Interesting views...
I have rarely seen a librarian in the last five years that does only
clerical work and completely ignoring classrooms, teachers, and students
on a collaborative or information-teaching role. My opinion is if that
is what is happening in the library, then two things are occurring:
1. the library program is dead
2. administrators don't really care about the library or what happens
in them
Librarians in this position want a cave to run and hide into - a domain
they can control and oversee - and welcome signs are not up and students
and teachers don't even know the librarian's name.
I would venture to guess that librarians have a teaching background and
know how important collaboration is. But it's always not in the form of
person to person/class to person. Technology has gained so much in the
foothold of education, it's possible to collaborate and teach virtually
- and sometimes students like this forum much more than traditional
lecture and paperwork. They are digital natives, for the most part.
But this isn't to push aside clerical work. Cataloging is important,
but once again, technology to the rescue! (Thank goodness!!) I was of
the mindset that if I couldn't process books (ie shelf ready vs. raw)
then I wouldn't know what came in...but now I have them mostly processed
with me and staff (including student aides) who do some partial work on
them. Simply because I HAVE to look at them, read inside and decide
which ones I'll choose to booktalk, share, work into a collaborative
project, etc...
Teachers bring home work to grade, tests to create, projects to
amend...and librarians should do that as well. If it's a 9-5 job with
the door closed promptly and work left for another day...well, just
another reason why libraries don't have the clout they should have.
Naomi Bates
Northwest High School Library
Justin, Texas
nbates@nisdtx.org
817-215-0203
>>> Sarah Latcham <Latcham.Sarah@ICCSD.K12.IA.US> 2/27/2008 3:02 PM
>>>
Hello -
I am a teacher librarian. I have never taught in a classroom that
wasn't
a library and I have never worked in a library that wasn't a school. I
think it is rather short-sighted to say that teachers can't be
librarians (as far as cataloging and processing books goes) or that
librarians can't be teachers. I believe that all librarians whatever
the
type should be teachers for their patrons educating their patrons on
how
to become better users of information. I also believe that my catalog
is
the best it can be. Managing our 2 "hats" of teaching and managing the
collection takes time (much outside of the workday) and dedication.
I would hope that we could be more open-minded about our fellow
librarians and not lump people into categories. It is unfortunate that
we have dealings with people who are unable to manage all facets of
the
job, but blasting all people is unfair.
Sarah C. Latcham
Teacher Librarian
Hills Elementary
301 Main St.
Hills IA, 52235
319-688-1107
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