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21st Century Funding Challenge for Libraries and Librarians
The current recession has dramatically impacted State and local education budgets. This has resulted in a significant funding challenge for school boards and school leaders.
Additionally, the increased use of the open Web at school and at home has created the perfect storm for school decisions to cut library funding, and in many cases, certified librarians.
Unfortunately, many librarians have not been able to present compelling reasons to either avoid or refute these decisions by "selling" their vital role in 21st Century teaching and learning to students, teachers, school leaders, school boards, and parents.
The result of the library budget cuts is a steady decline in essential student information literacy skills, an increase in student plagiarism, and a notable absence of 21st Century critical thinking skills in student reports and presentations.
Does this type of thinking typify the impression of your school leaders and school board about your work as a librarian and the importance of the school library?
- "Why pay for library resources that are available in limited quantities and during limited time periods when information from the Internet (e.g. Google is available 24x7?)"
- "Why pay for databases for the school library when the same type of information is available on the Internet at school or home and is FREE."
- "Why do we need a certified librarian to manage library resources? A library aide or parent can do the same thing."
- "Why not use teachers to teach information literacy instead of paying extra for certified librarians?"
ProQuest can help provide you with compelling information that you can share with school leaders, parents, and the school board.
The information is designed to demonstrate how your expertise, combined with ProQuest teaching and learning resources, can deliver 21st Century literacy and skills for both teachers and students.
First, we can offer you formal recognition of your work in one or more of our monthly newsletters that you can then share with your school leaders (who fund your budget), teachers, students, and parents. In an era when States are emphasizing 21st Century literacy and skills, how can school leaders not recognize, and then consciously reduce or eliminate your essential and unique role in implementing these essential skills?
Second, ProQuest teaching and learning resources (databases) now provide your teachers and students with much more than just credible and authoritative information:
- Content and tools for both teachers and students that support 21st Century literacy and skills.
- Support for differentiated instruction through Lexile reading level scores and a wide variety of multimedia for visual learning and reporting.
- Fast and easy access to the most popular researched topics, saving valuable classroom and library time on task.
- Integrated critical thinking processes with tools specifically designed for each product
- Integrated models and templates for a variety of reports and presentations so that students can demonstrate what they have learned in a variety of ways.
Third, ProQuest also offers complimentary training and professional development for CEUs from our P21 certified trainers.
Certainly, school leaders and teachers would be impressed to learn that ProQuest provides 21st Century education solutions (short video overviews) for both teachers and students, not just the great content of traditional library databases.
Funding for libraries and librarians is directly related to how well librarians can present compelling reasons for what they do to support increasing student achievement and teacher effectiveness.
ProQuest hopes that the information provided here (scroll down to the bottom for ProQuest specific funding resources), is useful in helping you to tell the story of your vital contribution to learning in your school to your parents, teachers, students, school leaders, and school board.
Library Funding Feeds: ProQuest & Grant Wrangler
Hunting for the latest grants and other funding sources? Let ProQuest and Grant Wrangler lend a hand with our free, custom feeds for your school websites. View all available no-cost funding feeds and learn how to get the code to reuse the feeds on your school or library websites.
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LIBRARY FUNDING CONNECTION: PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
School districts in most states are required to offer ongoing professional development activities to their educators. Participation in these activities is rewarded by granting Continuing Education Credits (CEUs) that count toward salary increases. School districts and States provide ongoing funding for these activities as does No Child Left Behind.
"21st Century Literacy and Skills" is a popular initiative in many states. This initiative, in large part, focuses on teachers increasing their use of inquiry-based learning activities for problem solving and critical thinking. Unfortunately, without proper training, most teacher assignments address neither of these essential skills.
Instead, today's typical inquiry-based learning assignment launches an armada of students looking for information on a curriculum topic that results in a variety of similar reports that are essentially rewrite summaries of encyclopedia articles. Most of these topical reports bypass librarian expertise, the library's curriculum relevant ProQuest learning resources, and instead rely on Google and similar Internet surfing. These types of inquiry-based learning assignments do not develop critical thinking and problem solving skills.
The good news is that you and ProQuest can partner to tap into school professional development funding to make 21st Century Skills and your subscription to eLibrary and/or SIRS payoff for the entire learning community.
