by administrators and school boards who have totally missed the digital literacy instruction that school librarians do every day with students, staff and, yes, community members. To administrators, money for technology improvement to “libraries and schools” too often means public libraries and school classrooms and tech labs. School librarians DO read documents like the NY Times article and the SLJ article and the FCC response and the National Broadband Plan looking for “what’s in it for my library and my students” and worry that funds for a Digital Literacy Corps will take away the e-rate funds that might actually help us bridge the ever-widening Digital Divide we see in our schools. The sixth point of the Digital Literacy Task Force speaks to that which is reassuring. The other five points don’t mention the work of school librarians as instructors of digital literacy. “Libraries and schools” is just not the same thing. Sadly, there are a lot of unemployed school librarians who could fill that Corps. We are a bit sensitive about that.

Thus, it is a perception that ALA is dissing us again. It isn’t really so, IMHO, but the perception is there. And needs to be honestly and openly addressed. And will be, I am sure.