The Atlas of New Librarianship by David Lankes

I've just found 10 mins to read the chapter written by Buffy Hamilton, a school librarian in a previous life, who is now an language arts teacher. This book and chapter written in 2011 is all about creating the conversation with teachers, students and the senior leaders to ensure that school librarians play a role in enquiry based learning. As I read I could honestly say that at Schools Library Service much of this we are doing, as well as we can. As I read it made me realise that the current discussion about #GreatSchoolLibraries has to take all these skills into consideration.

School librarians need to focus on several things including information literacy, reading for pleasure and the day to day running of the library including displays, book clubs and lots more. I feel that if we can all support each other to do as much as this as we can we will be on the right track. One should not be more important than the other and as much as I can hear everyone say that we can't do it all we have to find a way to balance it. There is no point in this new campaign saying that your school librarian can do XY and Z only for teachers to get disappointed when they find that actually their school librarian does not do this.

I would be interested to hear what other school librarians do in their schools or if you are a teacher what your school librarian currently offers.

Hi Elizabeth, it's @ljwattsWales

I agree we should be at least trying to 'do it all', although I realise that paid-for hours and school librarians being classed as 'part-time' conspires against us. I really do not want teachers to think that we are solely a subdivision of the English department and devoted only to reading fiction for enjoyment. I think there are obstacles, however. Teachers are frequently unaware of what librarians can do. From what I can understand, working with your school librarian is not mentioned in teacher training and I have no idea how well, if at all, school librarianship is covered on librarianship courses. I did a module in university, but that was decades ago and all I remember is a lot of stuff about buildings and puppet shows (?!!) I don't remember anything about how schools work or pedagogy.

I'm guessing that, at present, it is a case of individual librarians working hard to show schools what they are capable of. But, if schools think it's a job 'anyone can do' with no experience, low pay and few hours, then it's a Catch-22 situation.

My school has little inquiry-based learning in lower years, so my contribution is aimed at sixth formers, especially those doing the EPQ or extended essays and personal investigations and is totally at teacher's discretion.

I don't really think we, as individuals, should be doing or even attempting to do everything. If we try this we will burn out or just lose heart (I don't know which is worse). There is definitely a need for us to use tools or put programmes in place to assist our students and teachers. 

I work as a library technician part-time in 2 schools (catholic systemic schools) - a senior high (yrs 11 &12) and a primary (K-6). I also get casual work in other schools within the diocese. I am in a position where I see TLs offer different solutions, if I could call it that, to support their school.

One teacher has set up a website where he gives his students a platform to share their content. Another TL has bookclubs for her students at lunch-time and also has an Instagram account where she keeps track of her book trail. Yet another has created Pinterest boards where she curates curriculum-linked resources for her teachers. Most schools have activities during the week long celebration of Book Week - competitions, book fairs, book parades, etc. This is specially popular in the primary schools. At my school (senior high) we put out jigsaw puzzles and colouring pages to help the students de-stress. It was extremely popular specially in the lead-up to exams.

We have to tailor our support and offerings to best meet the needs of our 'clients'!!! The biggest obstacle to this is a lack of support from administration. This ranges from the overt, dismantling school libraries and not replacing retiring TLs with TLs, to the covert, reducing staffing hours in the library.

Leslie I agree that training for both teachers and school librarians is lacking and this is a real problem. If I was in charge this is the first thing I would change. Schools are not really sure what to expect from their librarian which is really frustrating if you are a librarian who is ready to support and teach enquiry based learning. The value of the school librarian really only comes to light if the senior management truly understand what is on offer from the qualified librarian.

Annie, I think that there is a balance to be struck. However, I think that If there is the opportunity to support enquiry based learning then a school librarian should be focusing on that. Not that I don't think that the reading and literacy is not important, it obviously is, but I wonder if we can do that in a different way. We are about to make this transition at SLS this year. We have reached maximum capacity and it is time for a change. The book awards that we have spent a lot of classroom time on will have to start taking a back seat and we will look at doing a beginning and end session rather than doing every session. This will free up time to support research based lessons or to create training sessions for teachers.

The lack of support reduced hours and poor pay is by far the biggest obstacles that we all face. Doing what we can with what we have is currently the best we can do and I think we are all doing a great job!

I agree that we do need to be at least trying to do 'most of it all' where possible. The role of the school librarian is multi faceted and the more we can show others that we can do the better this will be for the profession. I've found difficulties in the past stemming from school leadership's understanding of the role and the constraints they put on librarians - unwilling to change their blinkered 'reading for pleasure only' viewpoints. I think another problem is sometimes with teachers being unaware of the difference between the results garnered from good research sessions and the copying and pasting that is all too prevalent in our schools.