librarianʻs+role

hey hale kula admin, hope you folks donʻt mind but mrs. iwase asked me to check out your wiki way back when and ive been seeing some discussions on school librarians with some of the principals on their wiki. im in a bit of a unique situation and thought id share with you what we are doing at the wheeler middle school library.

we decided to change the role of the librarian and the library. first the responsibility of the librarian is to pass along to both students and teachers the ability to access relevant information to learning. that information is no longer found in books. the information in books donʻt change, they get old and out of date. information that is relevant to learning and current is found on web. and it is the role of the librarian to teach both teachers and students how to access that information.

the second role of the librarian is teach teachers how to use the computer. if the information we want our students to learn is found on the web, then our teachers need to know how to access that information for students and for their own lesson planning. but who in the school is responsible to teach teachers about technology. tech coordinators canʻt do it. they dont have time to teach teachers. their too busy trouble shooting and teaching technology lessons. so we felt that the librarian should fill that role. we just started our one to one teacher program here. as the librarian i sit with four teachers a day, one to one and i help them with their tech concerns. everything from showing them how to cut and paste to supporting their lessons by showing them what technology to use to enhance their lessons.

and finally we changed the way the library is used. we wanted the students to feel like the library was thereʻs. a place for them to come and explore, relax and socialize. there is no library voices in our library. we have a place for students to eat home lunches in our library. we have couches and lounge chairs for student to "chill" in our library. we even have a store in our library for snacks and knick knacks. we are slowly expanding our book collection to include manga or comic book style books of classic titles like huck finn and shakespear. we hope to get 30 ipads for our students to check out at recess and explore. we also encourage classes to sign up and use the library as a learning center. not just to do research, but just to come in and use the open space. sometimes we have up to three different classes all being taught in the library.

im not sure this is the future of school libraries or librarians but its something different that weʻre trying and thought id share it with you, which of course is the purpose of a wiki.

chad nacapuy wms librarian