Big news of 2014: Libraries reinvented?

The educational press and social networking world have been kind to school libraries recently. Among the positive stories ...

• eSchool News highlights some of the 10 most significant ed-tech developments of 2014, and school libraries are No. 1
• School Libraries Matter: The Changing Role of the School Librarian
• Sense and Sensibility: Why librarians remain essential to our schools.

Wow - in about one week, three powerful affirmations of school libraries. Is this an omen for 2015? Have educators outside the library profession begun to recognize the value of school libraries? Will this lead to a renaissance for the profession? Am I on some kind of drugs to suggest these things?

Here is what I think may be happening. School leaders are facing some serious problems and looking to progressive library programs to help them solve them. Here are some needs going unmet which library resources, library facilities, and librarians can, willingly or not-so-willingly, meet:

• Space needs for interventionists, ELL teachers, social workers, and computer labs. We may all become learning commons whether we want to or not.
• Schools are seeing the value of productivity labs and makerspaces that all students, not just those registered for tech ed classes can access. Where to place these but in the library where both equipment and expertise reside?
• Resources are needed for differentiated/individualized/personalized instruction. The library's collections - print and non-print - may be the single best go-to place for finding materials on a variety of reading levels and on a variety of topics of interest. As much as publishers would like to see every classroom its own collection of texts, the cost will prove to be prohibitive in the long run.
• Schools need specialists in selecting and maintaining e-resources. Yes, ebooks, databases, and electronic reading programs do require maintenance, including logons, cataloging, links to school websites, and trouble-shooting. Who is the building-level guru of your CMS?
• Buildings need in-house specialists doing embedded PD if technology is to be used to actually change how education is done. When the librarian is tasked with this role, schools get a two-fer - a tech specialist and a reading specialist. Assuming, of course, the selection is made carefully.

So maybe the time is ripe for the school library to rise from the ashes. Be warned - this phoenix will not be the same-old, same-old bird of the past, but a new creation, technology-infused, best practices-drive, with a new kind of librarian in the lead.

Personally, I am both excited and optimistic. Even without the drugs.

See also: Libraries re-invented from Australia -  http://slav.global2.vic.edu.au/2015/01/13/libraries-reinvented-no-1-of-the-top-10-list/#.VLcDiorF_0o

Comments

[Camilla Elliott]

Hi Doug
Just acknowledging that I've tapped into your comments in a Bright Ideas blog post. It was great to see this article in eSchool News but, as you say, change doesn't just happen through osmosis. It takes work and an evolutionary frame of mind. I enjoy your frank discussions.
All the best
Camilla

http://slav.global2.vic.edu.au/2015/01/13/libraries-reinvented-no-1-of-the-top-10-list/#.VLcDiorF_0o

[Doug Johnson]

Hi Camilla,

Send me the link to your post and I will embed it! Thanks,

Doug