Marc Crompton
I hope that I'm not stepping on toes to be the first to chime in here, but one of our course readings has prompted a string of questions in my head that I would love to get some feedback on. The reading that I'm talking about is:
American Association of School Librarians. (2009). Empowering learners : Guidelines for school library media programs. Chicago, Ill.: American Association of School Librarians.
I've written two blog posts on Empowering Learners so I won't go into too much detail. Please feel free to visit my blog to follow through more fully. I will say that I found the book to be a great relief in that it lends much greater clarity to my current role heading up a 8-12 library in a private school in Vancouver. The job description that I inherited was very vague. Given the history of the particular job in the school, the circumstances of my hire and the rapidly changing role of school librarians in general, this is not overly surprising. The detail that Empowering Learners goes into helped me to clarify what I am doing right and where my weaknesses might be. This I truly appreciate.
The big questions that came up in my mind are addressed in my blog but I would love to address here as well. The first question(s) revolve around the degree with which school librarians and schools in general adhere to the AASL guidelines. I am probably safe in saying that I may be the only person in my school that has read the document. I certainly am not held accountable to it in any way. Are there schools, districts or states that have elevated the guidelines to policy? I know that we don't have a parallel document in Canada (nor a parallel organization any more) so I am unaware of it being used as policy anywhere.
My second, and more interesting question is more about the role of the Library/Learning Commons in general. Empowering Learners often speaks of the Librarian being on a school administrative level. This makes me wonder where the line between the role of librarian and school administrator lies. This relates the building itself. I have been involved in a school building master plan committee that is working with an amazing education building design firm. Many of their example buildings tend to focus around commons areas. My question to them was where the library function fits when the entire school is based around commons spaces. One of the concepts that we discussed was that the library becomes ubiquitous in the same that information is ubiquitous. The concise version of the question becomes where are, or are there, walls in a Learning Commons/21st Century School Library? While walls restrict, they also help to define. The more a school librarian's role is everywhere in the school, the harder it becomes to define the role. I'm very curious to hear other thoughts.
I also posted my notes about this book "Empowering Learners" in my blog: http://librarianmsduff.blogspot.com/2012/09/empowering-learners.html. It was very helpful reading and definitely a text that I will refer back to often. I was particularly struck by your last statement about how it is difficult to define the librarian's role because he/she seems to be everywhere. This is very true in my case. I have multiple roles and responsibilities at school and, though they do not all directly relate to the library, they do connect with supporting the school's mission as well as student success. As a librarian, I always do whatever I can to support the school at large using my information science skills. In conclusion, I think that it's good that our roles are become harder to define because that indicates that our responsibilities and connections to schools transcend book circulation and OPAC navigation.
ReplyDeleteOther than other teacher librarians in my school district, I would bet that no one else has seen or heard of AASL Guidlines nor are we as librarians held accountable to them. Part of the problem is that all staff members have their own specific standards that they are trying to meet. There are only so many standards people can try to meet without giving up totally.
ReplyDeleteTo address Marc's last point about a school designed with multiple common spaces and the librarian's role in that physical setting, I think school librarians need to quickly give up the concept of being guardian of any physical space, particularly because so many resources are virtual now. If the librarian's role is fully integrated with curriculum, his/her focus will be on teaching and collaborating, and that can and should be done any time/place. Unfortunately, the onus is usually on the librarian to make that happen and to convince colleagues to collaborate.
ReplyDelete