From Lesson #12 – Teacher-Librarian’s Role

Is this Role Description indicative of the teacher-librarian's role in your school? What parts of the role description would be affected by limited time and budget? What parts of the role are absolutely essential regardless of time and budget?

This role description is an accurate depiction of the teacher-librarians role in the schools that I have worked in. Although this one role has been interpreted differently within each school. In many cases many of the librarians, myself included, have attempted to fulfill all of these elements but as we know it is just impossible to do so when your time is divided between two libraries. The parts of the role that are greatly affected by limited time and budget are “working cooperatively with teachers in developing information retrieval and critical thinking skills.” Collaborating on authentic resource-based activities takes time and planning. If librarians are only in a school 2.5 days per week, which is commonly the case, it is difficult to accommodate teachers in respect to planning time and the flexibility needed in scheduling blocks within the library to work on projects. It was difficult to accommodate teachers in a school that I worked in which had two librarians working six days a week. It really takes a lot of effort to work together with teachers and this really discourages them from taking time out of their already busy schedules in order to plan collaborative projects when it is not convenient. Keeping up with technology and teaching students’ literacy skills in relation to technology is primarily reliant on budgetary factors. School libraries must possess the proper technology in order to properly teach students how to use and explore educational on-line resources and programs. They must have access to a large white board or computer projection systems that allow them to visually share the information, they must also have enough computers in their library to accommodate students and they must have enough time to walk students through these types of resources and allow them time to explore and investigate. In relation to reference resources in the school library, at times it is impossible to select and acquire up-to-date materials on the annual budgets dedicated to purchasing resources. Librarians need to find creative ways to afford current and appropriate reference materials that fit the budget and accommodate the learning needs of the students. We are lucky in some ways to have access to on-line references and many school districts pay for subscriptions to a variety of web resources.

What is essential to your library program regardless of time and budget…maintaining the collection, teaching information literacy skills, promoting reading, language development and literature appreciation and managing the library facilities, services and budget in order to contribute to the stated goals of the school, school district and Ministry of Education. At times even keeping up with these is a struggle because we want to accomplish so much more than what is just required. We can achieve many goals if we continue to promote the importance of our role and let our colleagues know how these goals can create better learners and facilitate them in their teaching.