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Placement Analysis

The following is a reflection on library practices at the site. It critiques the alignment of practice with the scholarly and professional literature and the framework of the AITSL Standards for Teacher Librarians at the highly accomplished level (AITSL, 2014). This analysis forms the basis of the recommendations for improvement.
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Despite the fact that a wealth of data demonstrates the significant positive impact qualified teacher librarians have on teaching and learning (Hughes et al., 2013; Scholastic Library Publishing, 2016) the library is currently staffed by a Library Assistant and lacks coherent leadership. Some aspects of the traditional teacher librarian role are covered by a Literacy Coordinator, a Head of Pedagogy, and individual classroom teachers, however the lack of cohesion and time allocation results in significant gaps and overlaps.

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The library itself is a large and welcoming space which is frequently accessed by both staff and students. Unfortunately, the potential of the library is severely limited by its conceptualisation as a building with books. Across all site materials -- including the publicly available website, the intranet portal and the Staff Handbook – the library is mentioned only as a place for meetings and borrowing textbooks. Circulation data confirms this focus, with textbooks comprising the vast bulk of student borrowing.

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The lack of qualified staff and the vision of the library as a building with (text)books has resulted in a model that is grossly out of step with best practice. To avoid simply expounding on this misalignment, an Analysis of Strategic Vision at the site (available below) was undertaken to identify areas of focus. This heavily informed the development of the SWOT analysis featured on this page and led to a more detailed examination of practice at the site regarding the key areas of supporting meaningful ICT integration, developing literacies, and managing the collection.

Supporting ICTs

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) plays such a vital role in education today that it is highlighted as a General Capability in the Australian Curriculum. The strategic vision at the site therefore emphasises the integration of ICT’s across all subject areas. In practice however, this is complicated by the digital divide experienced by students, the lack of ICT resources at the school and workload intensification issues which can make the meaningful integration ICT’s overwhelming for a classroom teacher. According to best practice, a teacher librarian can address this by assisting colleagues “to create, select and use a wide range of resources, including ICT, to engage students in their learning” by ensuring that the collection includes a range of suitable digital resources which are accessible through the library catalogue (Standard 3.4, AITSL, 2014). This is a significant area of opportunity for the library and I have therefore begun to curate lists of appropriate ICT tools and which meet the needs of the site’s context and develop short guides for using them. There is still room for significant development, for example the lists and guides would ideally be shared on the Library OPAC (Online Public Access Catalogue), which is still not able to be accessed by students or widely used by staff. Furthermore, La Marca (2013, p. 7) suggests that digital literacies be developed in parallel with traditional literacies by incorporating web 2.0 tools and other software into existing reading programs. This would certainly be an appropriate way to foster skill growth within the existing framework. Best practice also demands that teacher librarians’ model and teach the safe, responsible, and ethical use of ICT (Standard 4.5, AITSL, 2014). For example, the library could facilitate a collaborative project with the junior Digital Technologies classes to design infographics relating to digital citizenship, copyright and safe online behaviour to be displayed in the library. As well as promoting safe and ethical ICT use, this would encourage staff and student ownership of and involvement with the library (Coatney & Harada, 2017, p. 140). Finally, ethical ICT use must be rigorously pursued within the library. For example, an oversight resulting in student data being inadvertently shared with an external agency without the appropriate permissions, could easily be addressed.  

Developing Literacies

As well as supporting digital literacies, teacher librarians have a vital role in supporting information literacy and inquiry learning. Lupton (2015, p. 18) broadly defines information literacy and inquiry learning as “tasks that involve searching, finding, evaluating, organising and presenting information.” According to best practice models, teacher librarians should determine the most efficient way to teach the use of guided inquiry skills (Standard 1.2, AITSL, 2014) whilst considering the needs of the various learners in their context (Standard 1.1, AITSL, 2014) and integrating appropriate ICT’s to support the selected approach (Standard 2.6, AITSL, 2014). Although the site currently does not have a whole school approach to inquiry learning or information literacy, a review of internal curriculum documents reveals that it already occurs across a variety of departments including Humanities, Science and Health & Physical Education. Unfortunately, the library is not involved in developing or resourcing information literacy or inquiry learning and a valuable opportunity to create a coherent approach is therefore being missed. Teacher librarians should also foster inquiry learning and information literacy by collaborating with teachers to design challenging tasks (Standard 3.1, AITSL, 2014) which are relevant to real world issues (Standard 3.3, AITSL, 2014)  but still allow students to experience success (Standard 4.1, AITSL, 2014) and then select and promote resources to support these tasks (Standard 3.4, AITSL, 2014). They should support teachers to develop assessment tasks which use these skills (Standard 5.2, AITSL, 2014) and cross mark the resulting student work (Standard 5.3, AITSL, 2014). As there are currently no processes or time allocation for collaboration with teachers, no digital resource management and no consistent approach to inquiry learning, the library has significant room for improvement in meeting best practice in this area. Reading for pleasure is an important aspect of literacy development. At the site, attempts have been made to ensure resources are organised in a manner that makes the collection accessible and engaging (Standard 2.2, AITSL, 2014). Fiction is partially genrefied for easy access and the Library Assistant displays new fiction arrivals by the front door. Book reviews are also displayed by the circulation desk along with photos of staff members reading. Although these measures promote reading for pleasure, they rely on students accessing the library space and rely exclusively on print media. Indeed, analysis of the site’s LMS demonstrated that the library’s significant holdings of both fiction and non-fiction are failing to circulate, indicating that collection management practices may need to be addressed to ensure a relevant collection.

