Librarians and NCLB

Some notes on Cataloging Books and NCLB

When I took my cataloging class in college, I really hated it. But, I learned how to do it and swore that I would never accept a job as a cataloger. I imagined being buried deep in the bowels of the library with no sunlight and nothing but rows and rows of books. I couldn’t imagine doing that for a living! So, I did not accept the first job offer I got. I turned it down and later accepted a job as a children’s librarian.

As much as I hated cataloging, I was good at it and in later years I found that I did need to do it. When I started working for the public school system I discovered that I needed to catalog the books for the school library. Sometime in the 1970’s I found that certain book jobbers would add catalog cards with book orders…for a price. So, when my library budget was good enough I would spend the money and order the cards. I still had to give them a local call number, sort and file them in the card catalog, but I didn’t have to type each card. That was a great help.

By the mid 1980’s computers were coming to the libraries and there were programs that were helpful for typing and printing catalog cards. And finally, in the late 1980’s companies came out with MARC record programs and barcodes were put on books. This really was major. A librarian could order books complete with barcodes and full processing. Sometimes we would have to change the call numbers or subject headings to match our particular library, but this development was a real turning point. It saved so much time and that time could be spent reading to and teaching children.

By the 1990’s most school districts had processing departments to do the cataloging of materials. At first this was great and then all of a sudden, it seemed we were not allowed to do our own cataloging. When the online web based programs came about, most school districts opted for that system and hired a person to be in charge. The school librarian was no longer in charge of her own school library. We couldn’t even buy paperback books. If we did, we got them back with notes saying they were not worth cataloging. Apparently now we had rules about how thick a book could be, how old the copyright date could be, and were told which publishers we could not purchase from. So, I began wondering why I bothered with all those classes on cataloging and why I took that class in Book Selection. I actually know some librarians just out of school who never had to take a cataloging class.

So now here we are in the 2000’s and school librarians are handed curriculum guides and scripts on how to run the school libraries. What ever happened to individual library programs? My main objective was to show children the wonders of books and how to use them. Somehow this was all disappearing. My last school was very small, only 300 students, so I had a limited budget. My library budget was about $7.00 per student. You can’t buy a lot of hardback books with that kind of money. So, it was all very frustrating. When I did buy books and send them in to be cataloged sometimes it took months to get them back and then some of them were banded together with a note that they were not good enough to be cataloged and that I should give them away as prizes.

And while all this is going on, the teachers are being handed scripts to follow. Teachers used to bring their classes to the library to do reports on countries, animals, and science projects. But with the advent of NCLB this all stopped. The teachers no longer had time in their days to bring their students to the library for research projects. It seemed to me that NCLB really was put there to automate teaching. Teachers are becoming robots and so are librarians. I chose not to be a part of this system, so I retired. I was fortunate that I could retire. I feel for the individual teachers and librarians who became teachers and librarians because they wanted to teach children and thought they had something to offer. Now the various levels of government are telling them what to teach and how to teach and leaving no room for individual creativity. How is this going to help our children? My children are grown now, but if I had small children now I would not send them to public schools. I would home school them or find a good private school that still encourages creativity in their students and teachers.