Final+Reflection

The completion of LIBE 463 signals the completion of the Teacher-Librarian Diploma for me. I started this program in May 2010 in order to start my category 5+ upgrade and to make myself more employable. I was an elementary generalist in a province with essentially a hiring freeze for teachers. Having a specialty was necessary to secure employment in a public school district. As of now, I have completed both of those goals. I have completed the requirements to upgrade my pay scale to the next level and I secured employment as an elementary Teacher-Librarian in the largest school district in my province. What I did not know at the beginning of this program, was my professional goals would multiply exponentially due to what I have learned in this course and others in the program.

I found the program at UBC, in general, to be very removed from the realities of being a Teacher-Librarian today. I took courses discussing how to create MARC records (something no one in the class ever has had the need to do), how to begin original cataloguing (again, anyone?), how to write academic children’s book reviews and literature academic papers on children’s literature, as well as courses that required (and wanted nothing but) the regurgitation of textbook information disguised as learning assignments. This course, thankfully, included none of the above points and was based on real tasks that are required of a Teacher-Librarian in the public school system. We were not given a prescriptive code to follow, but were rather encouraged to discover a system that worked for us as we explored the topics of community analysis, collection evaluation, weeding, and selection of learning resources. The tasks were authentic and applicable to the role as Teacher-Librarian. For that, I say thank you.

As a new Teacher-Librarian, I am not yet fully comfortable in my role. The main aspect I struggle with is feeling authority over my policies of circulation, evaluation, weeding, and selection. My administration is very supportive of my choices, but I am often challenged by staff as I do things slightly differently from the previous Teacher-Librarian at the school. Before this course, I knew some areas of my collection needed revamping, but I did not have data to back up my conclusions. I had started weeding my fiction section, but I did not have specific criteria in place justifying the removal of resources. I had purchased items that I knew were vital to the collection, but to articulate how I knew and why they were necessary would have been difficult. Now, I feel an increase in confidence in my knowledge of my learning community. I am comfortable with district policies regarding weeding and feel strongly that I am making the library collection stronger by weeding misleading, out-dated, or damaged items. I regularly refer to M.U.S.T.I.E. when talking about weeding and do so with authority. When I make purchases for the collection, I do so with the knowledge that an area does not have enough books for all the classes to utilize the collection, that an area has just been weeded and needs to be replenished, or that the students and teachers are very interested in a specific area and they need resources to support them. I am, by no means, a perfect or seasoned Teacher-Librarian yet, but I do feel I am on my way to being a confident, effective, successful Teacher-Librarian who meets the needs of the curriculum and the learning community.

Bishop (2007) describes the role of a Teacher-Librarian as both “user-oriented” and “collection-oriented” (p. 5). Today, more than ever, I believe it is vital for all Teacher-Librarians to assume both of these roles in a visible way within the school community. Teacher-Librarians no longer exist in all school districts. We need to promote ourselves, how we positively impact learners and educators, and our role in achieving literacy. Bishop (2007) describes the advantages and disadvantages of fixed versus flexible scheduling to help meet the needs of the learning community and allow the Teacher-Librarian to meet both user-orient and collection-oriented goals. Unfortunately, most districts do not allow individual librarians the opportunity to decide on the type of scheduling themselves. It is a district-wide decision based on the role of Teacher-Librarians and the library within that school system. I am fortunate to have a combined schedule of both fixed and flexible time slots, however I know many of my colleagues do not have this luxury. I use my fixed time slots to provide preparation time to classroom teachers by introducing students to library skills, promoting a love of reading, creating meaningful and authentic connections to text, and linking reading for fun to all areas of the curriculum. My flexible time is full of collaborative planning mini-sessions, finding resources for teachers, facilitating research projects and helping teachers effectively use technology within the curriculum headings.

My district has a wonder document they call the //Teacher-Librarian Handbook// (School District No. 36, 2007)//.// This binder is full of every policy which one could ever wish to have regarding selection, evaluation, weeding, intellectual freedom and challenged materials. Bishop (2007) argues that policies help maintain consistency, help in deselection, promote access to the collection materials, and provide a way for the school library program to be evaluated (p. 33). The emphasis on policy development made me pull out the //Teacher-Librarian Handbook// again, to help inform my practice and school-based policy development. It supported that I was allowed to do some things differently than my predecessor had and that my professional autonomy was protected. I still need to work on balancing fixed schedule activities with the collaborative activities of the flexible schedule. I also need to remember that I cannot be expect to do all acquisitions, cataloguing, processing, weeding, evaluating, and promotion on my own time. I need to achieve a balance of this work during paid time in order to be effective and to not burn out. Thank you very much for you time and dedication during this course. I have learned a great deal and look forward to learning even more as I put these new ideas and concepts into further practice.

References

Bishop, K. (2007). //The collection programs in schools:// //Concepts, practices, and information sources// (4th ed.). Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.

 School Dis trict No. 36 (Surrey). (2007).//Teacher-Librarian Handbook.// Retrieved from []