School

The Status of Salaries for School Library Media Specialists & Aides in Colorado, 1999

April 2001

In 1999, the median salary for a full-time endorsed school library media specialist in Colorado was $35,750. This salary is on a par with what the state recommended for housekeeping supervisors and plumbing inspectors. Half of these LM specialists earned between $28,900 and $41,900. At the low end, this salary range is comparable to state-recommended […]

Library Media Center Collections Suffer as Print Spending Drops

April 2001

Over the past three years, school library media center spending on print materials (defined as all types of books) per student dropped 10 percent from an average of $12.90 in 1997 to $11.64 in 2000. Elementary schools experienced the biggest cut in expenditures with a 28 percent drop – taking their spending from the most […]

The Status of Library Media Center Staffing and its Effect on Student Achievement

The study How School Librarians Help Kids Achieve Standards found that school library media centers are instrumental in students’ academic achievement, including getting higher CSAP scores. In addition to the library media center’s collection and funding, key factors impacting student performance include adequate staffing of library media centers and the professional role of the endorsed […]

The Status of Library Media Center Support of Student Achievement

September 2000

How School Librarians Help Kids Achieve Standards, a.k.a. the second Colorado Study, found that well-staffed, well-stocked, and well-funded library media (LM) programs are an essential component of successful schools. This issue of FAST FACTS examines the status of school library media services that support student achievement. Highlights Two out of 5 public schools have either […]

The State of Intellectual Freedom in Colorado Public Libraries and School Library Media Centers

April 2000

Every year the Library Research Service surveys public libraries and school media centers in Colorado. These surveys include items concerning the number of challenges received and policies and practices related to Internet filtering. Such data have been collected from school library media centers for the last two years and from public libraries since 1994. Chart […]

Proof of the Power: A First Look at the Results of the Colorado Study and More!

November 1999

The Latest Statewide Studies During 1998 and 1999, three statewide studies of the impact of school library media centers on academic achievement have been conducted. The forthcoming reports on these studies are: Information Empowered: The School Librarian as an Agent of Academic Achievement in Alaska, Measuring Up to Standards: The Role of Library Information Programs […]

A Salary Comparison of Library Agencies

August 1999

One could say that comparing the salaries of public, academic, school and special librarians is like comparing football with hockey. A full-time school librarian works ten months out of a year. A special librarian can be anyone from a Ph.D. in a Fortune 500 company to a law librarian in a small town firm. In […]

Librarians, Teachers, & Librarian/Teacher Ratio in U.S. Public Schools: State Variations & Trends, 1989-95

April 1999

A consistent finding inresearch about school libraries is the importance of cooperation and collaboration between “librarians”[note]* In these statistics, the National Center for Education Statistics appears to be using the term “librarian” loosely. Almost certainly, individuals counted for this position were not necessarily educated or credentialed as school library media specialists. Had that been the […]

Colorado Library Media Programs Mirror Nation’s Schools on Internet Access for Students

November 1998

According to Nua Internet Surveys, a recent study by Quality Education Data (QED) found that 39 percent of U.S. schools that provide students access to the Internet use filtering software and 80 percent have some kind of acceptable use policy in force. Similar data on school library media programs in Colorado for 1998 indicate that […]

Teens Credit Librarians with Influencing Their Book Purchases

October 1998

If you are a young adult librarian, have you ever considered how many of your clients may be looking to you for book purchasing recommendations? According to a recent Publishers Weekly poll of 12- to 17-year-olds nationwide… Librarians rank fourth after friends, teachers, and parents as the people they most credit with influencing their book-buying […]