Theme 2: The Value of a Teacher Librarian

Theme 2: The Value of a Teacher Librarian

picture: http://robertjohnmeehan.blogspot.ca/

     Riedling (p.99), 2013, states that school library media specialist must have an exceptional knowledge of the library media centre’s collection.  How true!  As each student or teacher comes in with their new research question, I am so much better able to help them find accurate and appropriate information and they see value in me and the library’s resources.  My best walk away thought from this week’s readings is the importance of developing effective interview strategies to educate the TEACHERs on the importance of student information skills and co-operative planning.  Haycock (p.26), 2007, states that most of the literature on teacher-teacher-librarian collaboration appears in journals and other publications read by teacher-librarians themselves, and consequently, the lack of acceptance of collaboration as a norm of teacher behavior is also common.  This is an area I feel is difficult for me in my school.  I am working to have teachers see the value in my job as a teacher librarian (thus I need to know my resources) and to come to me to work collaboratively with references and research planning.   As stated in Together for Learning (p.40) 2010, the Learning Commons has great potential, but only when everyone participates.

picture: http://venspired.com/that-kind-of-collaboration/

     I do feel overwhelmed when I read about the many aspects of my role as a teacher librarian and trying to fit it all in with my limited work hours.  Reading through the responsibilities I also do feel good about what I have accomplished, but know I am falling short in the learning resource management area.  I am completely missing out on developing school library policies and procedures and have had zero talk of this with anyone in my school or district.   Also, after reading that a responsibility in my role is to participate in an information network with district schools I went looking to get connected and found our district needs some help in this area.  I am happy to have had the nudge to get this going and found another librarian in my district who had tried to start something up last year, but hopefully together we can make it happen.

     One statement from Lesson 7 (Libe 467 course reading) that is thought to maybe have come from Mae West, "It's not necessarily what you've got, but what you do with what you've got that's important", says it perfectly.  We all have time and budget restraints.  We just need to be innovative with our time, creative with the resources, and inventive with the budget to make our library its best.  It will prove to our users of the value of us as TLs and of our libraries.  As for me and reference materials, I plan to keep my focus on a current collection, with both print and online reference materials.  I will keep focussed on the importance of reference sources in the development of student information skills and build up from there, proving the worth of a TL to one teacher at a time!!

Haycock, K. (2016). Collaboration: Critical success factors for student learning. Scholarworks.sjsu.edu. Retrieved 20 February 2016, from http://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1023&context=slis_pub

Riedling, A., Shake, L., & Houston, C. (2013). Reference skills for the school librarian. Santa Barbara, California: Linworth, an imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC.

Together for Learning School Libraries and the Emergence of the Learning Commons,. (2010). Ontario LIbrary Association. Retrieved 20 February 2016, from https://www.accessola.org/web/Documents/OLA/Divisions/OSLA/TogetherforLearning.pdf