Librarians Are Teachers Too

By Stacey Anter

The Library Detective

This week is Teacher Appreciation week and seeing that last month was School Library Media Month, I just wanted to share with you exactly what school librarians do. As a former school librarian, I can say with the utmost certainty that many people don’t realize just what a school librarian does.. They are also known as school library media specialists, and they are also teachers as well as librarians.  As a matter of fact, school librarians wear many hats.  They are multi-faceted, multi-tasking mavens.  Their roles are described in the American Library Association publication, Information Power: Building Partnerships for Learning. They are teachers, instructional consultants, information specialists, and program coordinators. 

As teachers, they teach information research skills in accordance with National and State Standards. They teach “information literacy”, which basically means, they teach students how to figure out what information they need, how to find and use the available resources in order to obtain the information needed, and to sift through the information and be able to state it in their own words for whatever purpose. 

As an instructional consultant, they collaborate with teachers in identifying relationships between student information needs with regard to the curriculum and a variety of available print, non-print, and electronic information sources.  When information research skills are taught in context with what is learned in the classroom, students are more likely to understand and be more receptive to learning information literacy skills.

As an information specialist, they are experts in selecting and evaluating information resources in all formats. They bring about an awareness of information issues such as copyright infringement and plagiarism.  They demonstrate the strategies used for locating, accessing, and evaluating information in hopes of instilling a sense of confidence instead of fear in libraries.

As a program coordinator, they are the library administrator.  Simply stated, they run the entire library program.  They collaborate with other library professionals, teachers, administrators, and members of the learning community to establish library policies; they supervise and manage staff, budget, equipment, and materials, and facilitate all programs. At the elementary level, where they see each and every student in the school during regular daily fixed class schedules, there are more programs that we are expected to take on, such as book fairs and reading challenges.  Aside from all of these roles, as professionals with Masters Degrees in Library and Information Studies, they are constantly continuing their education.  They attend professional conferences; they participate in various forms of professional development that pertain to the many responsibilities of the library media specialist.

Research shows that students who attend schools with good libraries will score higher in achievement. So, next time you hear about budget cuts and teacher consolidations, remember that school librarians/ school library media specialists are more than just librarians.  They are Gods and Goddesses of Google.  They are Emperors and Empresses of Encyclopedias.  They are Multi-faceted, Multi-tasking Mavens.  And proud of it. 

One last note: If you are a teacher, please do not hesitate to contact your local public librarians for assistance. That’s why we’re here. Let us know about upcoming assignments or projects. We’d love to help.

I call myself the Library Detective because I can find the answers to any question you can think of, or at least I can point you in the right direction.  To find out more about school library media specialists, visit your local library; there are more Library Detectives there, too.