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eSchool News
The Making of the Modern Librarian: The Value of School Libraries
With new technological advancements and the onset of digital media
centers, students and teachers have realized the value of school
libraries
UWA Online
December 1st, 2020
A virtual reality field trip. A lesson on how to create a podcast. A
tutorial on how to create a paper circuit board that uses LED lights.
For a new generation of educators, these pursuits have something in
common: They’re all appropriate learning exercises that can take place
in the school library. Makerspaces, or library media centers that
encourage collaboration and support student invention, are on the rise
across the United States.
This has always been the case, but in a prevailing learning culture
that promotes outside-the-box problem solving, these activities are
growing more common in the 21st-century school library. At the
intersection of analog and digital learning opportunities, the value of
school libraries has increased at all levels of education. And at the
helm of these spaces, school librarians must negotiate how best to
support students with library resources, adapt to new technological
advancements in education and pass on the fundamental tenets of digital
and information literacy to students.
As the U.S. public education system has evolved throughout its history,
school libraries have also developed with a consistent central goal: to
give students the best opportunity to succeed academically.
The Evolution of the School Library
Before school libraries would begin to morph into multimedia digital
information centers, they supported student literacy-building practices
by providing access to their on-site book collections. From the first
plans for a school library in the United States drafted in 1743 by
Benjamin Franklin, school district libraries would continue to sprout
across the nation during the next two centuries. By the mid-1950s,
schools would adopt localized, attached libraries in which librarians
are considered qualified teachers, educating both students and
instructors.
The face of public education has fundamentally changed since then,
through the nationwide integration of schools, the rapid progress of
education technology and the academic opportunities offered to
students, to name a few. Because of these dramatic changes to the world
of education, the expectations and responsibilities of school
library faculty have understandably seen a dramatic shift as well.
Today, school librarians are not only responsible for administering and
collating their collections. Instead, librarians promote creativity and
discovery in student learning by offering multimedia resources. With
school libraries beginning to function as digital media centers, these
tools enable students to explore new modes of thought and include:
Planning, drafting and executing podcasts or audio essays
Access to audiobooks and online tutorials
Online or in-person tutorials on how to use video-, audio- or photo-editing software
Workshops on internet and information literacy
Modern Librarian Roles and Responsibilities
With these new responsibilities, librarians now occupy a multitude of
additional roles, too. The Association of College and Research
Libraries, which is an organization of college educators and librarians
and a division of the American Library Association, lays out the seven
roles of librarians in school systems today. The goal with highlighting
these different titles librarians must take on is “to conceptualize and
describe the broad nature and variety of the work that teaching
librarians undertake as well as the related characteristics which
enable librarians to thrive within those roles.”
While these roles were drafted to appeal specifically to university and
college librarians, they are universal enough to be relevant to school
librarians working in primary and secondary school media centers, too.
Advocate – As advocates, library teachers are responsible for
encouraging and outwardly supporting the advancement of student
learning and information and digital literacy in education. Moreover,
school library faculty must partner with administrators and teachers to
ensure students adopt effective critical thinking and research skills.
Coordinator – In order for a library to run smoothly and enable
students to engage with different literacies, school librarians must
facilitate an inclusive and supportive learning environment. This means
that coordinators need to make a point to stay on the same page as
teachers, administrators and parents to serve students best.
Instructional Designer – Library materials often carry the unfair
stigma of being boring. And it makes sense – the image of the uptight
librarian has persisted through the past century. In the current
technological landscape, though, librarians are positioned to provide
students engaging, dynamic library resources as instructional
designers. As instructional designers, librarians collaborate with
teachers to develop learning materials to reach students best.
Lifelong Learner – Librarians as lifelong learners lead by example.
Lifelong learning librarians can motivate students through an
unrelenting pursuit of knowledge, which can inspire students to engage
in independent research curiosities.
Leader – School librarians must lead not only in their library spaces
but, additionally, across an array of contexts. As leaders, librarians
are prepared to guide students through reading and research processes
at the same time that they offer necessary support to teachers.
