Library Education Research Articles

Is the West best?: Education for School Information Service Professionals

School Library Educators in developing countries have, in the main, been training School Infomration Professionals using models of education developed in the United States and Europe. While there have been some local modifications to these western models few countries have developed truly local education programs for Infomation Servie Professional. This is due, in part, to the fact that the Information Services that students are being educated to work with are global information services often based on series developed in the United States and Europe. Many of the advisers who helped to set up school library training programs are from Western Countries and a large proportion of the staff lecturing in these programs have been educated in Western Countries. The paper will conclude by discussing if western models of education for School Information Service Professionals are the most appropriate models given the increased globilization of information services or whether locally developed models can best service the needs of those training to work in developing countries.

The United States National Library Power Program: Research, Evaluation and Implications for Professional Development and Library Education

The Library Power Program is a school improvement initiative of the DeWitt-Wallace Reader's Digest Fund that began in 1988. With a total investment exceeding US$45 million, Library Power is the largest nongovernmental funding for school library media programs in over 30 years. It operated in approximately 700 schools and served more than one million students. Library Power sought to create a national vision of public elementary and middle school library media programs through the instructional leadership of the library media specialist, and through partnerships within the district and with the community. An evaluation of the Library Power Program found that the Library Power initiative advanced the notion of a student-centered library media program in a learning community. It showed that given the right conditions, school library media programs can promote positive opportunities for excellence in teaching and learning.

Competencies for Teacher-Librarians: The Malaysian Perspective

Teacher-librarians need specific competencies, knowledge, and skills in order to perform their roles effectively. Very few guidelines and standards exist, however, in developing countries for these competencies. The primary goal of this study was to determine the competencies needed by teacher-librarians in Malaysian secondary schools to effectively perform their roles. The study employed a survey methodology using a population of professionals directly involved in the field of teacher-librarianship: teacher-librarians, library educators, and supervisors. The findings present a Malaysian perspective on the roles and competencies for teacher-librarians and will also be useful in working towards an international framework of competencies.

Competence-based model for modernization of higher library education: Ukraine’s experience

Transition of higher library education in Ukraine from the qualification to competence-based model is characterized. The three-level system, i.e. “Bachelor – Master – Doctor of Philosophy”, being implemented within the new integrated program of study “Information, Librarianship and Archivistics” is reviewed. The competence-based approach was applied in the processes of development and approval of higher education standards for the program “Information, Librari-anship and Archivistics” for the first (bachelor's), second (master's) and third (educational and scientific) levels. The authors emphasized that the systematic ap-proach to selecting essential competences for the program was applied. The experience of developing the program for Ph.D. candidates in this subject area with the focus on cooperation with the applicants and their future employers, individu-al capabilities, their scientific and educational potential, and self-motivation, is discussed. The need for the quality management system based on monitoring and continuing review of the content and structure of educational programs, is sub-stantiated. Among these criteria are: projecting and objectives of educational program, its structure and content; forms and methods of education, its availability; monitoring and assessing learning outcomes; quality of human resources; comfortable educational environment and its material and technical resources; domestic education quality assurance system; transparency and publicity of educational programs.

Qualification requirements in Norwegian public libraries – an analysis of job advertisements

Introduction. For some years practitioners have observed a tendency that local government authorities advertising vacant professional positions in public libraries do not specify an educational background from library and information science as a mandatory qualification for applicants. Are the observers correct? This study aims at answering this question by analysing advertisements for vacant positions. Method. All advertised vacant positions registered at the Norwegian Labour and Welfare organisation in the years 2005, 2010 and 2015 satisfying a definition of having a professional responsibility were coded and analysed in order to see if the demand for professional education has changed over time. Analysis. A consecutive cross-sectional study was undertaken using quantitative content analysis. Results. The research confirmed that a development has taken place with a reduced weight on library education and an increased weight on personal and interpersonal traits between 2005 and 2015. There are differences between local government authorities according to size. The tendency not to ask for library education is strongest with the very small authorities and a few very large cities. Conclusions. Further research with longer time series as well as comparative research is needed to get a fuller understanding of the development.

