Exemplary School Libraries: the Centre of All the Action

I need to tread carefully here, and before I begin, if I offend any of my fellow school library staff members, I apologize. I work in a board with just teacher-librarians in the elementary panel. My own children go to school in a board that has a mix of library technicians, teacher-librarians, and library clerks in the elementary panel. My children enjoy their school library but they do not get "library instruction" per se. The people running their library do an excellent job. The type of activities they partake in are read-alouds, library-related crafts, worksheets on fiction and non-fiction, silent reading, and things like that. It's different in several ways from the curriculum I deliver when I teach. Now before I get flamed online, I should point out that I know people in school libraries without a B Ed that do awesome things with the clients they see, and some teacher-librarians make a mockery of the teaching part of their job by doing as little as possible to instruct. In this Web 2.0 world where everyone can learn from everyone else, is it a big deal whether or not the person in the library has a teaching degree? I'm going to go out on a limb and say yes. MLIS folks know way more than I do about library management, cataloguing, and so on. Really, there should be both. However, with all the different models (for instance, what is the difference between a library associate and a library technician? are there other categories or job descriptions we should acknowledge?), I think doing a study that examines the effectiveness of a TL vs an LT vs an MLIS would be extremely controversial and be more damaging to the shaky relations we have in school library world between these groups than helpful to discovering what makes a school library exemplary. Having said that, the part in the study that says a good library program is led by someone that can adapt to the context of their school can apply to anyone, regardless of the letters after one's name.

Working in a School Library I'm excited and glad to see these excellent school libraries and their staff being promoted. However, I'm disappointed that only one staffing model was incoporated in this analysis. With half the province's schools not having a teacher librarian; they have Library Technicians, MLIS Librarians, Library Associates etc., this study is limited. The narrow focus misleads and a large group of students in this province are ignored in this type of study. I have contacted local and provincial education ministry people regarding the flaws in analyzing only one model of school library staffing when determining policy. They sent polite responses. Library staff, who aren't teachers, are working hard to support our students and staff with excellent library programing. Perhaps they can be included in the next study.

I will be sharing this with my Principal of Curriculum to keep the great possibilities and realities of our school libraries upfront and to keep promoting the many values of teacher librarians in elementary and secondary, and to promote the active involvement of school principals in our school libraries. Greg Harris IRT: Library & Literacy Simcoe County DSB