Teacher-Librarian – As teachers, librarians evaluate the best kind of
learning practices for students, faculty and administrators. In other
words, school librarians should be trained educators charged with
providing information literacy opportunities to learners across an
array of contexts. For example, while librarians help students
understand how to navigate databases to collect research, they also
provide support to teachers to educate their students on the best
informational and digital literacy practices.
Teaching Partner – To highlight the importance of collaboration,
librarians should work as teaching partners with other educators in the
school to build engaging learning materials for students. This
collaboration can take place in the form of guiding a class discussion,
creating assignments and responding to student work.
To this end, there are several capacities in which librarians excel in
teaching. Because libraries are often the physical sites of research,
reading, exploration and discovery, librarians occupy different
positions to help facilitate the learning process. Students can’t take
advantage of the library without a basic understanding of the ways
libraries function, and the academic article “Librarians, Libraries,
and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning” highlights how librarians
intervene to help the learning process. By partnering with
discipline-specific educators in school settings, school librarians can
develop focused materials to help guide student research projects.
The article states that while “the library can be at the center of
connections among all of the university’s academic units, it is well
placed to create and support initiatives that develop
cross-disciplinary pedagogical excellence.” In other words, as
librarians work with faculty representing different subjects and age
ranges, both students and teachers will engage with unfamiliar
perspectives.
Design-Focused Teaching
There’s a prevailing misconception about how the path of the librarian
is not a design-focused one. Instead, librarians follow deliberate,
creative processes when planning lessons. And when librarians approach
their lesson planning as an element of design, students ultimately
become more engaged. While any instruction planning is a form of
design, librarians for elementary school audiences, for example, must
diligently design engaging storytime lessons to help prompt students to
develop listening and literacy skills.
In the scholarly article “Learning by Design: Creating Knowledge
through Library Storytime Production,” researchers state that
librarians must “plan, deliver and reflect on storytimes in implicit
ways that seem to align with design principles.” As a result, this new
model of design focuses on two primary exchanges that influence each
other significantly: from storytime planning to storytime delivery and
from peer mentoring to self-reflection. Further, school librarians must
plan for future library storytime sessions as they reflect on both the
successes and drawbacks of past presentations. The researchers conclude
by calling for greater attention to how storytime planning and
execution are design-focused processes.
How Librarians Serve Students
Another common misconception is that librarians are laser-focused on
promoting reading – primarily of fiction. But this simply isn’t true in
the modern educational climate. In addition to their focus on
reading, library teachers are responsible for promoting
information and digital literacies, which help democratize academic
standards and provide students access to learning resources otherwise
unavailable.
Overcoming Barriers through Information Literacy Instruction
School library faculty don many hats to promote student learning, and
modern librarians have demonstrated a firm commitment to centering
diversity in libraries. According to an article in the academic journal
American Society for Information Science and Technology, improved
technological instruction on assignments through librarian intervention
can help students with learning disabilities and barriers.
Specifically, school librarians have found novel ways to connect with
students of diverse achievement levels. In the article, researchers
monitored the ways that 11th-grade students in a remedial education
program navigated a major research project for an American Literature
course. The goal of the study was to observe and offer solutions to
areas that these students found challenging or inaccessible.
Notably, the researchers discovered that “technological and
instructional mediation would motivate the students’ interest in their
information seeking and use.” In other words, as libraries continue to
modernize and offer information literacy resources in technologically
inviting ways, students will be able to navigate research databases and
library systems in totally digital capacities. These resources include
digital archives, national library databases & collections, online
databases of text, still images and audio, video and digital documents.
As a result, they will be significantly better prepared to conduct
independent research and think critically while they prepare to enter
the next stage of their academic and professional lives.
As these technological innovations have begun to take hold in academic
settings, libraries have played a monumentally important role in
inviting college students to hone their information literacy. As an
academic article published in the scholarly journal Health Information
and Libraries Journal notes, librarians play a unique role in preparing
students to grapple with scholarship across an array of disciplines.
