Libraries Support Read to Lead Task Force Recommendations

The following editorial, distributed to newspapers statewide, is by Rhonda Puntney, youth services and special needs consultant at the Lakeshores Library System and WLA's immediate past president.

The Wisconsin Read to Lead Task Force recently released important recommendations to improve literacy in Wisconsin by ensuring that each child can read by the end of 3rd grade. I applaud the attention to children’s literacy; after all, in my career as a youth services librarian and consultant to libraries, I have been connecting children with books and getting them excited about reading for many years.  As the immediate past president of the Wisconsin Library Association, I want to remind teachers and parents alike about important role that all school and public libraries and librarians play in developing literacy skills.

As a youth services consultant for a public library system in southeastern Wisconsin, part of my job responsibilities including coordinating summer library programming for our fifteen member libraries in Racine and Walworth Counties. I work with the libraries to encourage literacy for children and their families.  As any youth services librarian will tell you, a large part of what we do EVERY DAY is encourage children to read.

We begin encouraging reading at birth.  Most public libraries provide storytime programming for babies and toddlers, focusing on early literacy skills and modeling literacy behaviors for parents and caregivers to continue at home.  We then progress to programming for preschoolers, providing safe and nurturing environments and encouraging these children to continue building on their literacy skills.

In fact, Wisconsin has a rich history of providing such programming.  Public librarians in Wisconsin were among the first to provide library programming for school aged children as early as 1898.  And the Racine Public Library has the distinction of providing the first preschool time in the United States on February 10, 1932.  In 2010, programs provided by Wisconsin’s public libraries that were geared toward children had an attendance of over 1.6 million.  Summer library program attendance for children and young adults was nearly 500,000.

A study conducted in 2006 on the benefits of school library media programs commissioned by the Department of Public Instruction showed that student test scores at all grade levels were higher when the school libraries had full-time certified staff who collaborated with planning and teaching with classroom teachers.  And the role of school librarians in promoting literacy and instilling in children a love of reading cannot be dismissed.

I’d like to think the task force recommendations that encourage parental involvement were written with the school and public libraries in mind.  “Support should be given to programs that put books into the hands of low-income children and encourage parents and caregivers to read to children.”  Wisconsin’s librarians are already doing this, and we’ve been doing so for over 110 years.

It’s encouraging that Governor Walker, who chaired the task force, chose to promote the task force recommendations by reading in a school library. I trust that this is truly the beginning of a conversation about how libraries can work more closely with other educators to improve literacy in our state.

Rhonda Puntney Gould is the youth services and special needs consultant at Lakeshores Library System in Waterford.  She is the immediate past president of the Wisconsin Library Association; the 2011-12 President of the Collaborative Program, a grassroots organization that coordinates summer reading programs for all 50 states; and on the board of directors of the Association for Library Service to Children.

Recharge and refocus: WLA President's Message

The summer has flown by and I found myself a bit misty-eyed this morning to find myself the mother of high school sophomore who just passed her driver’s license temps.  Not that I was verklempt that I will have to soon add her to my car insurance policy, but that another summer has passed and I only did about half of the things I wanted to do!  However, the recent holiday weekend made me grateful for an extra day to recharge and refocus.

The WLA board has also taken the opportunity to refocus and begin implementing the Strategic Plan we adopted for the association earlier this year.  Three ad hoc committees were formed to respond to recommendations from participants at last year’s strategic planning retreat and leadership meeting.  The three committees are looking at new ways WLA can address issues in the areas of leadership, professional development, and membership.  The ad hoc committees are currently meeting and will report back to the board next spring with their recommendations.

A small contingent of WLA and WEMTA (Wisconsin Educational Media and Technology Association) members, including Allison Kaplan, Kathy Sanders and myself, along with WEMTA lobbyist Michael Blumenfeld, met in August with a member of Governor Scott Walker’s staff to discuss the Read to Lead Task Force and the role school and public libraries play in the literacy development of children of all ages.  Allison Kaplan was one of the authors of the memo that was sent to the Read to Lead Task Force members on behalf of WLA and WEMTA.

Our advocacy efforts regarding WiscNet did not go unnoticed, however our work is just beginning to further educate our local and state elected officials about the importance WiscNet’s broadband service plays in almost all of our communities.  Our representatives need to hear from us about the cost-effectiveness this valuable service provides to our schools and public libraries. 

And finally, one of the highlights of the approaching fall (besides football and the best Brewers season since I was an undergraduate) is the WLA Annual Conference!  A huge thank you goes out to the conference planning committee, which has been putting the finishing touches on the programs and activities.  This will be the first time in 8 years that the conference is held in Milwaukee, and the first time since 2007 that it will be held in downtown Milwaukee.  I am particularly looking forward to sharing my “other life” with all of you when my Sweet Adelines chorus, Riverport Chorus, and my daughter’s quartet, Trouble Clef, performs prior to the Awards Banquet! 

And yes, the rumors are true, I will be spending my honeymoon at WLA!   My fiancé is in the Army Reserves and will be deployed to Afghanistan in December, so we decided to get married October 29^th instead of waiting till he returns.  We’re taking a real honeymoon when he’s on leave next summer.  J

--Rhonda Puntney, WLA President

President Rhonda Puntney's Remarks on Advocacy for Support Staff Conference

WLA President Rhonda Puntney was asked to give a brief address to welcome Support Staff One-day Conference attendees on May 25. Here are her remarks:
About a month or two in to my WLA presidency, I began to realize that we are all in a unique position to advocate not only for ourselves, but also for our libraries and our patrons, regardless of where we’re employed.  Advocacy has become an integral part of my daily routine, in and out of the office.  I particularly realized this one day shortly after Lisa Strand, the WLA executive director, and I cancelled Library Legislative Day in February.

