Professionalism

ETL512 Assessment 2: Post 2 – Challenges, Advice, and Pathways to Becoming an Information Professional

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Establishing a career in the information sector can often involve taking a variety of pathways. Discuss the examples, pitfalls, barriers and advice provided by agency hosts on their career journey to becoming information professionals. Provide one professional development action you are going to take as a result of the study visits to support your career. Include a short discussion about why and how you will take this action and include examples of possible opportunities for this PD. (500 words)

The hosts at State Library Victoria’s Rare Book Collection (SLV), Lake Tuggeranong College (LTC) and Bundaberg Regional Libraries (BRL) provided valuable points about the challenges and possible pathways into a career in the information sector. 

One key challenge identified by SLV relates to staffing and budgets, threats to libraries worldwide (Morris, 2022; Softlink, 2022, p.6-7; Woodcock, 2023). Wee noted that increasing demand for their services  was not matched by financial or staffing support, and positions were increasingly filled by people without information sciences backgrounds. BRL revealed they’d had programs cut by Council. LTC also recognised hopelessness, exhaustion and feeling unappreciated as significant challenges, echoing research outlining the negative impacts of poor leadership on staff wellbeing (Cross, 2015,p.10, 13; International Literacy Association, 2022, p.5). This devaluation of expertise is replicated in my experience, where only 1/7 local schools has a substantive, full-time, trained teacher-librarian, and our library budget hasn’t increased since 2001. Staff at SLV and LTC recognised that time management and prioritising competing demands was another challenge, with Godfree and Korodaj advising prospective teacher-librarians to view our work as a “marathon, not a sprint”. 

Wee advised that good traits for staff include: love of learning; emotional intelligence; and strong interpersonal skills to deal with the public-facing aspect of the role.  LTC advised that key characteristics of effective teacher-librarians include: persistence; gentleness; emotional intelligence; being pushy in an appealing way; cheerfulness and warmth; maintaining calm under pressure; lateral thinking; authenticity; and knowing when to say no to avoid overstretching yourself. Wee noted that all core skills were transferable to different information settings and clearly there is significant cross-over in desirable personality traits for both settings.

Volunteering was one piece of advice given by both SLV and BRL. Wee and Harris both stated that volunteering allows prospective information professionals to network and develop visibility, improve their skills, and show enthusiasm. All three hosts emphasised the importance of advocacy and promotions in their work. BRL emphasised that providing relevant programs to meet user needs is crucial to their advocacy efforts, while both SLV and LTC affirmed that constant promotions were necessary to ensure that their relevant resources connected with users in a timely, effective manner. 

As a result of these hosts’ emphasis on the importance of advocacy and promotions, I will create a school library strategic plan. This will help me to advocate for my role in a professional manner (Markless et al., 2016, p.87) and implement positive change over 5 years, heeding the ‘marathon’ advice from LTC. Within this strategic plan I intend to focus on increasing the promotion of library resources and services to ensure that my users are aware of how I can support their needs. The NSW Department of Education has a free subscription to LinkedIn Learning, which has many courses on marketing and promotions (such as this one Introducing Social Media Marketing) which I can use to improve my library’s visibility and community engagement. Changing technology will also be a focus of my strategic plan, and as a member of the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) I can access their professional learning (such as this one on Digital Trends). This strategic plan and continued professional development will help develop my key capacities in learning and teaching, management, leadership and collaboration, and community engagement (ALIA & Australian School Libraries Association, 2020, p.1-2).

Word count: 554

 

REFERENCES:

Australian Library and Information Association [ALIA] & Australian School Libraries Association [ASLA]. (2016). ALIA-ASLA statement on teacher librarians in Australia. https://read.alia.org.au/alia-asla-statement-teacher-librarians-australia

Cross, D. (2015). Teacher well-being and its impact on student learning [Slide presentation]. Telethon Kids Institute, University of Western Australia. http://www.research.uwa.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/2633590/teacher-wellbeing-and-student.pdf

International Literacy Association. (2022). Librarianship and literacy [Literacy leadership brief]. http://literacyworldwide.org/docs/default-source/where-we-stand/the-essential-leadership-of-school-librarians.pdf

Markless, S., Bentley, E., Pavey, S., Shaper, S., Todd, S., Webb, C., & Webb, C. (Carol). (2016). The innovative school librarian (S. Markless, Ed.; Second edition.). Facet.

Morris, L. (2022, December 21). National Library’s treasure Trove under threat from budget cuts. The Sydney Morning Herald. https://www.smh.com.au/culture/art-and-design/national-library-s-treasure-trove-under-threat-from-budget-cuts-20221212-p5c5m6.html 

Softlink (2022). 2022 Australian and New Zealand school library survey report. https://www.softlinkint.com/resources/reports-and-whitepapers/

Woodcock, C. (2023, January 13). Public library budgets are being slashed. Police have more cash than ever. Vice. https://www.vice.com/en/article/akemgz/public-library-budgets-are-being-slashed-police-have-more-cash-than-ever

ETL504 5.3 Future Ready Librarian Self-Reflection

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One of the tasks in this module was to browse the Future Ready Librarians website. Amongst its myriad of wonderful tools, I found the self-reflection survey and since I love a good survey I thought, why not? Here are my results:

 

From this tool I can identify that I need to work on leading through:

  • the provision of personalised professional learning
  • providing robust infrastructure,
  • teaching and promoting student data and privacy, and
  • curriculum instruction and assessment.

