These days it seems like school librarians are under attack, if not already an endangered species. After eight years of the No Child Left Behind Act—which, paradoxically, chipped away at many library positions—recent state and local budget shortfalls have led to rounds and rounds of layoffs for school librarians. Some days you just wonder: Isn't there any good news? As a matter of fact, there is. While things are tough in the trenches, there's more library research being conducted in this country than ever before—and much of it is seeking to demonstrate the unique value of school librarians in the lives of learners. Sure, there are school library researchers scattered throughout the nation's library and information science programs, but there are three institutes in particular—at New Jersey's Rutgers University, Florida State University, and New York's Syracuse University—that are poised to make the biggest difference. All three are hothouses of innovation, but each has its own special emphasis. Rutgers's Center for International Scholarship in School Libraries, or CISSL (pronounced sizzle), is focused on investigating evidence-based practice, guided inquiry, and international school librarianship, while Florida State's Partnerships Advancing Library Media (PALM) concentrates on the leadership role of media specialists and their impact on school technology. Meanwhile, the Center for Digital Literacy (CDL)—a partnership of Syracuse University's School of Information Studies, the Newhouse School of Public Communications, and the School of Education—has the broadest mandate: understanding the impact of information, technology, and media literacies inside and outside the library setting. "We're really the golden triangle of school library research," says PALM's Associate Director Marcia Mardis, referring to the powerhouse trio. Even better for those school librarians out there on the frontlines, the three centers have just begun to collaborate on a project that will help media specialists demonstrate to administrators and other stakeholders that their jobs really matter.

Illustrations by Fred Harper

SOS from Syracuse

Founded in 2003, the Center for Digital Literacy is nestled in an L-shaped room on the first floor of a renovated building on Syracuse's quad, where Director Ruth Small, Director of Educational Media Marilyn Arnone, and 12 graduate assistants spend their time researching and creating tools to improve digital literacy skills. With about a half dozen projects in the pipeline, the oldest and most far-reaching is SOS for Information Literacy, a multimedia database named by the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) as one of the top 25 Web sites for teaching and learning. "It's our center's cornerstone project," says Small about SOS, initially created with a modest grant from the United States Department of Education and now funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). SOS (which stands for situation, outcomes, and strategies) boasts about 1,000 thoroughly vetted lesson plans based on real-world classroom assignments and research projects submitted by educators. Librarians can upload digital photos and multimedia materials to enhance the teaching of information literacy and create online lessons with menus, links, and, of course, a research component. Each lesson is searchable by grade level, topic, subject area, or key word. "[SOS] is available for free for any teacher, school librarian, or parent, for kids from kindergarten to college," says Small. CDL is now working with Syracuse University's Center for Natural Language Processing to ensure that all existing—and future—lesson plans automatically convert from AASL's 1998 Information Power Standards to the current 2008 Standards for the 21st-Century Learner. Sticking to meat-and-potatoes research, CDL is wrapping up its New York State study intended to show administrators "the impact of school libraries and their librarians on student achievement and motivation for learning," Small says. The three-phase study, which has taken two years to complete, explores the influence of librarians on technology use; the relationship between principals and their librarians; and the level of library service to students with disabilities. The result? The survey of more than 1,600 New York State school librarians and 800 principals from different counties and demographic pools showed that even after controlling for poverty level, students at schools with certified librarians have, on average, higher reading achievement test scores than students at elementary schools without them—and that certified librarians are more likely to select diverse collections and materials that are integrated with the general curriculum than those who are noncertified. "This finding is consistent with other studies, and we were overjoyed to find it in ours," says Small. "It's particularly critical in a state where certified librarians are not required at the elementary [school] level." Arnone herself has recently released a study, "Perceived Competence Among 8th Graders," which sends the clear message that students need a sense of choice and the freedom to discover new things in the library. Studying 1,200 eighth graders across 20 states, Arnone and former Syracuse researcher Rebecca Reynolds measured kids' perceived competencies in information and digital skills, applying the work of leading motivation psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan and their self-determination theory, which found that motivation driven by internal rather than external interests leads to personal fulfillment. "There was a significant relationship between kids' perceived competence and whether they perceived the library as supporting autonomy," says Arnone. "So librarians are so very important when it comes to students developing intrinsic motivation to engage in research."

