Future Forward. The Evolving Role of the School Librarian

It’s impossible to ignore the dramatic shifts in information access and education over the past ten years. The convergence of exponentially expanding information, one-to-one initiatives, and the on-demand nature of today’s learners requires school librarians to regularly adapt to keep pace with this continually evolving landscape. As we look to the future, the one thing we can count on is change—but what will happen to the school library in this future landscape? While we cannot predict the future, we can adopt an attitude that allows us to evolve along with the needs of today’s learners.

Leadership

The American Association of School Librarians' mission is to “empower leaders to transform teaching and learning.” It doesn't say empower librarians, it says empower leaders! Our professional organization recognizes that librarianship is synonymous with leadership. As the only educator in the building who sees all students in every academic area for the entirety of their student experience, librarians are poised to be instructional leaders in their schools. How do we establish leadership as a librarian? Take this opportunity to leverage your position and influence the teachers in your school. Join the Professional Development Committee, the Leadership Team, and take part in curriculum-based decisions. Become the expert in your local standards and assessments. Find out what’s new with rubrics and co-teaching. Take a look at new digital learning tools and share the best ones with your faculty. School librarians lead by providing information, tools, and resources; being active and engaged educators; and empowering students through transformational teaching.

Independence

It is more important now than ever before to foster independence in our students and teachers so we are not spending a lot of time on administrative tasks. School librarians are incorporating more independence into library spaces and programs by teaching students to be more self-sufficient. We do not need to continually hover over students in order to hand out supplies, check out books, and direct students to the latest scary stories. We do need to set up self-serve supply counters, self-checkout systems, and arrange our print collections in a student-centered way allowing them to access print books on their own. This will provide us time to collaborate with teachers, gather evidence to share with stakeholders, and work with students at their point of need in preparing them for their futures.

Evidence

Librarians love to share statistics: checkout statistics, searches in our databases, or hits on our website—but it’s not enough to show that we’re busy. As Thoreau said “It’s not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?” Checkouts and checkins? No way! That does not show stakeholders how we impact student learning. Consider sharing a level of collaboration rubric in your next library report, where you review class visits in the past month, including how you collaborated with teachers. Share pictures of students working in the library and samples of student information literacy work at your next staff meeting. Look into the information literacy sections of your state assessments. Can you see evidence of yearly improvement in those scores? Using real evidence to show what we do and how we impact student learning is vital to the future of our programs.

Flexibility

The biggest adjustment we can make is to be ready to manage change in everything we do. Information technology, teaching practices, and today’s learners are changing so quickly that we all struggle just to keep up. Take a moment to look at your job description. How much has your position changed since it was written? Continual improvement needs to be integrated into our daily operations. When your school moves from computer labs to one-to-one devices, be ready to move portions of your collections and practice to an online format while setting up charging stations throughout your space. When the environmental club asks if they can host the beekeeping workshop in the library during lunch, be ready to move your shelves and adjust your plans to enforce the concept that the library is the central place for learning of all kinds. If you don’t feel comfortable with reinventing how the library interacts with students and the school, you risk losing your impact and influence.

Being a school librarian today is about relevancy and being prepared for this world of rapid change. While we cannot predict the future, we can prepare our libraries to be future ready. In the coming months, we’ll discuss in depth how to position your library in preparation for the future. What do you think is the most important change you can make as a librarian to best prepare for the years ahead?