I have realised, like Hay and Todd (2010), that this is a profession in the process of change. My initial impression (Farley, 2011a) was that this was something of an ongoing battle between the factions of complacent librarians in situ and emotionally charged researchers, but the House of Representatives report (2011) showed me a profession in crisis, with poor morale and an ageing demographic. I came to realise (Farley, 2011g) that the potential roles of the teacher librarian, as shown by Herring (2007), are too numerous for any one person, and that it is up to those coming in to the profession to choose the roles that will shape the profession for the future.
I think possibly the most challenging role for those coming into the profession is that of technology specialist. Killeen (2009) says that teacher librarians have always led the way with new technology but, as Valenza (2011) demonstrates, technology has been evolving rapidly in recent years. I found this rather overwhelming at first (Farley 2011c), but came to realise that this particular role can be highly enjoyable (Farley, 2011e) and should be embraced. I expressed my concern (Farley, 2011i) that many students only engage in information literacy when they are forced to by teachers, but if it can be incorporated into enjoyable, purposeful projects using this new technology, then it is certainly the role of the teacher librarian to do so.
While I previously familiar with the terms ‘information’ and ‘literacy’ I have to admit that I was unaware they had become conjoined. At no point in my education or teacher training had I been introduced to the term ‘search strategy’ and it was perhaps my first realisation (Farley, 2011f) that the education system is full of teachers and students with self-taught strategies bumbling their way through the information online. Kuiper, Volman and Terwel (2008) point out that we expect primary school students to research online without their having developed any of the critical skills required. Well, we also expect teachers to teach those skills, but we haven’t trained them to do it. I concluded (Farley, 2011d) that my role as a teacher librarian in a primary setting would be to introduce the concept of information literacy to the children early. Rather like learning to read, we need to start off with the basic skills before we can progress to the more advanced tasks. I would add to that the need to develop those skills within the teaching staff also.
Leading on from this, I would now say that it is the role of the teacher librarian to know the students’ needs. Knowing that they are lacking in certain skills gives us the stimulus to implement an information search process model (Wolf 2003). Kuhlthau (2011) focuses on the emotional journey involved in learning something new, and I became aware of my own emotional involvement in the learning process (Farley, 2011b) when reflecting on my first assignment. I know from my own experience working with primary school children how excited they become by a new challenge, and also how quickly some of them will give up and sink into gloom. They are riding an emotional roller coaster and it is certainly the teacher librarian’s role to be aware of what will motivate these students, what they are capable of, and what will support those who feel overwhelmed when faced with challenge.
One of the more surprising changes in my perception of the teacher librarian role has been in connection with their potential as a school leader. Haycock (2007) urges us to be dynamic and extroverted, and my initial reaction was amusement (Farley, 2011h) because this is the antithesis of the commonly held view of teacher librarians. Having now reached the end of this subject I am in agreement with Haycock that the profession needs individuals who can fulfil this role of dynamic leader, and I hope I can do so when the time comes, but I remain concerned that the majority of people attracted to the role of teacher librarian are not extroverts. It will take a prolonged and concerted effort from all involved to change the commonly held conception of someone quietly checking out books all day.
Over the past few months I have been enlightened as to the ideal roles of the teacher librarian. These may not yet entirely match with reality but I am excited to be joining the profession at what could be a new era of heightened respect and job satisfaction as we step out of the library and engage students in authentic, collaborative projects with exciting new technologies designed to meet their individual learning needs. The future looks bright and interesting.
References
Farley, A. (2011a, July 26) Cry Havoc and Let Slip the Librarians of War! [Blog]. Retrieved from http://adamf-anabasis.blogspot.com/2011/07/cry-havoc-and-let-slip-librarians-of.html
Farley, A. (2011b, August 20) Some people are on the pitch… [Blog]. Retrieved from http://adamf-anabasis.blogspot.com/2011/08/some-people-are-on-pitch.html
Farley, A. (2011c, August 26) Cloud Cuckoo Land.[Blog]. Retrieved from http://adamf-anabasis.blogspot.com/2011/08/undiscovered-country.html
Farley, A. (2011d, August 26) Hit ‘em hard and hit ‘em fast. [Blog]. Retrieved from http://adamf-anabasis.blogspot.com/2011/08/hit-em-hard-and-hit-em-fast.html
Farley, A. (2011e, August 29) Hooray for Hollywood! [Blog]. Retrieved from http://adamf-anabasis.blogspot.com/2011/08/hooray-for-hollywood.html
Farley, A. (2011f, July 17) Effective Searching. [Forum comment]. Retrieved from http://forums.csu.edu.au/perl/forums.pl?forum_id=ETL401_201160_W_D_Sub2_forum
Farley, A. (2011g, July 24) Role. [Forum comment]. Retrieved from http://forums.csu.edu.au/perl/forums.pl?forum_id=ETL401_201160_W_D_Sub2_forum
Farley, A. (2011h July 26) Extroverts? [Forum comment]. Retrieved from http://forums.csu.edu.au/perl/forums.pl?forum_id=ETL401_201160_W_D_Sub2_forum
Farley, A. (2011i, August 29) Transfer. [Forum comment]. Retrieved from http://forums.csu.edu.au/perl/forums.pl?forum_id=ETL401_201160_W_D_Sub2_forum
Hay, L. and Todd, R. (2010) School libraries 21C: the conversation begins. Scan, 29(1), pp.30-42.
Haycock, K. (2007) Collaboration: critical success factors for student learning. School Libraries Worldwide, 13(1), pp.25-35.
Herring, J. (2007) Teacher librarians and the school library. In S. Ferguson (ed.) Libraries in the Twenty-First Century: Charting New Directions in Information, pp.27-42. Wagga Wagga, NSW: Centre for Information Studies, Charles Sturt University.
House of Representatives Standing Committee on Education and Employment (2011), School Libraries and Teacher Librarians in 21st Century Australia. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia.
Killeen, E.B. (2009) Yesterday, today, and tomorrow: transitions of the work but not the mission. Teacher Librarian, 36(5), pp.8-13.
Kuhlthau, C.C. (2011) Information Search Process. Retrieved 23/08/11 from http://comminfo.rutgers.edu/~kuhlthau/information_search_process.htm
Kuiper, E., Volman, M. and Terwel, J. (2008) Students’ use of web literacy skills and strategies: searching, reading and evaluating web information. Information Research, 13(1) paper 351.
Valenza, J. (2011) See Sally Research (video). Retrieved 2nd October 2011 from http://tedxphillyed.com/2011/09/video-post-dr-joyce-valenza-see-sally-research/
Wolf, S. (2003) The Big Six Information Skills as a Metacognitive Scaffold: A Case Study. American Library Association. Retrieved 23/08/11 from http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/aasl/aaslpubsandjournals/slmrb/slmrcontents/volume62003/bigsixinformation.cfm
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