ProQuest offers no-cost online professional development and training programs that are delivered by our P21 certified trainers. These programs focus on using ProQuest content and tools for teachers to create engaging inquiry-based activities that integrate critical thinking and problem solving. Funding will follow when librarians can demonstrate that what they do with students and teachers directly supports 21st Century ISTE teacher and student standards, as well as AASL information literacy standards.
Find out more about one-day and in-person eLibrary and SIRS professional development via these links. For additional information about our professional development programs, contact Jeff Cutler.
DON'T LET GOOGLING ERODE THE LIBRARY CONNECTION
(See the why and when of using Google, Wikipedia, and ProQuest deep research resources in this special video.)
Googling is quickly becoming the unsolicited "database" of choice in K-12 schools. Typically, Google assignments are topical and don't integrate essential questions, and don't require the use of multiple resources to produce reports and presentations. Because Google is not designed primarily to support K-12 curriculum (7% content relevancy) and doesn't provide reading level information, much valuable classroom time is wasted on distractions and other activities that don't contribute to a learning fundamental element--Time on Task.
How did this transition away from the library and to Google and Internet surfing take place? How have librarians lost the high-ground in the Information Age, at the very time when their expertise is most needed? How can they regain their important information literacy leadership role again?
A good place to start is to inform school leaders who control the curriculum and library budget about the failure of the present Google research strategy and topical assignments to achieve the goal of every school--increasing student achievement in essential skills.
A good follow-up would demonstrate the importance of ProQuest student and teacher tools that help to make librarian-teacher collaboration effective in increasing student achievement and teacher effectiveness.
Another important step is to sponsor and provide teacher training through a district professional development plan, using CEUs to motivate attendance.
Find out more about our program today.
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Librarian Alternative Funding Guide
Size: 450K
Last Update: January 2010
Librarians can use this guide to provide information, rationale, and strategies that can be used to gain additional funding from school leaders, parents, and/or NCLB grants. This alternative funding support becomes essential to maintain quality library information literacy programs in this period of overall school budget cutting that currently affects school libraries dramatically.
ProQuest Vendor of Choice Discount Program
Private Competitive Grants
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IDEA Funding and ProQuest Solutions
Size: 125K
Last Update: January 2010
ProQuest provides this guide for librarians to target SIRS Issues Researcher, eLibrary BookCarts, and CultureGrams as three solutions that best support IDEA special education programs for teachers and students. The guide can be shared with Special Education Directors and Title I Directors because these schools generally have the highest percentage of Special Education students. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) provides significant formula funding for learning resources and targeted services for student with learning and other disabilities in public schools. LEAs the receive IDEA also receive Title I, Title III, and EETT funding that can apply to Special Education programs.
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EETT & ProQuest Solutions for School Leaders
Size: 64K
Last Update: January 2010
Librarians can use this tool to work with Tech Directors and/or Title I Coordinators in NCLB schools who often work together on decisions about how to use Title I, EETT, and Title III Formula funding. The focus is on correlating ProQuest technology integration solutions for teaching and learning to ISTE 21st Century Standards for teachers. Tech Directors are generally members of the International Society for Educational Technology (ISTE) and therefore have a vested interest in supporting these new standards.
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Title III-LEP Formula Guide to PQ Solutions
Size: 89K
Last Update: January 2010
This guide correlates CultureGrams, eLibrary, and SIRS Discoverer teaching and learning resources to support for Limited English Proficient students and immigrant students.
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Literacy Through School Libraries Grant Guide
Size: 32K
Last Update: January 2010
This guide provides librarians with an outline of how they can apply for the $19M that is annually awarded to about 50 schools in the U. S. The LSL grant application questions are listed along with suggested ProQuest responses. These responses demonstrate how eLibrary provides the best overall fit as an education solution that correlates to the grant criteria
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ProQuest Solutions for Professional Development Funding
Size: 101K
Last Update: January 2010
Librarians can learn more about directing professional development funding to the library with this guide. It explains how ProQuest Professional Development for eLibrary or SIRS can be bundled with each of these resources as an overall solution to increase teacher effectiveness in delivering 21st Century literacy and skills to their students. Professional development is a high priority for school leader funding in both Title I schools and in mainstream public and private schools as well.
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