The Shizuoka City Board of Education will cut the number of days school librarians work at public elementary and junior high schools from the next school year. The board says the change is needed to spread librarians fairly across schools. Librarians say it will limit children's chances to read.
Librarians are currently assigned according to class size and pupil numbers, for no more than 125 to 175 days a year. All of them are non-regular staff. At schools with 25 or more classes and 700 or more pupils, they average 4.5 days a week, or 175 days a year, working five hours a day.
From the next school year the board will cut an average of 0.5 hours a week, bringing assignments to three or four days a week and no more than 120 to 160 days a year. Librarians who work 163 days or more a year currently receive bonuses paid at term ends. From the next school year none of them will qualify.
The board cited the spread of digital libraries and search systems. It said it would review staffing "to a new allocation standard based on pupil numbers rather than class numbers, in order to allocate staff fairly in line with actual conditions."
Superintendent Momomi Nakamura told a regular news conference on October 27 that she could not rule out disruption to how schools actually run. The board would explain the review to those affected and consider changes where needed, she said.
Librarians warn of damage to library spaces
Seven people who currently work as school librarians in Shizuoka's public elementary and junior high schools spoke to the Mainichi Shimbun and other news organizations in mid-October. They said the plan to cut assigned days would worsen the library environment and harm pupils.
At the same October 27 briefing, the board said some schools keep their libraries open with teachers and pupils even when no librarian is present. It asked for understanding that "libraries can still be used without a school librarian."
Working librarians pushed back. The Mainichi Shimbun's article is truncated at this point, so the rest of their response is not available here.
The board's argument rests in part on digital resources replacing some of what a librarian provides. Its critics point to the pupils who rely on the school library most: those whose homes have few or no books.