Collection Management

The selection of resources for a library is a fundamental aspect of the teacher librarian role (Evans & Saponaro, 2012). Despite Education Queensland’s confident assertion that, "(t)he school library… ensures each student has equitable access to resources, irrespective of home opportunities or constraints” (Department of Education, 2019), the competing demands of school budgets makes this unrealistic. The collection at the site is made up exclusively of print resources, which is contrary to best practice (Standard 2.6, 3.2, 3.4, 4.5, AITSL, 2014). Ideally a range of eBooks, audiobooks, websites, databases, digital videos and apps would also be available to allow exposure to digital objects (Kenny, 2013). As in many other schools, the acquisition of digital resources (particularly databases) is seen as simply too costly (Commonwealth of Australia, 2011, p. 26). However, there is much free or low-cost digital content which could add benefit to teaching and learning if accessible through the OPAC (Haughey & Muirhead, 2005). Digital curation is a priority for improving alignment with best practice, with the ethical issue of the digital divide making the support of such access a pressing concern (Mardis, 2016). Best practice is also lacking regarding the selection of print resources, which is undertaken through a generic subscription to Scholastic. Although this supplies many high-quality texts, they are not necessarily representative of, or relevant to, the school community. The library is part of a coeducational secondary school that serves a culturally and linguistically diverse community experiencing a high level of socioeconomic disadvantage and their specific needs are not being accounted for. Significantly, Lance, Schwarz & Marcia (2012) have found that disadvantaged students, such as those at the site, benefit proportionally more than other students from access to qualified teacher librarians. Indeed, best practice models explicitly urge teacher librarians to "Support colleagues to develop effective teaching strategies that address the learning strengths and needs of students from diverse linguistic, cultural, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds" (Standard 1.3). A selection process which reflects the community context, resources the curriculum as enacted at the school, is relevant to teaching and learning needs, and aligns with the school vision would ensure compatibility with the AITSL Standards for teacher librarian practice (2014). At this site, reflecting the diverse student population (Standards 1.3 & 1.4, AITSL, 2014), supporting their specific literacy challenges (Standards 1.5, 2.1 & 2.2, AITLS, 2014), and selecting and organising content aligned to the teaching and learning sequences (Standard 2.2, AITSL, 2014) would have great value to the school community. An example of a proposed collection aligned to user needs, and a bibliographic database developed using ContectDM can be found below, along with There is certainly vast potential for improvement in aligning collection management at the site with best practice models. 

References

Australian Library and Information Association [ALIA]. (2014). AITSL Standards for teacher librarian practice. Retrieved February 20, 2020, from https://www.alia.org.au/sites/default/files/AITSL%20Standards%20for%20teacher%20librarian%20practice%202014.pdf.

 

Coatney, S., & Harada, V. (2017). The many faces of school library leadership (Second edition.). Santa Barbara, California: Libraries Unlimited, an imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC.

 

Commonwealth of Australia. (2011). School libraries and teacher librarians in 21st century Australia. Retrieved February 20, 2020, from http://www.aph.gov.au/parliamentary_business/committees/house_of_representatives_committees%20?url=ee/schoollibraries/report/index.htm.

 

Department of Education. (2019, April 17), Education History and School Library Support [Intranet]. Retrieved February 5 2020 from OnePortal.

 

Evans, G., & Saponaro, M. (2012). Collection Management Basics (6. ed.). Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO.

 

Haughey, M. & Muirhad, B. (2005). Evaluating learning objects for schools. Retrieved March 14 2020 from http://www.usq.edu.au/electpub/ejist/docs/vol8_no1/fullpapers/Haughey_Muirhead.pdf

 

Hughes, H., Leigh, T., Osborne, M., Fraser, S., Kahl, C. & Reynolds, H. (2013). School libraries, teacher-librarians and literacy at Gold Coast schools: Research findings. Synergy, 11(2), 1-9.

 

Kenny, C. (2013). School Library Collections Survey 2013. Connections 88(1), 9– 10.

 

La Marca, S. (2013). Curriculum, Culture and Community: The School Library and the General Capabilities of the Australian Curriculum. International Association of School Librarianship. International Association of School Librarianship, 242–253. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1621840535/

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Lance, Schwarz & Marcia. (2012). How Pennsylvania School Libraries Pay Off: Investments in Student Achievement and Academic Standards. Retrieved March 14, 2020, from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED543418.pdf

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Lupton, M. (2015). Teacher librarians' understandings of inquiry learning. Access (Online), 29(4), 18-29. Retrieved from https://gateway.library.qut.edu.au/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/1764658513?accountid=13380

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Mardis, M. (2016). The collection program in schools: Concepts and practices (6th ed.). Retrieved April 1, 2020, from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

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Scholastic Library Publishing. (2016). School libraries work! A compendium of research supporting the effectiveness of school libraries. Retrieved March 14, 2020, from http://www.scholastic.com/SLW2016/.

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