I was shocked and dismayed to find the ratio of Librarian to
Student in the public school system to be 1 to 953 (Rubin, 193). According to
the slides for the week, and confirmed by the ALA Fact Sheet (http://www.ala.org/ala/professionalresources/libfactsheets/alalibraryfactsheet01.cfm)
the School Library is the most widespread type of library by far at 99,180
institutions. In an age where parents are concerned over class sizes that
exceed 25 students per instructor, one would think that the proportions of
Librarian to student would get some publicity.
The United States definitely has a culture that is motivated
by fear. We see that in the public and academic school systems which only
received funding because of Cold War conspiracies and Sputnik (Rubin, 200).
Apparently, the prospect of one Librarian meeting the information needs of 953
students is not scary enough to fund a change.
Granted, class size seems more important for Teachers that
are the primary educators and classroom managers for a group of students.
However, I cannot believe that Librarians can effectively provide for the
informational, educational and recreational needs of all those students alone.
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