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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Lauren Comito, Executive Director of Urban Libraries Unite
3:59:35
·
3 min
Lauren Comito, Executive Director of Urban Libraries Unite, testified in support of Intro 1125, emphasizing the critical role of school librarians and the importance of addressing the school librarian shortage in NYC public schools. She highlighted the unique skills of school librarians and the negative impacts of their absence on students' information literacy skills.
- Comito stressed that public librarians cannot fill the role of school librarians due to their specialized skills and the specific needs of school communities.
- She illustrated the consequences of inadequate library education, such as adults struggling with basic information literacy skills.
- Comito urged support for Intro 1125 to require the DOE to provide information on the extent of the school librarian shortage, as a first step in addressing the problem.
Lauren Comito
3:59:35
Hello.
3:59:35
Thank you so much to speaker Adams, chairs Joseph and Rivera, and all the committee members for the opportunity to speak today on intro eleven twenty five.
3:59:45
My name's Lauren Camido.
3:59:46
I'm a librarian, a public librarian here in New York City and executive director of Urban Librarians Unite, five zero one c three library worker organization that advocates for and supports urban library workers across The US.
3:59:59
I'm also a New York City public school parent and PTA treasurer because I can't ever say no to signing up for things and I really need to learn how to do that.
4:00:09
As a public librarian, I am so fully and completely unqualified to fill the role of a school librarian and I have occasionally heard none in this room, elected officials say, well the public librarians can go do it.
4:00:25
No I can't.
4:00:26
You cannot put me in a room with 30 kids for like an entire day.
4:00:30
I cannot handle that.
4:00:32
I can take them in dribs and drabs with maybe their parents keep taking care of them and that is, that's my role.
4:00:39
School librarians are special.
4:00:42
They are, I don't know that I've ever seen one sit still.
4:00:46
Somehow they manage to serve the needs of entire school communities.
4:00:50
Sometimes between three schools and one building meeting the curricular needs of all of the teachers' research needs.
4:00:59
They're kind of magical unicorns with an ever changing curriculum.
4:01:05
The lack of school librarians creates a resource gap that public libraries cannot fill.
4:01:10
There is no way for us to do it.
4:01:12
If you've ever tried to find a book on a specific topic for a research project with like an eight year old and you've gone a couple days too late, you're just sort of out of luck.
4:01:21
We don't have 30 copies of books on Benjamin Franklin.
4:01:24
It's just not a thing.
4:01:27
But also as public librarians, get to, a public librarian, I get to see the results of what happens when we don't have a comprehensive library education in New York City schools.
4:01:37
And that looks like adults who can't find books alphabetically occasionally.
4:01:44
It looks like adults looking for work who are trying to create a resume and don't aren't able to fully evaluate the you know validity of the website they're using to do it.
4:01:57
Spend an hour or two hours inputting all of their work information only to get to the end of that website and be told they have to pay $10 for the PDF that they just spent all of that time entering their information for.
4:02:10
Because they couldn't look at it and say, oh no, not this one.
4:02:13
That's what school librarians teach.
4:02:15
They teach you how to evaluate information.
4:02:17
And what happens when we don't have them is that.
4:02:21
So the first step to addressing the school librarian shortage is determining the extent of the problem and I urge you to support intro 11/25 and require the DOE to provide this information so we can get people what they need to live their lives.