The deficient condition of libraries in many Michigan public schools, particularly the absence of qualified school librarians, concerns the Library of Michigan, prompting its project to document the importance of fully staffed libraries in schools, and its campaign to try to reverse the trend of poorly supported school libraries. So how do school libraries in the Eastern U.P. measure up?

Most schools in the Eastern Upper Peninsula offer active libraries for their students, but some struggle to keep them staffed.

Individual school districts set their own requirements for the training of school librarians they hire. While the Library of Michigan and school librarians' association would like to see more highly trained librarians in public schools, many administrators in EUP school districts say shortfalls in education funding do not make that a possibility here.

Sharing Library With Community Is One Answer

Three schools, at Engadine, Rudyard, and DeTour, each house a shared public and school library.

Pooling staff and funds this way is a benefit more communities should take advantage of, said Pete Everson, superintendent of the Eastern Upper Peninsula Intermediate School District (ISD). He gives the example of publicly owned buildings that are currently spread out within a community, all struggling to meet utility and staffing costs, while locating services in one building or complex could save money.

"We should take advantage of opportunities to share services for things like libraries and health clinics. The school is the center of your community, so let's take advantage of that as efficiently as possible," Mr. Everson said. "I think that's the way those libraries should be set up."

Donna Porterfield, certified assistant librarian at the Rudyard school district, said the sharing arrangement is definitely a benefit there, and it has been in place at Rudyard since the 1960s or early '70s.

"It works so well for us," she said, adding that students and the public seem to enjoy interacting at the library. It's open from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday.

At DeTour, the shared library is open through the school day, plus one evening a week, and in summer, it's open part-time, said Superintendent Keith Krahnke. The media center is staffed yeararound by a library aide and the school's technology director, neither of whom are teachers or certified librarians.

Pickford District Chose To Add Library

School districts in Cedarville and Pickford have active, fully operational school libraries.

At the 310-student Les Cheneaux Community Schools district in Cedarville, the media center is staffed by an uncertified library aide who is a school employee.

The Pickford school library was added to the building in 1998 and has been a "very successful" addition to the school, said Superintendent Keith Krahnke. It's open on school days until 2 p.m. for the 450 kindergarten-through-12th-grade students at Pickford. The library is staffed by a school employee who is not a certified librarian, yet "does an outstanding job," he said, adding that hiring someone with a master's degree in library science "would probably be cost-prohibitive."

"Prior to the construction project, we had a very limited library facility, with books housed in a classroom," Mr. Krahnke said. "Now the school includes a library. It's an important component. It may not be everything everyone would like it to be, but you do the best you can with what you have. The key word is resources. Your dollar gets squeezed and you try to spread it as best you can.

LaSalle High Library Not Staffed,

for Fourth Year

At St. Ignace, the middle school library is staffed and operational and is used by students up to eighth grade, but at LaSalle High School, the library is not staffed and is not open to students in the traditional sense. It houses a computer lab that is used by classes with teacher supervision, said Superintendent Mike Springsteen.

"This is a budgetary issue," Mr. Springsteen said of the library's closure. "As we've had to make decisions about where to put our money; the library took a big hit. I do think it's a loss not having that library there."

This is the fourth year the LaSalle High library has not been staffed at all, he said. In preceding years, it was staffed half time.

Students, with teachers' guidance, and instructors at LaSalle now rely on the Internet for a lot of their research, Mr. Springsteen said, and now the library room "is more technology oriented than book oriented."

Mr. Everson of the ISD also points to student access of online reference materials like encyclopedias as a valuable teaching tool when libraries are not available, as in St. Ignace.

"If we have access online and that's where their budget fits" it may be an acceptable substitute, Mr. Everson said. "I don't know what the answer is to school districts getting pinched" by budget shortfalls, as at St. Ignace.

The Intermediate School District also plays a role in offering such online information to its districts through a program called the Regional Educational Media Center, which "has been put into video streaming, so the teacher can download all materials in the classroom," Mr. Everson explained. "I would like to transform all of our library materials [available from the ISD center] to video streaming."

At Mackinac Island, students have access during the whole school day to library materials, but the library is only staffed for about two hours each day, said school secretary Barb Fisher.

"It's not what I'd call a fully functioning library," she said, but students can check out books using the "honor system" of writing their name on a sign out sheet when the library is not staffed by teacher Mary Patay.

The tiny Gros Cap School in Moran Township near St. Ignace does not have a school library, but each classroom has some library materials. The school is for students in grades kindergarten through eight; most of its students then attend high school at LaSalle.