Blog Task Two.

Demonstrate your understanding of the role of the teacher librarian with regards to the convergence of literacies in the 21st century.

There is consensus among experts that the role of a teacher librarian or library media specialist (Harvey, 2009) is multi-faceted.  According to Purcell (2010) and Cooper and Bray (2011) the four key roles of the school library media specialist are defined in Information Power (1998) as teacher, instructional partner, information specialist and program administrator.  According to Lamb (2011) the role is more diverse than this and also incorporates the roles of promoting school volunteerism, curriculum director and government and grant officer.

The clearest depiction of the role of a school librarian is seen in the circle diagram of Herring (2007).  Relying heavily on the Australian School Library Association (ASLA), the Australian Library and Information Association’s (ALIA) Standards of Professional Excellence (2011) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) School Library Manifesto Herring incorporates “budget manager” and “staff manager” into the role of teacher librarian.  He also adds “website developer” to the role which goes above and beyond the position of website administrator or contributor offered by other authors.

In all of these role descriptors the teacher librarian is expected to “have the state-of-the-art technical and pedagogical expertise to engage 21st century learners” (Gaver, n.d., p.3) while also providing students with the ability to “develop critical thinking skills”, “evaluate and analyze (sic) the information at hand” and perform the mental process required to “change knowledge from information to concept” (Bomar, 2010, p 72).

When looking at the word “Transliteracy”  we understand it to mean that teacher librarians are responsible for the relationship between people, technology and the social meaning of literacy in past, present and future modalities (Ipri, 2010).  They are also responsible for bringing together the old and the new in an establishment where they and their colleagues never experienced the sort of school library program the profession advocates today (Lance, 2010).

The school library media centre has drastically changed over the last decade and so has the school library media program. Concurrently, the role of the school library media specialist has evolved in significant ways (Farmer, 2005). The twenty-first century teacher-librarian now has electronic and digital resources, Internet and web-based resources, as well as a considerable number of technologies that serve as purposeful tools, not just entertaining add-ons. LCD projectors, document cameras, video- conferencing units, interactive whiteboards, assistive technology devices, and scanners give “more credibility and seriousness to the library’s technology-enhanced program”. Not only are today’s teacher-librarians information generalists, but also information media specialists (Murray, 2000)

In short, I understand my role as a teacher librarian to be varied and diverse. ) As a Teacher Librarian I will be responsible for crafting challenging learning opportunities for my students while helping them to use the virtual world, as well as traditional information sources so that the students of today are prepared for living, working and learning in the world of tomorrow. (Gaver, n.d).

References:

Bomar, S. (2010). A school-wide instructional framework for evaluating sources. Knowledge Quest, 38(3), 72-75.

de Groot, J.; & Branch, J. L (2011). Looking toward the future: competences for 21st-century teacher librarians. Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 57(3), 288-297.

Farmer, L. (2005). Technology-infused instruction for the educational community: A guide for school library specialists. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, Inc

Gaver, M. (n.d.) School libraries, now more than ever: A position paper of the center for international scholarship in school libraries. Retrieved from www.nmm.net/TheImportanceofSchoolLibraries.pdf

Harvey, C. (2009). Hands on handout: What should an administrator expect a school library media specialist to be? Library Media Connection, October, 45.

Ipri T. (2010) Introducing transliteracy. College & Research Libraries News, 71(10), 532–567.

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.

Lamb, A (2011). Bursting with potential: Mixing media specialist’s palette. TechTrends, 55(4), 27 – 35.

Lance, K.C. (2010). The Mind of a Researcher. Teacher Librarian, 37(4), 81-82.

Mackey, T.P., & Jacobson, T.E. (2011). Reframing information literacy as a metaliteracy. College & Research Libraries, 72(1), 62–78.

Murray, J. (2000). Librarians evolving into cybrarians. MultiMedia Schools, 7(2), 26-30.

O’Connell, J. (2012) Learning without frontiers: School libraries and meta-literacy in actionAccess, 26(1), 4-7.

Purcell, M. (2010) All librarians do is check out books, right? A look at the role of a school library media specialist. Library Media Connection, November/December, 30 – 33