Factors Hindering High School Library Success as Viewed by Librarians, Teachers and Principals in Israel

The paper presents findings of a wide-scale national study of which one objective was to identify main obstacles hindering high school librarians from successfully carrying out their tasks. Similar detailed questionnaires were mailed to librarians, teachers and principals in a cluster sample of 234 schools (one-third of target population), rendering 137 usable questionnaires (58.5%). The three groups rated quite similarly the obstacles. First and foremost were the scarcities of resources and manpower. Third was inadequate professional training, which was found to include: inadequate training in information technology and in librarianship, scarce skills in management, communication and public relations, as well as lack of training in instruction and lack of familiarity with curriculum and its development. Fourth was the principal's and teaching staff's lack of awareness and recognition of library importance, also acknowledged by principals and teachers. Additional obstacles mentioned were poor physical conditions, discipline problems and the character of the librarian and staff. Recommendations include: promoting understanding of school library and librarian roles by writing Israeli Information Power and by offering courses to principals and teachers on school library's roles, adding personnel positions in school libraries and emphasizing technological topics in library education programs.

Spreading the Gospel of Books: Essae M. Culver and the Genesis of Louisiana Parish Libraries

Louisiana native, archivist, and historian Florence M. Jumonville is singularly qualified to write this work. Her understanding of the culture and politics of Louisiana gives her a particular insight into the complexities of the story she tells and allows her to provide a local flavor to the story.The book's title is somewhat misleading, as the actual content of the book ranges far beyond Miss Culver and the beginnings of Parish Libraries in Louisiana. A prologue provides a concise summary of Louisiana library history from 1805 to 1925, focusing in particular on the role of women's clubs and the Louisiana traveling library. It contextualizes this history within the larger American public library history, as well as Louisiana history, a practice that will be continued throughout the work.The first chapter includes a biographical sketch of Culver's early life as well as a brief overview of her work first as a public librarian in Salem, Oregon, and then as a county librarian in California under Milton J. Ferguson. The body of the work covers Culver's administration as state librarian from 1925 to 1962 and that of Sallie Ferrell from 1962 to 1975.Utilizing Culver's personal and professional journals and papers, as well as manuscript materials found in multiple archival collections at the state library and other repositories, Jumonville describes in detail the social, political, and legal challenges that Culver faced throughout those forty years. Not only was she charged with establishing parish libraries in rural areas that had never had library service, but also, before she could begin, she had to craft the legislation that would make such libraries even possible and convince a populace hostile to the concept of publicly funded services to vote for increased taxes. Later, she was be called on to meet the new demands of the Great Depression, World War II, and the civil rights era.Jumonville does not shy away from addressing racial issues, including both segregation and desegregation of public and school libraries. The Rosenwald Demonstration Library established in Webster Parish in 1929 to serve both the white and black populations, albeit with segregated branches, receives detailed treatment, as do the protests that led to the desegregation of public libraries in 1964. Nor does she restrict herself to events with which Culver was directly involved, but includes relevant events of the time. The history of Angola Prison and other libraries serving the incarcerated is included, as well as the beginnings of education for librarianship and the establishment of the LSU School of Library Science, for instance. Politicians and other leaders who were instrumental in promoting the cause of public libraries—or opposing it—appear throughout the work.The book includes numerous contemporary photographs of people and places, including many that illustrate the unique culture of Louisiana, with its bookmobiles serving patrons who arrive by pirogue on the banks of the bayou. It is easy to read, written in a conversational style, and of interest to anyone interested in the history of libraries and librarianship in the United States.

