No More 'Story Lady' | School Libraries

Lacey, Washington—The faces of Alfred E. Neumann, Oprah, Chef Emeril, and Christina Ricci stare down from the walls of Timberline High School's library with one command in giant, bold letters: "READ." If Marianne Hunter's picture were up there, too, she'd probably add the word "THINK."

For the past decade, Hunter has been the librarian at Timberline, a low-lying concrete and Corten steel bunker dwarfed by the ancient fir trees that tower over this suburb near the southern tip of Puget Sound. Hunter, a triathlete in her spare time, doesn't define her role as simply encouraging kids to pick up a book or scan a computer screen. Sure, that's important. But Hunter sees librarians in the 21st century transitioning "from story ladies to information managers" and, beyond that, to teachers of literacy skills.

"The question our profession is struggling with," she says, "is how do we fit into education? The library should be the learning center of the school."

Changing the archetypal image of the librarian involves changing the minds of not only parents, administrators, and board members, but teachers as well. Hunter's strategy is to reach out to young teachers, one at a time. "If you get one successful project, word spreads," she notes with a devilish gleam in her blue eyes.

Hunter, who was recently certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, is still gloating over her latest success: a new collaboration with a science teacher. The 10th-grade biology instructor was ready to ask each student to do a research paper on a different infectious disease. Instead, Hunter helped her tie the project to the timely topic of biological warfare and pose a "big question" that kids couldn't look up in a book. "By having them investigate how vulnerable the U.S. is to a widespread outbreak of their disease, we made them put their information to use," says Hunter.

To answer the key question, students had to research 10 subtopics that Hunter and the teacher developed together. Some zeroed in on the basics—for instance, how is the disease transmitted? If there is a vector, how can it be monitored and controlled? What treatments are available and what are their potential risks? Other questions delved into broader, more philosophical issues—for example, how might individual freedoms be threatened in the event of a widespread outbreak? And what would be the lasting impact for the individual, the region, and the country?

Students were fired up over the project, Hunter reports. "They like having a purpose," she notes. "You often get more resistance (to a new approach) from teachers, rather than kids. Teachers are afraid because it's new and more involved than what they've tried in the past."

Social studies teacher Rob Denning attests to Hunter's team spirit. "Marianne is very willing to not only help teachers make what they're doing clearer, but also develop good research models," he says. He waves a copy of "QUEST," a research rubric created by Hunter that's become part of the school's culture. He also confides that Hunter will stop at next to nothing if she thinks it'll pique kids' love of learning. Donning a pink wig and dressing as Marie Antoinette to get kids excited about Timberline's annual History Day celebration is one example of her dedication.

A simulation of a Parisian salon in period costume isn't the only creative thing you might stumble across at the Timberline library. On this sunny day just before spring break, students are doing hands-on poetry activities for National Poetry Month. Some kids are rearranging the magnetic words on an ersatz refrigerator (actually, it's a file cabinet dressed up in white craft paper). They're composing their own rhymes. Other kids are working on a schoolwide collaborative poem that is taking shape on the wall above the bookcases. The young poets are adding words, printed on whimsical colored-paper shapes, to the opening refrain of T.S. Eliot's immortal poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock": "Let us go then, you and I..." Gently, Hunter steers the students toward vivid imagery and descriptive language as they create their 21st century reinterpretation of a classic.

Unlike Prufrock, who worries, "Do I dare disturb the universe?", Hunter forges ahead in her trailblazing mission with nary a misgiving. In fact, she's taking her notion of the school librarian's new role to the toughest of audiences: K-12 librarians themselves. Along with 14 other trainers, Hunter will facilitate workshops for 1,500 librarians and paraeducators throughout Washington during the next three years. It's all part of the K-12 Library Initiative, launched in 2000 by the Washington State Library to identify problems facing school libraries and recommend ways to improve them. The trainings, funded under the federal Library Services Technology Act, will focus on curriculum development, collaboration, technology resources, leadership, advocacy, and evaluation. "Our goal," says Hunter, "is to transform the Washington school library community into librarians who can be reading advocates, information managers, and literacy teachers."

That's a far cry from the traditional story lady who checks out books, straightens shelves and, with a finger to her lips, says "shushhhh!"

No More "Story Lady"

Marianne Hunter is a long way from the old-time librarian shushing kids in the stacks