I returned home after a doctor’s appointment to pick up my laptop and the inevitable stack of work I’d taken home over the weekend (and barely glanced at) and I quickly scanned my email.  We have voice-over-IP phones at Lakeshores, which is great because I can quickly see who’s called and hear the message from my email when I’m home.  On that particular day, the message I’d received was from John Berry, the editor-in-chief for Library Journal.  He wanted to talk to ME – ME – about the events going on in Madison.  And he wanted to talk about why we cancelled Library Legislative Day.

Instead of being cool, calm, and collected – and promptly returning his phone call, I called Lisa.  And I called a friend from ALA Council, someone I knew who knew John Berry.

So when I did finally return his phone call, I had a list of things – talking points – ready to go and the confidence in myself to articulate what I wanted to tell him about our situation in Wisconsin.  I commented then to John Berry, and he used it in his column in the March 15th edition of LJ, that I was “guardedly optimistic” about how we’d fare with the legislature, and our local funding agencies.

Charles Simic’s comments in the New York Review of Books on May 22nd on the death of public libraries called “A Country without Libraries”, draws attention to the issues of funding libraries.  I found this paragraph particularly telling:

“I heard some politician say recently that closing libraries is no big deal, since the kids now have the Internet to do their reading and school work.  It’s not the same thing.  As any teacher who recalls the time when students still went to libraries and read books could tell him, study and reflection come more naturally to someone bent over a book.  Seeing others, too, absorbed in their reading, holding up or pressing down on different-looking books, some intimidating in their appearance, others inviting, makes one a participant in one of the oldest and most noble human activities. Yes, reading books is a slow, time-consuming, and often tedious process.  In comparison, surfing the Internet is a quick, distracting activity in which one searches for a specific subject, finds it, and then reads about it—often by skipping a great deal of material and absorbing only pertinent fragments.  Books require patience, sustained attention to what is on the page, and frequent rest periods for reverie, so that the meaning of what we are reading settles in and makes its full impact.”

While I wholeheartedly agree with his statements here, as well as with the rest of his article, he neglected to cast an eye upon the aspects of library service beyond books and the internet that make all types of libraries in Wisconsin an integral part of their communities, whether it’s the small town community center focused public library, one of the many academic libraries on our college and technical school campuses, the large public library with several branches, or specialized libraries.

We are about so much more than books and free wi-fi.

What makes us strong is our adaptability, our ability to see beyond the demise of our esoteric view of the “library” as an Charles Simic’s traditional institutional icon.  I see that adaptability reflected in today’s breakout sessions on RFID, multimedia software, certification, customer service, degree completion, and “Semanticloud.0”.  (Which I have to confess, I had to look that up!  And I did exactly what Charles Simic warns against!)

How many of us got our jobs in libraryland or decided to back to school to become a librarian with a hazy mental image ourselves sitting behind a desk and READING?  How many of us had that bubble burst within the first five minutes actually on the job?  And let’s be realistic, how many of us today would find that challenging?

I also found it interesting that Charles Simic did not see how we’ve evolved from that iconic library to vibrant places of learning where all types of media are embraced for learning and recreational activities, and that at the center of it all he would have found US.  Those of us for whom “informational literacy” and “critical thinking” are more than a buzz words.  Those of us who don’t cringe from proselytizing the virtues of today’s public library to their neighbor in line at Pick and Save or Woodman’s.  And one of us who would still tell the editor-in-chief of Library Journal that she is “guardedly optimistic” about Wisconsin’s libraries.  We are the ones who make libraries strong.

President’s Message: Moving Mountains…

WLA President
Rhonda Puntney

Now that Library Legislative Day is past, WLA will be taking the information gleaned from the visits and evaluations to make contacts with legislators who've indicated an interest in helping restore maintenance of effort (MOE) and funding for BadgerLink, or shared our concerns about the future of the public, academic, school and special libraries in the state. These supporters need to hear from constituents within and outside of the WLA membership.

Restoring library funding and maintenance of effort isn't going to be easy, and WLA’s strategy will continue to be one of inclusive involvement. Members with Republican legislators are going to be particularly important to this effort. Members with Democratic legislators will be asked to help in other ways.  The voices of your board members, friends groups, and community members will be more important now than ever.  Involving them in your efforts to contact state elected officials WILL make an impact.

WLA will submit statements to the Joint Finance Committee, but again, the committee members will be more motivated by contacts from their constituents asking for restored funding.  Sharing stories of how the library has played a positive role in a constituent’s life can have a very powerful impact, as well.

With so many groups getting harmed, it's hard to be heard.  WLA has sent a news release (which is also on the WLA Blog) about the impact of the budget on libraries and contacted media about Library Legislative Day and the rally.  I hope ALL of you will write your own letter to the editor of your local papers about the impact of cuts on the people who count on libraries.  Public libraries, ask your board president to submit a letter.  Even better, get your students, friends and other library supporters to write letters.

WLA, working with public library systems, has sent a brief survey to public library directors about their recent budget levels and projected impact if MOE is lost. Having better data about challenges posed by losing MOE will make our case for libraries stronger. No matter what happens with MOE at the state level, getting the library funding your community needs will come down to your local supporters being able to articulate their needs to local elected officials.  If WLA, working with its members, is able to retain MOE, then library supporters will still have to make a case for staying in compliance because of cuts to shared revenue.

WLA is working very hard to move the mountain, and we can through the efforts of all of our members and our constituents working together.