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The role of the teacher-librarian (TL) within an educational setting is as varied and complex as the definition of “information”. My career has evolved from teaching in a Primary School setting to, being a parent relying on the library services, to now working within a secondary school. Through my experience with teacher-librarians across those three aspects, I have seen teacher-librarians who are seen as critical to the operation of the school and those whose skills are underutilized and undervalued.
As a teacher, I used my TL as my collaborator in educating my students. She assisted me in resourcing my ideas for units and seemed to instantly know which resources would be perfect to help me convey my idea to my students. We planned together and during the library lesson I was allocated for my “non-contact time”, my TL provided my class with lessons that were crucial to the development of their skills required for the unit of work we were completing at the time. This was the teacher-librarian exhibiting all three of the main roles of a teach-librarian: information specialist; information service manager and a Curriculum leader (Australian School Library Association, 2014). I remember being quite shocked when I discovered that this was not how all the teachers used their time. Many saw the library lessons as “baby sitting and borrowing”; as they had no idea what the teacher -librarian was doing with their class. To me this was disrespectful to the professional nature of the teacher-librarian role.
Further insight into how TL’s are perceived by their colleagues and in particular administration was gained when I was a parent. The enormity of the role of information management has been often underrated and undervalued by the administration. The extra hours and time that Library staff engages in to manage their collection goes unseen. As a parent, I would volunteer to assist in some of the menial, but crucial, tasks of covering books, sorting and culling the collection. The continual flow of ‘hard’ resources that goes through a Primary School Library is hard to comprehend, that is until the aide gets sick and it piles up around the desk! The only way for many teacher-librarians to cope with this is to use volunteers to supplement the often meagerly staffed department they are in charge of, even though what is really necessary is more time and money to allow for the teacher-librarian to embed themselves within each year levels’ planning meetings. Lupton (2016, p. 57) clearly demonstrates the school principal’s perception of the teacher-librarian impacts on the level of support given and therefore their ability to fulfill this dynamic role.
Currently I work within the secondary system, and in a world where many schools are underfunding their libraries and specialist teacher-librarians running these libraries are in decline, we are endeavouring to make ourselves indispensable within the school community (Matthews, n.d.). Despite what many schools thought when individual computers became the norm in Australian classrooms, both teachers and students needed someone to help them gain access to quality information and programs through these devices. The overcrowded changing curriculum has certainly made it difficult for individual teachers to be on the cusp of all things digital, so many are turning to their teacher-librarian for support and guidance. This is where I currently see the role of the teacher-librarian – acting as a conduit between the “information”, the teachers, the students and the curriculum.
References
Australian School Library Association. (2014, March 2). What is a teacher-librarian? Retrieved March 8, 2017, from ASLA – Australian School Library Association: http://www.asla.org.au/advocacy/what-is-a-teacher-librarian.aspx
Lupton, M. (2016). Adding value: Principals’ perceptions of the role of the teacher-librarian. School Libraries Worldwide, 22 (1), 49-61. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/10.14265.22.1.005
Matthews, K. (n.d.). So where have all our school teacher-librarians gone? Retrieved March 8, 2017, from Kidspot: http://www.kidspot.com.au/school/primary/real-life/so-where-have-all-our-school-teacher-librarians-gone
Hi Lena,
I enjoyed reading your blog on The Role of the Teacher Librarian. I thought you had some really valid points and found it interesting to read your perspective. I am teacher who has not yet experienced the secondary school setting and you have given me some interesting insights. For example, how others in your setting had perceived the teacher librarian role.
I agree with you completely in that the school principal’s perception of the TL impacts on the level of support given and therefore their ability to fulfil their dynamic role.
The use of images on your blog has been done relevantly. Your blog has been kept neat and uncluttered. Though by adding a description of what the image is about, along with the copyright, can be very helpful for people with vision impairment. Another feature available is the accessibility toolbar. This is a tool that can be added easily to your blog and will assist disability access for your blog.
The colour usage of some of your words, the light pink and light blue on white, can make it difficult to read. I realised that when the cursor hovered over the lighter words it made it darker and more visible to see. However, for the word reference it stayed lighter. It could perhaps be the use of bold in your document. I hope that this is helpful and something you now can be aware of for future blog posts.
By including hyperlinks for certain key words in your blog I thought it added an ease of usability in navigating around your information. I feel that this is a useful tool that I will be adding to my blog posts.
Best of luck with the rest of your studies,
Kerrie-Anne
Thanks Kerri-Anne. I will definitely be adding the “accessibility tool” you mentioned. I know what you mean by the colours with the links. They were a shade of green that was much more visible, but after realising that red and green are no go colours for people who are colour blind I changed, but agree they need to be more visible.
Hello Lena,
I have really enjoyed looking at the design and content of your blog. I think the design of your blog is clear, eye catching and easy to follow. I like the image you have used for your backdrop and the name of your blog. You are inspiring me as this is the first time I have created a blog and you have a done a great job with yours.
The categories you have used are easy to follow. The titles of these categories are relevant to the content of the posts. The references you use are informative and work well in your blog posts. It is a good way of recording resources you have used. I appreciate the sharing of these resources in your blog. It gives other students new points of reference they can use too.
I enjoyed reading your Part B blog about perceptions and understanding of the role of the teacher librarian. Interesting aspects you have mentioned are: the ways you collaborated with the teacher librarian for ideas for your lessons in the classroom and how other staff members perceived the teacher librarian as a babysitter. The contrast in these perceptions (you have talked about) can be an interesting example of the spectrum of attitudes towards the teacher librarian.
I think you touched on many relevant issues affecting schools, classroom teachers and teacher librarians. These examples included funding; a crowded curriculum and the range of tasks teacher librarians do in a days work. Thank you for an informative written piece on your experiences and understanding of the role of teacher librarians.
Thank you for your comments. This is all new to me too, so trial and error are certainly playing a role. It has been great looking at all the different ways we have chosen to set out our blogs.