ETL504 2.1: Organisation Theory Introduction

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Informed by Robinson’s presentation, think about the influences upon a school – structural, cultural and societal and identify a key driver for change in each area that the teacher librarian could respond to through school library programs.

A lot has changed in the 13 years since Robinson’s video was first published to Youtube. When this video was published, Youtube was still a fairly new and groundbreaking platform, Facebook was still a relative baby, Instagram had only just been launched, and TikTok wasn’t even a twinkle in its creators’ eyes. Early in my studies I was introduced to the concept of the changing infosphere (Lysaught, 2021, August 30) and my understanding of these issues and their relationship to the role of the teacher librarian has continued to develop as I’ve moved through this degree.

Since 2010, a multitude of new apps, sites, and other assorted technologies have emerged. The big one causing much consternation in the education community at the moment is the rise of AI tools such as ChatGPT. While there’s a lot of fear and uncertainty about the role artificial intelligence will play in the future of education, I strongly feel that this emerging technology is one area where effective teacher librarians can position themselves as leaders and drivers of innovation in their school communities. While some concerns are not without merit (especially around potential student plagiarism and the ethics of AI), at the moment my experiences have led me to view AI tools such as ChatGPT as a sort of “Google on steroids” and a valuable time-saver for overworked, time-poor teachers. As such, for this reflection I used it to get my head around the idea of what could be meant by structural, cultural and societal influences upon schools. I was rather pleased with the results:

Let’s address some of these influences more directly.

Structural influences upon a school:

  • School funding: obviously a teacher librarian in a school setting (especially one without formal leadership credentials) will have limited impact on the way schools are funded. However, through advocating for our role, our value to our school community and our professionalism I believe that teacher librarians can in some cases successfully apply for a greater slice of the funding pie. I used our 2021 Annual Library Report as evidence to request more funding and was granted additional support for my 2022 Wide Reading Program trial.
  • Curriculum: again, teacher librarians have an extremely limited ability to determine the curriculum set by National and State educational bodies (beyond participation in focus groups and curriculum groups when these documents are reviewed). However, our role within schools has the potential to act as the “glue” which draws together different curriculum areas (Lysaught, 2021, October 5) and the general capabilities (Lysaught, 2021, November 22), and can unite otherwise isolated subject ‘silos’ to ensure cross-curricular learning.
  • School policies: through participation in school-wide teams and committees, teacher librarians can help guide and implement these policies and procedures. For instance in the past I have been a member of our school’s Gifted and Talented Education committee, and when that was dissolved I moved into the Technology in Education committee.
  • Physical facilities: often the physical layout of the school is beyond the teacher librarian’s control; however, we can absolutely make a difference in the design and layout of the library space, and can develop and manage efficient collections which meet the learning and recreational needs of our school community. As noted in my 2022 Annual Library Report (Lysaught, 2023, March 5), 49% of library purchases were patron-led acquisitions to build student and staff ownership over the collection.

Cultural influences upon a school:

  • School culture: building respectful relationships and trust is crucial with both staff and students. Bonanno (2011, via Lysaught, 2021, August 29) emphasises the importance of building relationships with the 10-30% of staff who are likely to work with us to ensure that we are maximising our potential and adding value to our school community efficiently and meaningfully. My own experience has revealed that this takes time, but once I made progress with one teacher and the word spread about how I could help time-poor staff with their work, soon I was inundated with requests. 
  • Diversity: representation matters. Decolonising collections and ensuring inclusivity and diversity in resources and their promotion is one area where teacher librarians can positively affect school culture.
  • Parental involvement: communication to parents and caregivers via channels such as social media and parent bulletins is important for promoting the library as a useful resource centre for their children.

Societal influences upon a school:

  • Community resources: effective promotion of library educational and recreational resources can build a positive school culture where students and staff feel supported, valued and can take ownership of the space. Student-created social media posts is one of my favourite ways of helping promote library resources while encouraging students to take ownership of the space.
  • Economic factors: teacher librarians can’t change the socio-economic demographics of their school community, but they can provide access to tools and resources which can ameliorate the effects of potential disadvantage (Krashen, 2011). The ISCEA value of my school has gone down in the last few years; my implementation of the Wide Reading Program aims in part to mitigate some of the disadvantages our students face by drawing on research into pleasure reading and by providing time and access to reading materials.
  • Political climate: well, ain’t this one a tough nut to crack. It seems that everywhere we look teachers are easy pickings for politicians wanting to stoke the fires of the culture wars for their own gain. However, advocacy and professionalism can go some way towards easing public and political misconceptions about the role of teachers in society. Would it be cheeky of me to add media and digital literacy teaching programs here?