Confronting the Democratic Discourse of Librarianship: A Marxist Approach

"Confronting the Democratic Discourse of Librarianship: A Marxist Approach." Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, 62(1), p. 106

International and Comparative Librarianship: Concepts and Methods for Global Studies

"International and Comparative Librarianship: Concepts and Methods for Global Studies." Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, 62(1), pp. 104–105

Promotion of reading habit among school children in Sri Lanka

School Library Development in Sri Lanka is a large scale project which covers 4000 schools and includes building construction, distribution of books, furniture and equipment and training of human resources funded by the World Bank. BOBLEP (Book Based Language Enrichment Programme) developed from the concept of reading promotion within the library project. The project not only promotes reading using the purchased books, but it also promotes production of books by school children as well as teachers. It was decided as a result of the success of the project, to expand similar reading promotion activities in general. Teacher and Teacher Librarian education programmes of Sri Lanka incorporated a variety of such activities to train reading promotion among school children. The full paper will present the history and the structure of the project and activities carried out by the teacher librarians to expand it from an English language project to a reading promotion project conducted by the school libraries. It is expected that by sharing the information of this project, other developing countries which face similar constraints in providing suitable reading material can gain useful ideas.

Learning, Changing and Affecting

“Stone soup” is a reading association formed by over ten primary schools of Baohe District, Hefei, China. Sponsored by Chen Yixin Family Foundation, reading promotion activities of these schools got great effects and attracted wide attention in the recent ten years. The foundation suggested local government to set up the position of “librarian teacher” in the association schools and organized a series of professional trainings for the librarian teachers in order to develop library education in these schools. After the 18- month session training, the librarian teachers gained new understanding in school libraries and kept practicing their knowledge in building pleasant environment as well as item circulation process. They also established “Association of Librarian Teachers of schools in Hefei ” which aims at promoting communication between schools and facilitate development of school libraries. The association has accomplished the textbooks of “Stone soup” reading association and made efforts on setting up the curriculum of the course “Library” in schools. They also developed a program called “Basic Training of Librarian Teachers” to help more schools and teachers to rebuild their understanding in school libraries and make the libraries better with their knowledge, thus giving hope to the future library education in mainland China.

School Librarian Leadership: Research and Practice


 
 
 A core body of research concerning teacher librarian leadership has been generated by faculty and doctoral graduates from Florida State University. Substantive studies have been conducted on leadership in technology integration by National Board Certified teacher librarians, enablers and barriers to technology leadership by teacher librarians, leadership in state initiatives related to digital textbooks, leadership with e-books and electronic devices, one-to-one computing, and school librarian leadership education. This paper provides an overview of that research and presents implications for teacher librarian education.
 
 

Developing Online Master's Programs for Teacher-Librarians

Over the past four decades, in Australia, Canada and the USA, school library education at a distance has been delivered though three primary modes: (1) correspondence study; (2) two-way or interactive television and videoconferencing; and (3) Web-based onlinelearning management systems. The theoretical foundations of distance education emphasize that the particular technology or mode of distance education is not as important as the pedagogy employed. Major pedagogical approaches evident in school library education at a distance are: behaviourist/cognitivist; constructivist; and connectivist. This brief history of school library education at a distance focuses on efforts to free school library education from the bounds set by the traditional location and scheduling of library education--on-campus, in universities in cities, with regularly scheduled face-to-face meetings, most amenable to fulltime students. Today’s school library education at a distance is primarily an anytime/anyplace endeavour that is attractive to part time students who are employed full time.

Building Communities Through Online Spaces

This paper explores the perceived information learning needs of students registered in the Teacher-Librarianship by Distance Learning (TLDL) program at the University of Alberta. This paper reports on the findings related to two main questions: 1. To understand the perceived information needs of students who are completing a Master of Education degree completely online. 2. To understand students’ perceptions of “community” in online spaces. To address these questions, an online survey was distributed to current and former students of this online teacher librarianship education program. Respondents indicated that they had a strong sense of community through the program and the online courses. Community within the TLDL program is built through student-to-student and instructor-to-student interactions. Respondents’ perceived sense of community aligned with the existing literature about building online communities. This study indicates that as more students choose to take courses online, instructors need to carefully consider how to make rich learning experiences that are as good as, or even better than face-to-face learning experiences.