Libraries as incubators for innovation

CDL is also exploring the largely overlooked area of how school and public libraries can play a role in promoting and aiding innovation in kids. Using funding from the Kauffman Foundation's Enitiative Project, researchers have developed a digital library based on video interviews with 25 inventors and entrepreneurs ranging in age from five to over 50. The goal? To find out what goes on in the minds of inventors when they identify a problem and try to resolve it. The project hopes to discover whether a supportive environment, like a library, can help stimulate innovation, and almost all of the study's interviewees suggest that the answer is yes. Take 11-year-old Michael Abbott. Six years ago, at the age of five, he entered an Invent America! contest, which fosters critical and creative thinking skills through inventing. The kindergartener had pinpointed a challenge—to create a special pair of gloves to stop the trembling hands of his grandfather, who suffered from Parkinson's disease. With help from his parents, Abbott researched several Web sites and books before he started to make sure he wasn't infringing on an existing patent. Once everything was clear, he took a regular pair of gloves, attached a copper spring to each finger, and connected them to wires, which were then connected to the wrists of the gloves. "Your wrist supported your hand so it wouldn't shake," explains Abbott, who went on to nab the national contest's top prize in 2004. "We need to figure out how we as school or public libraries support inventive thinking and the innovation-creation process because it's an inquiry process," says Small. "What kind of information resources are [inventors] using and what can libraries do for them?" To that end, CDL is now working on the "Kids as Environmental Entrepreneurs" project, in partnership with the State University of New York's College of Environmental Science and Forestry, with the hope of motivating teens to find solutions to environmental problems like global warming, pollution, and reducing our carbon footprint, says Small. The center is also teaming with London-based Valiant Technology to create training materials for school librarians and other K—12 educators on ways that voice-activated robots might help with learning, such as with storytime. But if you're worried that WALL-E may one day take the place of a media specialist, think again. "They're not replacing librarians, they're just a tool," says Small, explaining that the robots are more like the round Roomba vacuums that you see on TV commercials.

Florida: building tomorrow's leaders

Ever wonder why school librarians have such a hard time getting their voices heard? Nancy Everhart, the director of Florida State's PALM Center, says they can't be leaders until they're taught the concrete strategies essential to becoming one. That's why in 2006 she helped devise Project LEAD (Leaders Educated to Make a Difference), the only American Library Association-accredited graduate level leadership curriculum for school librarians. It also includes tenets of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) to help candidates qualify for National Board Certification in library media. "It really does go beyond advocacy," says Everhart, explaining that she's a huge fan of NBPTS because it's such a rigorous process that's bound to produce leaders. "[Project LEAD] provides school librarians with the skills to be policy changers." With help from an IMLS grant, the PALM Center is now closely monitoring six Florida-based media specialists between the ages of 30 and 40 who are in their first year on the job to see if the online leadership courses actually work. (The curriculum includes four classes: Leadership in Reading, Leadership in Technology, the Instructional Role of the Information Specialist, and Information Leadership). As part of "Leadership in Action," Everhart and Associate Director Mardis started collecting baseline data in September to see whether the media specialists are successfully integrating technology into their schools and how they're using it to enhance their leadership roles. The librarians did get a leg up. Not wanting to set them up to fail, PALM gave each a $6,000 grant to help them solve a technology problem unique to their school, and they were instructed to collect detailed notes and to report back monthly. "It's really a summative evaluation of all the leadership education they were exposed to," says Everhart. "They're told to go out and conquer the world, but what happens when reality sets in? What barriers do they have, and what do they pull out of their bag of tricks?" "We're not trying to find a silver bullet," adds Mardis. "We're trying to untangle a complicated set of internal and external factors that can really shape the perception of what school librarians can do." Five out of the six school librarians in the study are completely new to the profession and are making huge adjustments while taking on leadership roles. But it looks like they're managing. "Their coursework it seems has provided them with excellent analytical, political, and social skills in order to accomplish their goals," says Everhart, who last checked in with the new librarians in early April. "So, yes, I can say it does work." In connection with this project, Everhart and Mardis last fall surveyed 800 National Board Certified school librarians across the country, asking them to describe their level of involvement on certain tasks, such as selecting databases for their school, providing students with assistive and adaptive technologies, and recommending technology to enhance learning. Next up is a similar survey documenting the technology integration practices of media specialists who aren't National Board Certified. "We want to compare National Board Certified school librarians and the general population of librarians to see if it makes a difference in what people are doing with technology," says Everhart. "Our preliminary results showed that National Board Certified school librarians are integrating technology in their schools at a very high level. They are very involved in the 'integration' component, which involves making connections with student learning." Stay tuned. The researchers are about to scale up the survey and release it nationally.

