Two things happened to me this week.  First, I went on a West Wing rerun binge. Second, I heard from a friend of a friend of a friend about a speaker who was talking to teachers and made it a point to play up the importance of classroom libraries, not school libraries, but classroom libraries.

As a school librarian, I’ve always seen classroom libraries as the bad guy…and I know I shouldn’t.  The books are there, it’s easy, and in seconds, the books are in the student’s hands.  What could be bad about that?  The problem, of course, is that too many people in education see the classroom library as the cheap solution to school libraries.  Now, of course, we who work in the library field know better.  We know that there is more to fostering literacy than signing out books.  Information literacy and digital citizenship do not sit on a few shelves in a classroom.  They are a key concern for library personnel. Unfortunately, we can be accused of being biased, yet fortunately, study after study supports the notion that strong school library programs support academic success.  And that includes the presence of a librarian, teacher/librarian or library technician.

I bring uScreen Shot 2015-04-01 at 11.26.32 AMp the show, West Wing, because during the fictional presidential campaign on that show, the fictional President Bartlett is grilled by his staff to make sure that when he is questioned by the press, he is clear on his talking points.  Good politicians know their talking points inside out.  Do we?

Here’s an excellent article with bullet points by one of our “rock star” librarians, Buffy Hamilton:  The Ultimate Classroom Library – Your School Media Centre

There are very strong reasons listed that support the notion that one great school library is preferable to twenty classroom libraries and these reasons are wonderful talking points to memorize, BUT, this article is from 2009. If you have suggestions for other talking point type articles, PLEASE ADD THEM TO THE COMMENTS in this post and I will add them to future posts.

These are your talking points, librarians, so get talking!