The purpose of the school library media center is to provide a place where students and staff can become effective users of ideas and information. Within this context, the school librarian works to teach students to be critical thinkers, enthusiastic readers, skillful researchers, and ethical users of information. The school library should be a place where students have equitable access to information. With a strong commitment to intellectual freedom, the media specialist should provide free and open access to information. It is the responsibility of the school library program to provide students with access to materials in all formats, including up-to-date, high-quality, varied literature so that students may develop and strengthen a love of reading. The school library program must include flexible and equitable access to physical and virtual collections of resources that support the school curriculum and meet the diverse needs of all students.
The school librarian must work to create an environment that is conducive to active and participatory learning, resource-based learning, and collaboration with teaching staff. The school librarian can create such a climate that is conducive to learning by promoting flexible scheduling of the school library facility, creating a friendly, aesthetically pleasing media center, designing learning spaces that accommodate a range of teaching methods and learning tasks, providing seating areas that enhance and encourage technology use, leisure reading, and use of materials in all formats, and by designing and maintaining a library website that provides 24/7 access to digital information resources, instructional materials, and reference services. The school library program must also promote collaboration among members of the learning community. The school librarian can achieve this by collaborating with a core team of classroom teachers to design, implement, and evaluate inquiry lessons and units and by collaborating with an extended team that includes parents, members of the community, public libraries, private organizations, and commercial entities to include their expertise and assistance in inquiry lessons and units. The school librarian must also work with administrators to actively promote, support, and implement collaboration and enhance the connection with the local learning community.
(School library philosophy adapted from Empowering Learners.)
American Association of School Librarians. (2009). Empowering learners: Guidelines for school library programs. Chicago: American Library Association.
The school librarian must work to create an environment that is conducive to active and participatory learning, resource-based learning, and collaboration with teaching staff. The school librarian can create such a climate that is conducive to learning by promoting flexible scheduling of the school library facility, creating a friendly, aesthetically pleasing media center, designing learning spaces that accommodate a range of teaching methods and learning tasks, providing seating areas that enhance and encourage technology use, leisure reading, and use of materials in all formats, and by designing and maintaining a library website that provides 24/7 access to digital information resources, instructional materials, and reference services. The school library program must also promote collaboration among members of the learning community. The school librarian can achieve this by collaborating with a core team of classroom teachers to design, implement, and evaluate inquiry lessons and units and by collaborating with an extended team that includes parents, members of the community, public libraries, private organizations, and commercial entities to include their expertise and assistance in inquiry lessons and units. The school librarian must also work with administrators to actively promote, support, and implement collaboration and enhance the connection with the local learning community.
(School library philosophy adapted from Empowering Learners.)
American Association of School Librarians. (2009). Empowering learners: Guidelines for school library programs. Chicago: American Library Association.