Evidence that we matter

As Karen Bonanno (2011) points out teacher librarians cannot be all things to all people all of the time. However, the AISTL professional standards for teachers and the ASLA teacher librarian evidence guides provide an opportunity for teacher librarians to become proficient and later, highly accomplished in a range of diverse capabilities over time. Moreover, providing evidence of the important work done by teacher librarians to support teachers, staff and the community via the standards is a powerful way to advocate for our profession and the essential role we play in schools.

I recently attended a professional learning seminar with Karen Bonanno and June Wall, which was a fantastic way to start my "teacher librarian in training" pathway. Some of the themes Karen mentioned in her ASLA keynote address (2011), for example advocacy and taking advantage of opportunities where discussed within the more current context. However, June made two observations that I have thought about often since.

Firstly, she commented that she has always operated under the premise that teacher librarians (TL) should be working to make themselves redundant. That is, to support the school community so well that they develop the knowledge and skills to work independently. Moreover, that the key element of the teacher librarian role is in enabling what others can do, rather than on what the TL does.

Secondly, she asked "who is the teacher librarian's main audience?", meaning, should we be targeting our work towards the needs of principals, students or teachers. After much debate and discussion, I currently believe that TL's should be working to support the needs of teachers. By building the capacity of teachers, by providing them with high quality resources, we can get the most impact for our efforts as they integrate these knowledge and skills within their teaching and learning programs and have greater opportunities to directly teach the students in their class.

Therefore, I view the roles of the teacher librarian as leader and instructional partner more highly than the others identified by Purcell (2010), however, I also recognise that these roles cannot happen without the others. The varied roles work together to make up all the work that the teacher librarian does to support the school community.

References

Australian School Library Association (ASLA) (2011) A profession at the tipping point: Time to change the game plan. Keynote presentation, Karen

Bonanno. Retrieved from https ://vimeo.com/31003940

Purcell, M. (2010) All librarians do is check out books right? A look at the roles of the school library media specialist. Library Media Connection 29(3), 30-33. Available via CSU Library's Academic Search Complete database