MARC in a minute

With 1,500 square feet of space, a conference room, and 10 workstations at its disposal, PALM's research team is comprised of Everhart, Mardis, about five doctoral fellows, a research coordinator, and five faculty affiliates. While Everhart's expertise lies in examining the leadership and instructional role of school librarians and technology integration with kids and teachers, Mardis—who has a strong background in network architecture, broadband, digital libraries, and metadata—is an expert on the technical side of school librarian leadership. In particular, she concentrates on digital media with an emphasis on STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education—and her recent IMLS-funded "Digital Libraries to School Libraries (DL2SL)" project will explore how media centers can take advantage of free Web resources and how librarians can successfully integrate them into collections and services. In connection with that, Mardis has built a browser-based tool that allows librarians to create and export MARC records on the fly for video, audio clips, images, or anything else viewable on the Web. Working with Casey McLaughlin, a Florida State applications designer and IT manager, the two created an innovative tool using Zotero, a free plug-in for the Fire Fox Web browser that helps users collect, manage, cite, and share their research sources and lives right where they do their work—in the browser itself. "It was like a lightning bolt came down from heaven," says Mardis about the moment McLaughlin told her the idea was doable. How does it work? Say you're watching a video of the freshwater biome of the Florida Everglades. "You'd click the Zotero button on the navigation bar and it creates MARC records and adds it to the Zotero database," explains Mardis, who's aiming to roll out her tool at the beginning of the new school year in September. "Once an entry for an item is in your Zotero database, you can export the reference in almost any format: APA, MLA, Chicago, and now, MARC (or MODS XML). If you export the entry in MODS or MARC format, you can import the file into your OPAC and voila!" Once librarians got wind of her project in an SLJ interview in August 2009, Mardis's inbox was flooded with 200 emails in just two days from eager librarians asking when it would be ready for beta testing. "My hope is to make collecting digital resources as easy as collecting traditional resources and to empower media specialists and teachers with the core, necessary skills so that working with new resources and instructional styles won't be a time sink," Mardis says.

Rutgers: continuous improvement

Call them the jet-setters of the bunch. Whether Ross Todd and Carol Gordon are flying off to Sweden (as they did last January to deliver the keynote address at the Swedish Library Association's annual conference) or heading off to Croatia (this month), CISSL's director and codirector spend a good chunk of their time on the road supporting school libraries outside the United States. Todd often conducts research in his native Australia, where he says the government is known for funding school libraries. One recent study, based on retired CISSL director Carol Kuhlthau's work, involves researchers following 34 teachers, 18 librarians, and 935 students to explore how they conduct guided inquiry, or the collaboration among students, teachers, and librarians through the inquiry process. The goal? To give school librarians insight into quality teaching practices and the range of tools available to measure student achievement, Todd says. A second project, commissioned by Australia's Department of Education and Training, involves a blog called School libraries 21C, moderated by Todd and Lyn Hay, a lecturer in Teacher Librarianship at Charles Sturt University. Based on 225 detailed blog responses from school librarians, teachers, and administrators around the world, the blog explores whether schools still need libraries in the 21st century, what a school library of the future looks like, and what it will take to get there.

