David Bilmes shared the following details with Jenny and me. Thank you, David, for gifting the article to all of us. (Though I have access through a home subscription, I tried the gifted article and that worked for me tonight, too. Let us know if you have any issues.)

Before you read David's comments and the article, I'd also like to give a shout out to the other certified library media specialists in the article:
  • Don Curtis
  • Renee Neiger
  • Marci Hilton
Finally, thank you to all LMSs and school library staff who work hard every day to ensure our students have the freedom to read and receive instruction in essential skills of library media programs: information literacy, media literacy, digital literacy, and more.

Let's continue the momentum of educating the community about what we really do all day!

Grateful to all,
~Val


Valerie DiLorenzo
CASL President






---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Bilmes, David S. <bilmesd1@southernct.edu>
Date: Wed, Nov 4, 2026 at 8:26 AM
Subject: Article about CT libraries
To: CASL President <president@ctcasl.org>, Jenny Lussier <jlussier@ctcasl.org>


First of all, it was great seeing so many of you at the CASL Conference over the weekend. Kudos to the hard-working conference committee for doing such a great job.

This article was published online last week by the Hearst Newspapers, but as of this morning hasn't appeared yet in its print edition. It's an in-depth look at school libraries in our state. CASL president Val DiLorenzo is quoted in the article, as are several other CASL members. It also includes a chart which shows the ratio of students per school librarian in every district in the state.

The good news is that Connecticut is still one of the better states for school librarians. The bad news is that many of our low income districts don't have school librarians, and the number of school librarians in our state has been steadily decreasing.

The link to the article is a gift link, so you should be able to access it.




David

David Bilmes
Adjunct Professor
School Library Media Program
Department of Information and Library Science
Southern Connecticut State University