Teacher librarians are qualified educators, however their educational contribution many not be well known or acknowledged, and they receive scant consideration in the educational research literature. ...As perception of the valuing of one's profession can influence job satisfaction and morale, this study explores teacher librarians' perceptions of the valuing of their profession in contemporary schools. The teacher librarians interviewed did not typically feel secure in the knowledge that their profession is valued, identifying a range of factors that contributed to this perspective. Respondents often perceived a high level of vulnerability when comparing themselves to their classroom teacher colleagues. Staffing vulnerability, their status as educators outside the classroom, patchy teacher support, low administrator regard and understanding, and the decline of valuing of the profession over time were raised as potential issues influencing teacher librarians' morale. However, teacher librarians often sought to be more effective advocates for their role, refusing to passively accept the status quo. Findings suggest that school administrators may play a powerful role in promoting the valuing of this profession.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, NUK, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Recently, many articles co-authored by librarians have been published in non-library and information science journals. This may indicate that embedded librarians are actively working as research ...partners in various fields. However, studies have rarely discussed the roles and experience of embedded librarians and, unlike the USA and European countries, the activities of embedded librarians in Korea are not well reported. This study collected and analysed co-authored articles from Korean faculty and librarians. In addition to identifying the role of the embedded librarian by analysing the author-contributions texts of the articles, the study examined the backgrounds of librarians and the difficulties of collaborating through interviews with librarian authors. The results of the analyses show that the number of collaborative articles by faculty and embedded librarians increased over the years and, of these, almost 70% were medical publications. The roles of the librarians outlined in the author-contributions texts were as reported in previous studies but, in many cases, their role was more significant than traditional liaison work, such as reporting the study’s methodology or approving the final draft. In the interviews, the embedded librarians expressed that they had experienced some difficulties, such as lack of time, insufficient guidelines and an inadequate curriculum in their library and information science department. For librarians to be recognized as research partners, they need to communicate well with team members and have knowledge, skills and abilities related to the research. Further, to achieve this collaboration, the curriculum of departments should be reformed. If such efforts are made, it is expected that embedded librarians will continue to excel in their role as liaison librarians, which has contributed to supporting research projects.
Full text
Available for:
NUK, OILJ, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The constant change in technology, its impact on the electronic information environment and complex library users are forcing academic librarians to majorly change their skill set. Patrons no longer ...request for physical information but are accessing and retrieving information electronically. This study investigated the current training needs of librarians in Tanzanian academic libraries with the aim of developing microlearning intervention for training. Using a self-administered questionnaire, data were collected from 138 librarians in six Tanzanian academic libraries. Results identified the most important competencies and skills needed by the librarians and also identified barriers to librarians training. Identifying librarians' training needs will accelerate the training required for the librarians to gain current expertise based on need. Using microlearning for training will eliminate the barriers to librarians' training. Increasing training and learning efficiency is crucial if these academic libraries are to maintain relevance and continue to meet the needs of their users.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, NUK, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
What draws the ADHD brain to a job like librarianship? I was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 42, five years into my career as a teaching librarian at a large public university. As I talked to ...colleagues and interacted with fellow librarians online, I noticed a trend of librarians being open and honest about their neurodivergence. As a result, this autoethnography explores my personal experience as a teaching librarian with ADHD. I will outline how ADHD affects my role in the following areas: being part of a team, leading a classroom, collaborating with faculty, and managing planning, grading, and communications. I explore these themes through six common ADHD traits: idealism, being an empath, rejection sensitivity dysphoria, being scatter brained, imposter syndrome, and hyperfocus. I will explore how these traits affect me daily, as well as how they have affected my career trajectory.
Purpose
– This paper aims to provide a systematic review of the specific roles information professionals have adopted in the past 14 years. It aims to identify the roles reported in the literature ...concerning developments in the Library and Information Science (LIS) profession.
Design/methodology/approach
– This study adopted the method of systematic review. Searches were conducted in February and March 2014 on different LIS databases. From a total of 600 papers, 114 were selected, based on specific inclusion and exclusion criteria. A thorough full-text analysis of the papers revealed six roles that librarians have adopted: teachers, technology specialists, embedded librarians, information consultants, knowledge managers and subject librarians.
Findings
– New and evolving roles were identified, mainly in the context of academic libraries. Librarians’ educational responsibilities and their active involvement in the learning and research process were highlighted in all role categories identified. Collaboration among faculty and librarians was reported as a way of ensuring successful instruction. Librarians’ personal views of their new and emerging roles were more frequently reported; further research is needed to shed light on academics, students and other users’ perceptions of librarians’ engagement in the learning process.
Research limitations
– The study considered only peer-reviewed papers published between 2000 and 2014 in English. It focused on information professionals’ roles and not on librarians’ skills and their changing professional responsibilities.
Originality/value
– This review paper considers the development of the LIS profession in a changing environment and offers an understanding of the future direction of the LIS profession.
This study examined how Finnish teachers and public librarians worked together after attending a literacy programme. During the programme the participant partners planned and implemented literacy ...activities which they shared with other participating partners. After the program, four participating partners were interviewed. A theoretical model that distinguished levels of cooperation, coordination, and collaboration was used in the analysis of the interview data and in describing the depth of partnerships. Despite experience in the programme the partnerships between teachers and librarians were mostly cooperative and coordinative. This study highlights the need to clarify the meaning of the concepts pertaining to working together as previous research has mostly applied the concept of collaboration to partnerships that do not meet the associated criteria.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, NUK, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
In the Eye of the Beholder Church, Gary Mason
The Reference librarian,
01/2013, Volume:
37, Issue:
78
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
As with beauty and other concepts, librarians have been viewed in many subjective ways. On the other hand, some attempts have also been made to obtain more objective views of librarians. This paper ...provides a summary of these views, or images, that extend back to the early 18th century. It presents the many traits that comprise these images, the sources or origins of the images, the various groups that hold the images, and ends with a reason why current images are indefinite and "blurry."
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, NUK, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Purpose/significance Personality adjectives are often used to describe job requirements in the recruitment information of foreign data librarians. These personality characteristics have a lot to do ...with the matching ability of the data librarian. It is of great significance to identify the personality characteristics of data librarians and determine the importance of all kinds of personality in the work of data librarians for the recruitment of university data Librarians in China. Method/process To investigate the recruitment information of university data librarian in IASSIST, and to analyze the personality characteristics of the candidates from the five factors of the "Big Five" personality by using the methods of network investigation and content analysis. Result/conclusion In the recruitment of foreign university data librarians, personality characteristics such as innovation, initiative, and cooperation are emphasized. Extroverted personality and open personality among the "Big Five" personality ar
While librarians in schools often face significant budgetary cuts, they can play an important role in supporting learning in literacy and literature. However, little is known about the practices that ...they may employ to this end. Of particular interest is the role of librarians in schools in supporting struggling readers, as these students may be increasingly disadvantaged as they move through the years of schooling. Semi-structured interview data were collected from teacher librarians at 30 schools and analysed to identify practices exercised by teacher librarians that aligned with extant research around supporting struggling readers. Teacher librarians provided support by identifying struggling readers, providing them with age and skill-appropriate materials, undertaking skill scaffolding supporting choice, supporting students with special needs, providing one-to-one matching, promoting access to books, enhancing the social position of books and reading, reading aloud to students, facilitating silent reading, and preparing students for high-stakes literacy testing.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, NUK, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
PDF
