TOPIC 2. The Role of the Teacher Librarian    

The teacher librarian: role statements and standards

Looking through the ALIA Core Values Statement and the Standards of Professional Excellence for Teacher Librarians document I take comfort from the statement on p2 that "it is primarily intended for use by teacher librarians as a framework for ongoing professional learning."
As a beginning TL there's SO much to learn and as Barbara says on the forum "small steps"! I queried at my school the existence of a TL role statement and was advised that the information I needed would be found in the school Library Policy. Upon reading this though I didn't find a great deal that could be related to the Standards document.

Some Author's Views
Purcell (2010), Lamb and Johnson (2008) and Herring's (2007) Readings

Having read through the articles and chapters I find myself agreeing more with the views of Herring as opposed to Purcell or Lamb and Johnson's. Although Herring has listed significantly more roles to be fulfilled, he also states that they are multi-faceted and should overlap and he places the role of teacher as a priority, which differs quite a bit from Purcell and Lamb and Johnson's ideas.

I believe the priority of roles a TL plays in a school do depend very much on the needs of the particular school, but that as a TL the primary role is that of teacher in order to be seen as a valuable team player.

 Principal support is central to school library success

• Haycock, K. (2007). Collaboration: Critical success factors for student learning. School Libraries Worldwide, 13(1), 25-35.
• Oberg, D. (2006). Developing the respect and support of school administrators. Teacher Librarian, 33(3), 13-18.
• Hartzell, G.'What's It Take?' (presented at the Washington White House Conference on School Libraries in 2002)

Very interesting reading so far on the importance of the principal with regard to collaboration and success of the TL being dependant on it. I'd like to relate my personal experinece while working in the library to the readings' about "collaboration". When appointed to the position of TL at my school my principal at the time was highly supportive of the role and encouraged collaboration with executive staff to provide me with the time, support and advice from the retiring TL to ensure a positive handover/ introduction to the role. Less than a week after my appointment the Principal was moved to another school and his position is now being relieved in by the D.P.

While the timetabling and expectations of me seem to remain the same the relieving principal has passed his supervisory role of my position to another member of the executive team as he is too busy with other school admin. roles to supervise me also. He has also advised that there is no budget available to the library this year, which means no new resources other than our Aust. Standing Orders subscription (which has already been in place for a long time before my arrival). This leaves me feeling that perhaps there's no room for the relieving principal and I to collaborate and work together as he's always genuinely very busy with other things to do!

As the Principal's position is about to be advertised, I'm wondering what will become of the library and the expectations of my role in the school. I hope the support of the previous principal can be matched by the incoming one. In the last year or two our library received an IWB (as did most classrooms) and 12 new laptops to access media technology in the new library building, which caused a great deal of excitement in the school and local community.

I'm fortunate to be in a collaborative team-teaching role with classroom teachers currrently and not expected to just teach RFF. I have the hard work of the previous TL to thank for this. A number of staff do actually collaborate and team teach with me, however an almost equal amount sit up at the back of the room and don't involve themselves. I'm hoping next term to try and make some changes to my program to try and involve staff and to "collaborate" more. It's a real challenge knowing how to best do this...and a relief to know (from the readings) that it's not just my issue but lots of TL's out there!