School Librarians Find Ally at Mrs. Nelson's

Independent booksellers often team up with their local school and public librarians for community projects. But the stakes usually aren't as high as they are now in California, where Mrs. Nelson's Library Services is working with the California School Libraries Association (CSLA) to oppose drastic state and municipal budget cuts.

Mrs. Nelson's Library Services, a division of Mrs. Nelson's Toy & Book Shop, is helping CSLA raise awareness of the announced layoffs and service reductions. Patrick Nelson, president of Mrs. Nelson's Library Services, has been organizing donations of original artwork from popular children's book illustrators for posters and buttons in support of the School Library Advocacy Campaign.

The contributions include drawings by Caldecott winner Brian Selznick (The Invention of Hugo Cabret), David Shannon (Pirates Don't Change Diapers), and Caldecott Honor recipient Marla Frazee (All the World), among others. The posters are sold at Mrs. Nelsons, and the buttons are sold online. Each features one of three slogans chosen by CSLA for the campaign: "School librarians teach every student," "Save California school libraries," and "Read. Think. Grow. Fund school libraries." All proceeds benefit the campaign.

Going from custom-made art to digital files wasn't always simple, Nelson said. "Marla Frazee had a painting she had donated to a school library" that she allowed him to borrow and scan. And David Shannon sent a 35-millimeter slide, which Nelson's scanner wasn't set up to handle. He ultimately scanned the image from the book in which it had originally appeared.

Mrs. Nelson's Library Services also hosts a webpage in support of the campaign. It offers downloadable artwork, template letters, editorials, interviews, audio and video files, contact information for area school districts, and more.

School libraries make up a significant part of Mrs. Nelson's business, but Nelson said that self-interest wasn't the sole reason the store partnered with CSLA. "A school can decide if they want to keep their library open, [and] if they want a credentialed professional," he said, because unlike student-to-teacher ratios, school library staffing and hours are not mandated by the state. As a result, several major school districts, including Los Angeles, have announced that all their certified librarians, who make up most of the library staff, will be laid off at the end of the school year. "I think this is an important cause," Nelson added. "I'm trying to get some of the other independent booksellers in Southern California involved."

In a letter to fellow independent booksellers, Nelson wrote, "Every week we hear stories of another district reducing their library hours to just one day a week or closing their libraries all together... With these types of cuts, literacy is severely affected as well as the opportunity to instill a love of reading in children. Reading is the key to creating successful, compassionate students, and school administrators need to realize that these cuts are handicapping their students." He also encouraged other booksellers to share the buttons and posters with their own customers.

Mrs. Nelson's Library Services "was sort of a spinoff of the book fair company," Nelson said, because many schools were using their book fair earnings to buy library books. The library services division offers school and public libraries a way to order any book in print and have it made "shelf-ready," with the library barcode and protective cover in place. Since acquiring a bindery in 2009, the company has been able to supply custom pre-bound books as well. --Sarah Rettger