Interview Summary and Conclusions

Interview with Librarian, Linda Reep
Table Rock Middle School, Morganton, NC
January 14, 2010

Ms. Linda Reep works at Table Rock Middle School in Morganton, NC. This is the school where I began my teaching career in 1992, when the school opened, with a population of close to 1000 students, grades 6, 7, and 8.. At the time, it was considered quite technologically advanced, with 4 student computers in every classroom, 2 computer labs, and 15 computers in the media center. The computers have been updated, with the newest computers going to the labs and the media center and older computers being handed down to the classrooms. The school population has changed since the addition of a new middle school in the county, so TRMS serves about 625 students in grades 6-8.

Since the beginning of the school, there has been a Technology Specialist, whose job it is to train teachers and maintain the computer hardware and software. Originally, her position was split between two schools, but now, each middle school has its own Technology Specialist. At TRMS, it has always been Toni Anderson. Ms. Reep and Toni have shared a lot of workspace over the years, with the technology office housed in the media center. Ms. Reep has had the luxury of having a technology specialist handle the maintenance concerns and much of the training of teachers. Ms. Reep's main focus is to maintain the resources available in the media center. She has always made it a priority to make the students feel welcome in the media center and provide the books and resources that they want and need.

The Media Center at TRMS is clean and neat, with 15 computers available for work and 3 computers at a station for finding materials. Books are checked out using a bar-code system, with each student assigned a number. The student tells the librarian his/her number and books are checked out accordingly. The largest grouping of books that are used on a daily basis is fiction, primarily books in the Accelerated Reader program, which is highly favored by teachers at the school. Using the AR program, qualifying books may be checked out, read, and then tested and students' reading progress is followed by the AR program. Teachers can use the program to monitor a child's reading level and the level at which the students are comprehending the books. Ms. Reep likes the program, but feels it has created readers who will only choose books on the AR list, so it limits the potential of the reader's choices.

According to Ms. Reep, the greatest need of this library is for funding and support staff. Years ago, she had an assistant to help with the duties of maintaining the library, but that position was cut. Also, her budget, which has always been reduced at principal's discretion, was cut by 50 % last year. To be fair, other programs have also received cuts, but Ms. Reep feels like there is little support from administration in terms of funding for the library. She hasn't had money for purchasing magazines in 3 years, and spends her budget on replacing lost books and buying the books that the students are clamoring for--such as the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. She says she can't keep these on the shelf. While I was there, two students came in requesting the same book, which Ms. Reep had reported was there this morning but already checked out. She says she tries to maintain as many as 5 or 10 of the really popular books that the kids want to read. Her budget for the year was around two thousand dollars, allowing her to purchase a little more than one hundred books. She is worried about the age of her collection, showing me a printout analyzing the age of her collection. It showed that more than 80% of the resources in the library are aged. She estimated that the non-fiction section average age was 1985.

When asked what other resources are available to students and teachers, she said that she has a small collection of VHS tapes, very few DVDs for teachers to use, a few books on tape, and the rest is books. Computers and the Internet have replaced most of the research that was traditionally done in the library. She said that teachers often will not even bring their classes to the library for research because they prefer to take them to the computer lab for research on the internet. In some ways, it is beneficial because it has opened up many possibilities for the students to find information that otherwise might not be available in the library. However, Ms. Reep is concerned that the students are not being taught enough about using proper sources and that a lot of sources on the internet are not as credible as others. The internet can be a great tool for research, but its users need to be aware of the information source and its reliability.

Ms. Reep was very candid about the condition of her library. She described it as "a mess," citing that she does not have the time necessary to do a proper job of cataloguing, repairing, helping students and teachers, and checking books in and out. There are classes scheduled to come in to the library every period of the day. Instead of helping students to find materials they need or help them with their research, much of her time is now spent checking materials in and out. She feels underutilized in the area of her expertise. Ms. Reep is often available after school to help students check out materials and complete research for their classes, even after the classroom teacher is gone. Many of the school's students do not have access to computers or the internet at home.

When asked about opportunities she has, as a librarian, for attending conferences or updating her own knowledge of technologies available, she referred again to the problem of lack of funding. Normally, she says, she attends one conference a year, but there has not been any funding lately to help with registration, so she hasn't been able to attend. Teachers at the school are well trained to use the technology available at the school because there is a Technology Specialist available as well as an Instructional Coach who serve as resource-people to help teachers with their technology needs.

One of the greatest gifts that the internet has given has been a program that she showed me called "NC Wise Owl," www.ncwiseowl.org an online library available to the citizens of North Carolina, funded by the state government. Patrons can gain free access to a number of resources from print to video, to magazines that have been purchased by the state and shared in the form of this user-friendly database. Items can be easily searched. This program has eliminated the need to purchase these materials at individual libraries. Ms. Reep gave an example of a book that she normally would have tried to purchase--through Grolier, The New Book of Popular Science--that is now available through this website. Not only does she no longer have to purchase it, but the most current copy of the book is available at no cost to her budget. PBS videos are also available through the NCWise Owl website and are very easy to access. Sites such as this are dependable, current, and are good sources for students. Ms. Reep has worked hard to promote this website at her school and she feels that students and teachers are "finally catching on" to it. There is also a section on the site where students and teachers can get help citing sources for their research. It is like a "wizard" that helps the user to put source information in the MLA format.

Technology has also improved the way in which materials are ordered. Ms. Reep orders most of her materials online through programs such as Titlewave, by Follett or Permabound. It has made ordering books so much easier. She can look up reviews of books very quickly and easily before she decides to order the book. She can also download the contents of her library and receive an analysis of the collection. Technology has been very helpful, but it has also presented some new challenges.

Ms. Reep and I have agreed to work together on a grant proposal she is preparing to submit. It is for a grant of $10,000, which she would use to update the print resources in her library. We have planned to work on it on Monday, January 25, which is a teacher workday in Burke County. She is very happy to have me to help, since I have long wanted to learn more about grant writing, and I feel I may be a good resource to her for this task.

Interestingly as well, Burke County School Board recently approved funding $2 million to be earmarked toward improving technology in the schools. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.