School libraries – An under-resourced resource?

The changing role of teacher-librarians
Technology use in schools
Librarians – A learning resource

The health of school libraries should be of keen interest not only to teachers, librarians and school board officials, but to students and their parents. Research shows that school library funding and the presence of qualified librarians have positive impacts on student outcomes. In 1997, Ontario’s Education Improvement Commission reported that, “there is a good body of evidence that good teacher-librarians can make a great difference in the life of a school and help improve student achievement.”² Ken Haycock (2003) reviewed research on the relationship between the presence of a school library and school librarians, and student achievement. He found that the research showed that larger collections, greater funding for the school library and more access to a qualified teacher-librarian correlates with higher achievement levels. Improvements were even greater when teacher-librarians collaborated with classroom colleagues, teaching literacy skills and participating in technology management within the school.³

In reviewing the literature, Coish finds that the evidence points to a deterioration in the resources available for libraries in many Canadian schools. Often, full-time librarian positions have been scaled back to part-time or eliminated altogether. Other sources of data on school libraries, such as the tracking system developed by People for Education, have revealed that the number of elementary schools in Ontario with a full-time teacher-librarian has declined by 60% since 1998-1999.⁴ There are also reports of downstream effects from reduced professional library staff, which include aging and depleted collections in school libraries and reduced access to the libraries that do exist.

Figure 1. Percentage of schools with a library and the proportion of school libraries that have a teacher-librarian, by province, 2003-2004

Source: Source: David Coish (2005). Canadian School Libraries and Teacher-Librarians: Results from the 2003-2004 Information and Communications Technologies in Schools Survey. Culture, Tourism and the Centre for Education Statistics – Research Papers. Statistics Canada Catalogue number 81-595-MIE2005028.

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The changing role of teacher-librarians

Teacher-librarians are trained in the use of technology for information retrieval and search and often, their duties include the training of staff and students in the use of these tools. In addition, in some schools, the teacher-librarian also serves as the IT resource person. The American Association of School Librarians observes that the school library has undergone a ‘radical change in emphasis.’ The library has gone beyond the simple provision of resources to students and now focuses on creating lifelong learners equipped with the skills to locate, use and evaluate information. Information literacy, whether electronic or otherwise, is fundamental to the school library program.⁶

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Technology use in schools

According to school principals, word processing software was the application most often incorporated into teaching practices, with 78% of the principals reporting that it was used either “most of the time” or “always”. This was followed by Internet/Intranet (34%) and software for special needs students and/or remedial programs providing individualized learning (29%).⁸

Coish decided to explore what the Canadian evidence has to say about the links between having a qualified teacher-librarian in a school and the likelihood that technology applications are incorporated into teaching practices. He examined the extent to which the presence of a teacher-librarian was accompanied by the use of various technology applications in teaching. He also looked at the extent to which the use of various applications in teaching was associated with the level of funding for school libraries.

Coish found that as the number of teacher-librarians dedicated to a school increased, so too did the likelihood that each of the technology applications were incorporated into teaching practices. This was especially the case for the use of spreadsheet and database software, applications supporting creative works (e.g. music, fine arts and graphic design), software for special needs and desktop publishing. The association between the presence of teacher-librarians and the use of more generic applications like word processing and using the Internet/intranet to disseminate information was weaker, but still significant. This suggests a stronger link between the presence of teacher-librarians and the incorporation of specialized applications into teaching practices in schools.

As with the findings for the presence of a teacher-librarian, the absolute amount of funding for the school library was strongly associated with to the use of software applications in teaching practices. The strongest associations were for use of presentation software, spreadsheet and database software and software supporting creative works.

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Librarians – A learning resource

Coish notes the relationship between the presence of a teacher-librarian, the level of funding for the school library and the extent to which specialized technologies are incorporated into teaching practices is not necessarily a direct one. It may be that the number of teacher-librarians will be higher in schools that are better funded overall and that therefore have more money to purchase not only more library resources but specialized technology applications, as well.

Principals surveyed by the ICTSS reported that mentoring/coaching activities with other teachers or ICT professionals was the most common strategy used to help teachers learn how to use computers. Other strategies where principals placed “some” to “a lot” of emphasis include professional development, information-sharing among staff members, training sessions, and personal-learning activities. However, only relatively small percentages of principals reported placing “a lot” of emphasis on any one of these strategies. In terms of effectiveness, the largest proportion of principals ranked coaching/mentoring activities as being highly effective, but even that was cited by only slightly more than one third (38%) of principals.

At the most basic level, having library staff trained in the management of library resources is important for the quality of library resources available to a school community. Library staff are likely to act as advocates for the on-going support of, and investment in, library resources. But more, if skilled library staff are indeed trained in the use of technology and serve as an IT resource person in schools, then they can be a valuable resource not only for assisting students in learning and applying different technology applications, but they can also act as mentors for their fellow teachers, assisting them in learning to use and apply these applications in their day-to-day teaching practices.

Notes

1. David Coish (2005). Canadian School Libraries and teacher-Librarians: Results from the 2003-2004 Information and Communications technologies in Schools Survey. Culture, Tourism and the Centre for Education Statistics Research Papers. Catalogue number 81-595-MIE – Number 028. Ottawa: Statistics Canada. Library and Archives Canada, in addition to the Canadian Association for School Libraries, provided funding for the production of this analytic report.

2. Ken Haycock (2003). The Crisis in Canada’s School Libraries: The Case for reform and Re-investment. Association of Canadian Publishers and Heritage Canada.

3. Ken Haycock (2003). The Crisis in Canada’s School Libraries.

4. People for Education (2004). The 2004 Elementary School Tracking Report. June. page 9.

5. Valerie McDonald. School Libraries an Endangered Service. People for Education, May 2002.

6. Michele Lonsdale (2003). Impact of School Libraries on Student Achievement: a Review of the Research, Australian School Library Association.

7. The ICTSS was conducted by Statistics Canada and was sponsored by Industry Canada’s SchoolNet Program. Support was also provided by Library and Archives Canada for the inclusion of four questions on school libraries in the questionnaire. These questions examined whether a school library exists, the number of FTE employees devoted to the library by type of position, the annual expenses for the library’s collection development and the source of library funding.

8. Johanne Plante and David Beattie (2004). Connectivity and ICT integration in Canadian elementary and secondary schools: First results from the Information and Communications Technologies in Schools Survey, 2003-2004. Culture, Tourism and the Centre for education Statistics – Research Papers. Statistics Canada Catalogue number 81-595-MIE — Number 017.