Online programs in school library education: Preparing librarians to support twenty-first century learners

The online distance education program, Teacher-Librarianship by Distance Learning (TL-DL), was developed and implemented at the University of Alberta, Canada beginning in the late 1990s. In this paper, TL-DL is used as an example to explore: how an online program was established and maintained and how the challenges facing the program have been and are being addressed. TL-DL‟s approach to preparing school librarians to support student access to new and emerging technologies was compared and found to be similar to the approaches used in two other types of programs identified through recent research conducted in the United States and Australia. Emerging from the research are questions about the need for shifts in curriculum content and pedagogy to engage digital age learners.

Digital Library Education in Tertiary Institutions: Roadmap to Revolutionizing Nigerian University Library Services

The purpose of the paper is to bring to light the state of education in Digital Libraries (DLs) in tertiary institutions in Nigeria, and the readiness of library schools to produce future digital librarians in Nigeria. The study covered 31 universities offering Library and Information Science (LIS) approved by the National Universities Commission (NUC) of Nigeria. The main data collection method for the study was analysis of departmental documents containing the LIS curriculum. Second, six Library and Information Science educators in universities that are yet to integrate digital libraries course in their LIS curricula were interviewed. The study revealed that majority of the library schools offer a course in digital libraries or related areas as a core course in their curricula. However, only a few library schools have computer laboratories for students to enhance their digital library skills. Some LIS educators identified challenges such as lack of qualified ICT staff to handle the course and a lack of computer laboratories equipped with modern computers and stable Internet facilities in the LIS departments. Findings from the study will inform library educators on the need to redesign curricula to integrate digital libraries course, in order to produce future digital librarians in this digital era and thus overcome the frequently mentioned challenge of lack of ICT staff to manage digital libraries in Nigeria. The project will enable library schools in Nigeria to provide a world class library education that is in line with the standard recommended by international and national LIS professional bodies.

School Librarians Coping with Electronic Environments

This paper focuses on abilities of librarians to adapt and respond to the constantly emerging changes influenced by the advancement of ICT. The authors emphasize the necessity of defining and promoting new concept and understanding of the school library in electronic environment. Traditional school library roles need to adapt and change to respond to the needs of new users growing up in the interactive and information overloaded environment. Many of the aspects of current school library tasks and roles originate from a print-based culture which is incongruent with the transient and hybrid nature of digital environments. These radically changing environments are posing different tasks on school librarians leading them to balance carefully between the traditional school environments, infrastructure, institutions hierarchy and with the various new needs of “Google generation” users. Taking into account all the changes in the information environment authors emphasise the necessary improvements in education of school librarians.

Cataloging and Classification: Back to Basics: Introduction

An idea was born at the 2019 Technical Services Education Special Interest Group session of the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) annual conference. Presenters and a...

Library E-Learning

This paper analyzes the state of learning spaces as they impact library education. Specifically, it reviews the literature about current trends in designing learning environments that facilitate e-learning. The report also lists cited examples of good practice in contemporary school library e-learning spaces.

New Trend of Information Literacy from Leisure Reading Behavior and Experiences of Junior High School Students

Information literacy education in school libraries is based on abilities of personal reading and learning. The research was used semi-structured interview in qualitative research to understand the reading behavior and experiences of junior high school students who are leisure reading lover. The analysis of qualitative data included both hermeneutic phenomenology and axial coding in grounded theory. According to research obtained, leisure reading behavior of junior high school students have several conclusion. First, The interesting content is the main motive. Second, the purposes of leisure reading behavior may divide into the tool goal and the non- tool goal. Third, internet is acting both important information source and channel. The analysis of leisure reading experiences of junior high school students have several conclusions. First, there are three kinds of reading styles that included comprehensive reading, tool reading and the non- tool reading. Second, participants often use internet communication software to exchange their reading information in internet reading. Third, participants often read datas which they searched or browsed, E-mail, internet literature and book description in the internet. According to research conclusions, this article discussed how to develop information literacy in junior high school students. These ways includes that use internet technologies to improve interaction, have library instruction classes depend on reading purposes, integrate reading information in school effectively and promotes software and hardware equipment in school to reduce the imformation divide. Finally, this article thought new trend of information literacy.