While researchers focus on the benefits and drawbacks of the ways
librarians teach information literacy practices, they also
unequivocally highlight that “library-based information literacy
teaching is perhaps even more relevant and useful to graduates and
practicing professionals than it was in the days where the focus was on
the use of a particular bibliographic tool or index.”
Prior to the advent of the internet as a research tool, librarians in
university settings and some high schools focused heavily on citation
methods and formats. In today’s technological landscape, though, school
librarians play a much more critical role in helping students to
understand the validity and legitimacy of sources. Researchers argued
in this article that some of the information literacy skills taught in
universities have little real-world application. At the same time,
though, they showcase the importance of critical thinking that school
library faculty facilitate in their information literacy instruction.
Margaret K. Merga, a scholar featured in the academic journal Literacy,
highlights that the value of school libraries can be seen in how their
“most expected contribution relates to the fostering of literacy and
literature learning through wide reading and reading engagement in
students.” At the same time, there are some different learning barriers
that school librarians help students overcome based on Merga’s study of
30 schools:
Time management and task prioritization
Packed and overwhelming curriculum
Difficulty engaging students
Demotivation
Budgeting limitations
Merga concludes that “attention needs to be given to these barriers to
support the important role that school [libraries] and their librarians
can play in fostering the learning of contemporary students.” With this
logic, it’s clear that library teachers today help with so much more
than just issuing books or introducing students to navigating the
shelves.
Language Learning in the Modern Library
Outside of basic literacy adoption practices, the value of school
libraries can also be seen in the ways librarians help students learn
new languages. An article recently published in The Modern Language
Journal applies a linguistic, ethnographic approach to understand
better how information assistants and librarians engage in
“translanguaging.” Translanguaging is a novel concept that helps
language learners understand better the “communicative practices in
which people engage as they bring into contact different biographies,
histories and linguistic backgrounds.”
While the researchers for this study focused on the benefits of the
public library on language adoption, school librarians can also
intervene in the learning process. As arbiters of information,
librarians can help students locate reading materials and online
resources that will ultimately give students a greater understanding
and a deeper context of the language. Moreover, students will have
access to these reading materials and digital resources – including
talk-to-translate, virtual reality language learning, language learning
apps and language learning software – offered in libraries that could
otherwise be unavailable at home.
Why Are School Libraries Important in the Information Age?
Libraries across the country are modernizing in unexpected ways. As
technology continues to advance, it becomes more accessible. Librarians
have adapted, and outside of the digital archiving and expanded
information literacy focuses they have taken on, they have also begun
exploring other forms of media to offer educational support to
students. For example, as the New York Times reported in April 2020,
the Library of Congress has created a new digital tool to help aspiring
DJs. The tool is called Citizen DJ:
“Users can access a pool of free-to-use sounds from the library’s audio
and moving-image collections, including recordings from vaudeville
acts, interviews with entertainers, speeches and rights-free music.
They can select a sound to remix or download sounds in bulk, all while
being encouraged to engage with the original source material.”
This specific process of introducing new technologies has become
important for librarians, as it aligns with an overall ethos that
focuses on discovery, exploration, understanding and appreciation to
fuel a creative process. Technological progress is ultimately helping
school library faculty become more versatile in the way they serve
students.
Our technological climate has fundamentally changed how school library
faculty help both students and fellow teachers. As a result, there’s
beginning to be more room for collaboration between technology
specialists and librarians, which could be the next breakthrough in
school libraries, according to Lois D. Wine in the Journal of Education
for Library and Information Science.
Wine stated that as technological advancements have made educational
resources more accessible, more positions for digital media librarians
have been added to schools. These new librarians:
Offer support to teachers as they introduce technology into their lesson plans
Train teachers and students on how to use new technology
Suggest new media technologies for schools to buy
Recommend policy and process procedures regarding technology
School library faculty have begun to administer dynamic and new
initiatives to get teachers and students on the same page with
information literacy.
The Modernized Learning Process in the Library
Outside of the ways that librarians can help prepare students for
different technological landscapes, libraries themselves can
incorporate different technologies to help with learning process.