Summer reading: headaches, dizziness

While in Croatia, Gordon will present research at a conference called Libraries in the Digital Age about her ongoing collaboration with Delaware's Department of Education to study the effects of Web 2.0 technology on the motivation of low-achieving kids when it comes to summer reading. "A Web-based Summer Reading Program" involves Delaware's Delcastle Technical High School and Howard School of Technology, where 600 high school students filled out online surveys and were asked to create their own summer reading Web site, along with help from Delcastle reading specialist Maureen Keeney and teacher Maria Panico. What were some of the most interesting discoveries? That online surveys elicit more detailed and truthful responses. "Before the survey, one-third of 600 heterogeneously grouped kids said they hated to read," says Gordon. "And there was a lot of emotion in what they were writing because they were typing 'I HATE TO READ!' and 'I'M TIRED OF PEOPLE TELLING ME WHAT TO READ!' in caps and with exclamation points. Their perception was that they had no choice, and they were angry." Another finding was the striking difference between readers and nonreaders, says Gordon, explaining that kids who dislike reading never experience the feeling of escape or being transported to another place, while readers like to do so using their imaginations. "This is the first time we got to the heart of the matter," says Gordon, adding that the detailed online responses from nonreaders included descriptions of physical discomfort like stomachaches, headaches, and dizziness. "Now we can build a profile of what a kid who hates to read and a kid who loves to read looks like." The study's obvious lesson? "I think the message is clear that we have to give low achievers a choice," Gordon says. "Librarians really have to champion kids' right to read what they want to read." Excluding magazines, comics, and newspaper clips from summer reading programs sends the message that when low achievers read these alternative materials, they're not really reading, she says. It discounts their reading experiences. This is particularly important because data show that adolescents overall are reading less, one of the reasons why summer reading should be fun, says Gordon. A 2001 Johns Hopkins University study, "Schools, Achievement and Inequality: A Seasonal Perspective" by Karl L. Alexander, Doris R. Entwisle, and Linda S. Olson, also shows that regardless of socioeconomic group, students make the same amount of progress during the school year, so it's actually lower-income nonreaders who suffer the most between June and September. "These two pieces of research tell us that the achievement gap is actually a summer-reading gap," Gordon says. Occupying the second floor of a brick Tudor house across the street from Rutgers's School of Communication and Information, CISSL's team—comprised of Todd, Gordon, Faculty Researcher Ya-Ling Lu, Director of Planning and Development Pam Chesky, and five doctoral students—meets every other week to discuss its research. One of the latest projects—"One Common Goal: Transforming School Libraries"—was commissioned by the New Jersey Association of School Librarians. The two-pronged study began in April 2009 with interviews of 758 New Jersey elementary, middle, and high school librarians to show a "rich diversity of instructional activity" and to develop a framework for the characteristics of what constitutes a successful school library. That's because one of the most critical factors that contribute to student achievement is the quality of the teacher, Todd says. By examining the three dimensions that make up an effective media center—the informational (available resources), transformational (ways to help students understand information), and formational (ways students use what they've learned)—Todd says he hopes to form a deeper understanding of the complex dynamics between school librarians and learning. The second phase of the study will concentrate on a random survey of about 40 New Jersey schools to prepare an in-depth analysis on everything from test scores to perceptions by faculty, administrators, and students to gain a firmer grasp on the "important relationship between what it is about school librarians that really contributes to student learning and student achievement and what we need to work on and develop in terms of guidelines for training and professional development," adds Todd. "Our goal is to continually improve professional practices. What really guides and motivates us in our research is our deep belief that school librarians have a vital role to play in 21st-century education and reform. That's why we do what we do, and that's why we're committed to it."

Putting it all together

What happens when you bring together these top researchers? Something big. Last November, while attending AASL's national conference, Todd, Gordon, Everhart, Small, and Arnone got together to brainstorm—and before the night was over, they'd come up with a visionary plan. They had been exchanging emails and phone calls for months, exploring how to bring their different areas of expertise together. But nothing gelled until they met face-to-face that night in Charlotte, NC. "We got together at a hotel suite, and away we went," explains Todd. "It made sense because we all had many years of rich professional relationships as colleagues, and we all like each other and get on well." Most importantly, they all shared a common goal—to help media specialists become the best possible educators in a 21st-century information-rich learning environment. The dream team spent hours hashing out a plan—to develop a digital library that would help librarians collect evidence-based practices and research—crucial information needed to prove to administrators and higher-ups that their jobs really mattered. The proposed database would offer a range of resources, such as data collection and evaluation tools, best-practice tutorials, video testimonials, and research reports. "Once built, it would give [librarians] access to validated instruments that they can use to collect data within their schools and systems," says Small. The information, of course, can then be used to provide direct and substantive evidence to parents, colleagues, administrators, school boards, and legislators about the impact of their school libraries on learning achievement, motivation, and digital literacy competence. "Nothing like it exists," says Todd. "It's all very exciting."