My understanding of the role of the teacher librarian in schools were there seemed to be a few requirements of the role based in the library, working alongside the library manager. When I first started teaching in the classroom we were lucky to have a teacher librarian (TL) and my understanding comes from my observations of her role.

The TL took each primary class for library and IT lessons once a week. I thought this was great because it gave me non contact time that was certainly invaluable to getting things done. So part of me believed the role was to provide planning and organisation time to classroom teachers. What I thought this role entailed during those lessons was reading books to the students to engage them in the excitement of all types of picture books and novels. The TL would help students to choose books that they would like to borrow for the week to continue the excitement of reading at home with their family. Being able to scan the books for borrowing and returning and then placing the books back on the shelf was certainly part of the job. They are also responsible for issuing the slips of paper to inform the students that they had an overdue book that classroom teachers would hand out. 

I figured the teacher librarian would teach the students the difference between fiction and nonfiction, where these books belong in the library and how and what the Dewey Decimal system was in order to find the books you were looking for. I hoped that the TL would find out the interests of the students to be able to guide them in the books that they might enjoy or require for particular projects. 

If I needed help I could go to the library and ask the TL where a particular book was and I was shown its location. I never received any further help or interest so I was left on my own to decide whether the book would help or not. If I had more questions they would get answered but that was about it. The TL was just the first point of contact in the library space. 

During lunch times the library would be open so that it was a space students could go instead of playing outside. The TL would supervise the students and make sure books were put back after reading and allow high school students to play chess. If students were too noisy or not behaving the TL could ask them to leave. 

There was a library manager that would order books and deal with the budgets so there was no need for the TL to undertake any of these jobs, I recognised that the role of TL was to teach the classes and help maintain the library space.  

What I thought previously is that the teacher librarian was just a teacher who would allow classroom teachers non-contact time, help students and classroom teachers to navigate the library, manage books being put away and supervise the library during lunchtimes but I realise now that there is a wider range of skills and knowledge that is the role of the teacher librarian.