Issues with lack of cooperation between schools and public libraries.

“When both types of libraries are well supported, they can team up to provide a seamless information and enjoyment resource” (Spelman 2003 p. 4). When a library is not well supported, how is that seamlessness to occur? Research seems to validate that libraries, especially in rural areas, are not well supported. Ann Herold-Short, a librarian at Rushville Public Library in rural Indiana, states, “we don’t have a bookmobile for our rural patrons, and we can’t afford many other methods of outreach” (p. 96 1989). Rural libraries throughout the nation deal with this financial constraint. Herold-Short is not alone. Without financial backing, the rural librarian is trapped between her job description and what the job entails. She must wear many hats and often those hats are not part of her job description. Because of low funding, she may have to be at the reference desk, then the front desk, then vacuuming the carpet, or perhaps cleaning and organizing bookshelves. The low funding has put the library in a situation in which they cannot hire an assistant or another full time librarian. Because of this dilemma, Herold-Short must work extra hours to fulfill her job description. She strongly believes that this job description includes “cooperation with local organizations, especially the school system” (p. 97). She understands, like most librarians, the value of youth both sincerely and financially in the future. Not all librarians, deservingly so, are willing to sacrifice that extra time in order to keep that collaboration between the public school and public library.
Public librarians have always complained about the lack of communication from teachers and school librarians concerning assignments which bring hordes of students or their parents in the public library over a busy weekend in order to complete the assignment by Monday morning (Callison, Fink, Hager 1989 p. 79).
Although picayune, this attitude does understandably frustrate the librarian and the objectives of the library. These hordes of students and parents present the library in a bad light. Perhaps some students are not getting the help they need because there is not enough staff to assist all students. Perhaps students cannot get the material they need because others doing the same assignment beat them to it. Perhaps now the students and the parents are not happy with their local library and view it as a ‘waste of time’. Something no library wants a taxpayer to believe.
Having touched upon two major reasons for the lack of cooperation between public schools and public libraries, this next section will briefly touch upon the plethora of reasons why these two libraries do not cooperate as much as this researcher believes.
“The barriers to cross sectoral cooperation cited in the literature are numerous and include funding, staff and governance issues, poor cross sectoral communication practices, resistant attitudes and a lack of knowledge about other’s roles, organizational purpose and practice” (Spelman p. 10). During a survey in 2001, Dr. A.L. Bundy received more specific reasons why these two community services do not cooperate as much as they should. He found that public librarians believed that teacher librarians are often too defensive of their role and act as ‘gatekeeper’. He also discovered that initiatives for collaboration come from the teacher and not the librarian. Also, schools are busy with their own problems and seem to see public libraries as more of a threat than a help. These are valid reasons. One can imagine a school librarian struggling with the fact that their library is ‘not good enough’ so now he or she must resort to the public library for help. The school librarian should be proud of his or her library and wants to believe that everything in the school library is enough for all the students and teachers in the school. Unfortunately, that pride can lead to hindering the full educational experience that the youth so deserve. During Bundy’s research, he discovered some of the attitudes from the school librarian. He founded that school librarians believe that they don’t need to interact with the public library. They have a very well resourced library… all the online databases we need. School librarians believe that public librarians find school students with research requirements are a nuisance and public librarians tell them to go back to the school library to get the help needed. School librarians have also stated that public librarians need training in PR (public relations). The last interesting find from Dr. Bundy was the belief that if students start using the public library more, the school library may lose its funding. These attitudes are important to note to see what obstacles libraries are up against in order to achieve collaboration.
These freedoms of expression that Dr. Bundy verify the ultimate reason why there is a lack of cooperation between these facilities. “A lack of coordinating bodies at federal, state, and local levels and a lack of policy and legislation means that there is no tangible support for library staff to participate in cross sectoral cooperation” (Spelman p. 12 2004). In other words, there is nothing in the teachers’ or school librarians’ curriculum that requires them to contact, work with, and communicate with, the public librarian. And there is nothing in the public librarians’ job description that requires them to do the same with the public schools. There have been great examples of collaboration which will be discussed later in this paper, but these efforts remain at an individual level and always will unless curriculums and job descriptions change.
Institutions that work with young people need to decide the value of cross sectoral cooperation and the value of providing young people with access to a community’s entire resources. They need to assess the impact that the comprehensive service provision will have on the quality of young people’s whole lives and not just the time they spend in their institutions” (p. 12).
To deny students the entire resources available is unfair. As education moves more and more away from teacher centered instruction and more toward student centered instruction; it is going to be vital to teach the children how to use the libraries in his or her community. Student centered instruction gives students the freedoms to choose a research topic. The teacher is there to teach them how to do the research, and then the student is assessed based on his or her research skills on a specific topic. With this movement “one wonders just how much greater the co-operation between (Australian) school and public libraries would be if it were mandatory, rather than largely the outcome of individual initiatives as it is at present” (Bundy 2002 p. 55). To take this a step further, one must wonder how appalling it is to deny our children the great opportunity of the collaborative effort of two buildings that sustain more resources than any others.


Short, Herold. (1989). Small Public Libraries Can Cooperate Too! Indiana Libraries, 18 96-98.

Bundy, Dr. Alan. (February 2002). Essential Connections: School and Public Libraries for Lifelong Learning. The Australian Library Journal, 47-70.