The roles of the school librarians as information literacy specialists

Abstract

Purpose– The purpose of this study is to examine and compare the different roles and expectations of the school librarians as information literacy (IL) instructors between Hong Kong, Japan, Shanghai, South Korea, and Taipei. School librarians are not merely managers of the school libraries nowadays; they are also expected to serve as administrators, teaching consultants, information specialists and IL teachers, etc. Unfortunately, in many countries, especially in Asia, there has always been a lack of understanding on the parts of the classroom teachers and school administration about their role as IL specialists in the public school system.Design/methodology/approach– The school librarians in Hong Kong, Japan, Shanghai, South Korea and Taipei were invited to take part in a questionnaire survey. A total number of 466 self-completed questionnaires were collected from all 5 regions.Findings– The results indicated that the school librarians in both Taipei and South Korea outperformed the other regions, in terms of the scope and extent of duties and responsibilities these school librarians undertook as IL skills instructors. The staffing and organizational structures amongst the school libraries in Taipei also tended to be far more affluent and “departmentalized” in comparison to the other four regions. Results also indicated that the amount of IL instructions carried out by the school librarians were directly proportional to the frequencies of collaborations the school librarians carried out with other subject teachers as well as the extent the librarians themselves could contribute to the curriculum as both information consultants and curriculum facilitators. Finally, the amount and level of reference duties performed by these school librarians for supporting the teaching of other subject teachers was another factor contributing to the overall success of IL instructions programmes being carried out.Originality/value– The complex interactions of global trend and local responses in education system cannot easily be understood without the use of comparative studies (Arnove and Torres, 1999). The value of comparative studies lies in its potentials in highlighting the strengths and deficiencies of the education systems being examined and thereby identifying valuable features of both foreign and local systems, as well as exposing defects for necessary improvements. Nevertheless, there has been a lack of cross-regional comparative research on IL programmes carried out via school libraries in East Asia. This study aims to provide a cross-analysis of empirical data collected in five different regions in East Asia for examining the issues of the role of the school librarians as IL skills specialists, by looking at their relationships with other colleagues as well as their role as curriculum facilitator within the school community as a whole.