TRAVERSE CITY -- Chris Esper hopes a librarian will continue to work at Traverse City West Senior High after she retires this year.
Library support employees had hours cut, Esper said, and she didn't purchase some supplies this year to save money.
That's at a time of increasing student use, as high schoolers take online courses, research in computer labs or check out graphing calculators and digital cameras for class.
"I want this facility to keep supporting the curriculum," Esper said. "It won't be if it goes down to one person who's just here to maintain the desk."
School boards and administrators may cut librarians as public schools face the prospect of additional losses of state aid in 2011.
The number of certified librarians in Michigan public schools already is at a 10-year low, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
Traverse City Area Public Schools is among districts that considered eliminating them or taking similar steps to balance their budgets.
A committee exploring budget cuts for 2010-11 discussed cutting library support staff to save nearly $567,000. It fell out of favor before the committee made its final list.
"As collapsing budgets prompt school boards and administrators to consider the unthinkable, libraries -- and, most important, students -- appear to be losing," said Karen Schulz, a Michigan Education Association spokeswoman.
In 2008, Michigan public schools employed fewer than 1,100 media specialists, one per 1,556 students. That represented a 31 percent decline from 1998, when there was one specialist for every 1,077 students.
A certified librarian role in Benzie County Central Schools has not been filled for at least six years, Superintendent Dave Micinski said. Support employees manage the desks.
To compensate, the district recently linked card catalogs from Beulah and Benzonia's public libraries to its Web site. Students will be able to have books delivered to school.
Micinski said it's hard to predict if or when a full-time school librarian would return, saying "in a perfect world, certainly, that would be a position of great priority."
In 1998, there were 1,848 media support employees in Michigan school libraries, while in 2008 there were only 667, down 64 percent.
Experts say the decline is particularly troubling because media specialists and the resources they manage can directly benefit classroom achievement.
For instance, a study by the Library of Michigan examining the relationship between school library services and student achievement found higher reading scores on MEAP exams in schools with qualified librarians.
The difference was greatest at the elementary level, where 66 percent of fourth-graders scored proficient or above on the reading test in schools with librarians compared to 49 percent in schools without them.
"I don't think people understand school libraries," said Esper, of West Senior High, adding that could make it easier for some to justify cuts.
"People think of schools as a classroom with a teacher in front of 32 kids," she said. "They look at the library as extraneous."
Daniel Opsommer writes for Michigan State University's Capital News Service.