Alison Marcotte of American Libraries wrote about the ways that some
libraries are employing virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR)
and mixed reality (MR) to build engaging learning materials. These
features give students a unique opportunity to dive into “immersive
virtual field trips, such as a walk through the solar system… or a walk
around a refugee camp,” allowing students to grapple with natural
phenomena or better empathize with marginalized perspectives in
substantive ways. Additionally, this level of immersion will build
truly memorable experiences for students, and as the technology becomes
more accessible and widely used, school librarians will be able to
create resonant, innovative lessons.
This interactive measure isn’t exclusive to VR, AR or MR measures,
though. As technology has progressed and become more accessible,
libraries are uniquely poised to act as makerspaces, as physical areas
where collaboration among students is encouraged. For example,
according to an academic article titled “Library as Collaboratory,”
Miami University’s Business, Engineering, Science and Technology
Library features a 3D printer that has “developed into a high demand
service that promotes learning for a broad range of users.” The 3D
printing opportunity has caused a swell of interdisciplinary interest
among students at the university, and as a result, more students have
begun to engage in “printing tasks, gaining technical skills and
enabling the library to expand its services.”
This is a significant step for a number of reasons. For one, because
this library has elected to progress technologically by hosting a 3D
printer, students will gain real-world experience in fields they have
already demonstrated an interest in joining. Second, the school library
as a makerspace firmly and outwardly marks itself as a place that
invites innovation. Students will be more inclined to try new designs,
calculate new prints and even fail in their independent projects as
they learn the capabilities of the machine. As a result, students will
be much better prepared to engage with emerging technologies and pursue
STEM careers later in life.
The Value of School Libraries on the Web
At the same time that some school libraries promote educational
technologies, others have begun to tap into another trend of the 21st
century: social media. Social media practices between public and school
libraries have historically served as barriers for getting students
interested in digital, informational and technological literacy
adoption.
An article titled “Social Media Practices and Support in U.S. Public
Libraries and School Library Media Centers” proposes that as libraries
“harness the power of social networking tools,” they will experience a
greater engagement with students, and specifically with teens. In a
qualitative survey of 750 public libraries and 750 school libraries,
the researchers discovered that public school policies often act as
barriers to the ability for school libraries to engage with students on
social media. Overwhelmingly, public school library policy would
prohibit students from posting while at school.
Further, researchers found that after eliminating these obstacles and
promoting responsible social media sharing, libraries are uniquely
poised to use social media channels and interactions as learning
moments. By sharing new information with students and faculty or by
promoting a higher level of visibility in the library, library
educators have a unique chance to introduce students to novel library
resources. As a result, libraries may have an opportunity to provide
teenage students a roadmap for appropriate internet etiquette,
particularly through social media channels.
The Continued Importance of School Libraries
Schools resoundingly feature libraries and digital media centers. As
the National Center for Education Statistics stated, as recently as
2016, “95% of elementary schools and 82% of secondary schools had a
library or media center.” These facilities will continue to need
administrators trained to serve students’ literacy needs and adapt to
new technologies.
The value of school libraries is vital for lifelong development of
students. School librarians help reinforce critical thinking,
independent research and information literacy skills. According to
School Library Journal, the number of traditional school librarians has
decreased during the past 20 years, but these positions haven’t
disappeared. Instead, their roles and responsibilities have evolved
— the number of library instructional coordinators has more than
doubled.
Because of this demand for modern librarians, it’s never been a better
time to make an impact as a school librarian. To successfully secure a
position on a school’s library faculty, it’s often necessary to have
the appropriate certification. An online Master of Education in Library
Media is an excellent way to gain the foundation to build an inviting,
inclusive and productive library space.
At the University of West Alabama, you will become familiar with the
ins and outs of instructional media and school library services as you
engage with topics including information literacy, reference services
and library technology. In one year, you can navigate the program’s
online classroom while maintaining your personal and professional
responsibilities. Learn more about the program today and begin your
path to leading a school’s library media center.
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