The image of a teacher librarian as the soft-spoken, bespectacled woman politely shushing you when you’re talking in the library, is an outdated perception couldn’t be further from the truth. School librarians are highly skilled information and education experts playing key roles in driving student academic performance. They ensure that students make the right reading and information choices, perform at their highest levels, and reach outcomes their parents are proud of.
And yet, many schools have cut back or eliminated their library staff, believing the myth that everything is free on the Internet. Many more are experimenting with replacing teacher librarians with undertrained staff—producing unsatisfactory and low quality student outcomes and library environments.
Schools that make these misguided “penny wise, pound foolish” decisions are failing to recognize the vital contributions that these important, skillful team members make in developing the school’s digital landscape, nurturing reading programs, developing curriculum and educating students.
A teacher librarian will ask the right questions—even the ones no one has thought to ask—and knows which databases and resources will yield the most objective and complete information to assist staff & students, and place that information into context.
The Problem with Free
Of course, anyone can surf the Web’s limitless free information. But that takes time, which for most students is in short supply. A teacher librarian is able to help select and expertly research the most authoritative, objective information sources. These are typically commercial databases and rarely easy to search proficiently. They can teach students how to execute these complex searches in sophisticated databases, where the relevant information is extracted from “noisy” irrelevant content. In the real world, a student’s survival depends on having critical information research skills.
Serving as both consultant, educator and detective, often possessing a master’s or double degree in information and library sciences (from a program accredited by the Australian Library Association), teacher librarians are proactive, innovative, and inquisitive. The role of an expert teacher librarian is easily overlooked, but he or she helps identify what is often unknown and is well positioned to assist in all areas of the curriculum. Good libraries and librarians are like precious gems and have infinite value.
If your school is willing to subject all of their investment of time, funding, and hard work to the vagaries of risk and failure, then having students surf through oceans of un-vetted information on the Internet is fine. But if you want to vastly improve outcomes for all students, then it is time to urgently rethink your stale image of the trusted teacher librarian. •