Search

Published literature acknowledges the importance of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education in various educational institutions and its contributions to the future of a nation's economy. This paper focuses on successful library STEM-based programs that were undertaken from August to September 2019 for school-aged users in a public library. This paper also explores users' perceptions in attending STEM-based activities in the library as well as their feedback on how future library programs on STEM could further be improved. These findings seek to provide new perspectives for librarians, educators, teachers, and staff in creating opportunities for STEM-based initiatives in an informal learning environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper consists of research on the perception of school librarians in the professional public. The paper has shown that the problem of insufficient visibility of the school librarian's field is not of such importance in its professional public, contrary to the opinion of school librarians, and that the image of school librarians is positive, somewhat more positive in the educational public than in the library public. The paper also provides recommendations regarding the development of a communication strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to show the current position of the school librarians in Serbia, including proposals in a way that can be improved. The paper includes reviews of the individual activities of Serbian Associations of School Librarians (SASL), which, from the establishment in 2006 has attempted to empower and gather school librarians, unfortunately, without a success. The position of school librarians in Serbia today is often marginalized, but librarians themselves are partly responsible because they have not imposed themselves as leaders of educational-practice in improving the quality of teaching in their schools. The position of school librarians was further exacerbated by the regulations of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, passed in 2015, because they reduced the number of librarians in elementary schools, and in 2018 in secondary schools, too. The basic problem of the state, the negative natural increase and the poor demographic situation, caused a long-term decrease in the number of students, and thus also contributed to the reduction of the number of teachers who became technological surpluses. That problem was often solved by taking several teachers into the school library and given them a part of the librarians' standard. In this way, on one side, we have librarians without too much interest in the work of a school librarian, and on the other we have librarians who have been unemployed. How can, in such working conditions, school librarians in Serbia can be encouraged to work autonomously and interactively, empowered or motivated to improve their own quality of work? Each school librarian should receive concrete testimonies for continuing self-evaluation processes that show, confirm, illustrate and document his weaknesses and shortcomings, but at the same time emphasize the quality and good patterns of the set goals. He needs to see specific needs and create specific conditions in the library in which he works, in order to be able to work more successfully. A school librarian should encourage, exploit, and browse through the media good ideas, visions and strategies in order to popularize the book, reading, the culture of using the library, since creating an active user creates an active consumer of a culture that will always recognize the true value of the book, knowledge, information and libraries. The most important thing is that a school librarian, following the vision that leads to success and recognition, realizes that he needs to gain the trust and reputation on the basis of his continuing work. Part of the recent activities of Serbian Associations of School Librarians stimulates, engages and brings librarians together, working with teachers, parents, members of the local community, activating pupils for reading, as well as researching, expressing and affirming creativity. By strengthening own professional capacities, gathering and empowering, a school librarian should realize that he can transform himself into a leader in the realization of cultural activities, not just in school, but also in the local community, even at the state level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the meaning of the recently drafted National Policy for Library and Information Services (NPLIS) for school librarianship in South Africa. It argues that, after years of failed advocacy, a convergence of thinking across the LIS ecosystem enabled the policy project and gives new hope for the transformation of the school library sector. The investigations throughout 2017 sought to find out from a wide range of role-players what and whose behaviour they believed should be changed. The paper describes our evidence-gathering across the country and how the data were analysed into broad themes around which the policy was built. The paper pulls out the threads on school LIS policy but also highlights the principles that tie them to the overarching policy. Thus, the insistence on an ecosystems approach calls for innovative strategies to counter long-established silo-thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to show the possibilities of collaborative and partnership approaches of school libraries to achieve librarians' professional development and interchange ideas in order to inculcate 21st century learning skills. This paper displays opportunities for school librarians to become proactive in providing support across their services through a highly professional network platform. It outlines and discusses the last two years of successful professional experience of GEMS Library Network. This network could play a pivotal role in support of various library practices and professional development of its member librarians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines blog posts shared on a popular school librarian association website. Posts were written by school librarians, school library supervisors, book authors, and school library educators in various settings. The website posts were searched using the term COVID-19. The search returned 89 results written between March 2020 and June 2021. The analysis focused on the topics that were mentioned the most, according to the categories associated with the blog posts. A review of how the posts evolved is also presented. Results suggest that the most important topics that the readers of the blog needed to endure the pandemic included student engagement, teaching models, leadership, and advocacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper applies an educator-focused theory of professional behavior to the work of school librarians. The goal was to understand the motivations and dispositions of librarians who choose to perform extra-role work behaviors. The researchers conducted semi-structured interviews with eight school librarians who actively volunteered with either a regional professional organization or a young adult literature festival. Findings emphasized the reciprocal relationship between participants' emotional connectedness to the school community with their tendency to voluntarily assist and innovate for the well-being of the organization. Implications include the need for greater mentorship of pre-service librarians as well as additional networking opportunities for practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In most countries, the introduction of computer technology in schools has seen the role of school libraries transformed. Adoption of new technologies are now seen to be enhancing school libraries' ability to perform their mission, vision and role, that is, providing learners access to a wide range of reading material to enable them to acquire knowledge as well as ability to read books online. This paper will address the impact computer technology is having on rural school learners at Katsande Primary School. It will explain how embracing of computer technology has influenced learners concerning achieving quality education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing on a recently-published pedagogical statement about the role of school libraries and librarians for specific inquiry-focused curricula, this paper looks at how school librarians used the documentation in individual situations. Experiences and perceptions of individual librarians resulted in analysis of specific uses of the document: informing school leadership teams, contribution to developing school library and librarian roles and documentation, including job descriptions, and aiding preparation for school evaluation by the curriculum organization concerned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this paper is to give an overall picture of STEM activities in school curriculums supported by school librarians in primary schools in Croatia. Qualitative content analysis was the research methodology used to examine Croatian primary school curriculums, which are the main planning documents for all school activities. There are 904 primary schools in Croatia, according to the official list provided by the Ministry of Science and Education in Croatia (Ministarstvo znanosti i obrazovanja Republike Hrvatske, 2019). The research examined the curriculum documents available on the official web pages of 854 Croatian primary schools. The research findings, based on school year 2018/2019, give a general picture of STEM activities in school curriculum, involving librarians, in six categories: science, green libraries, technology, engineering, mathematics, and extracurricular activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This ongoing research builds on investigations undertaken by Medina & Todd (2016, 2017) that focus on children's safety in online environments. As part of scholarly traditions centering on information and digital literacy, an emerging discourse and arena of research and service development is centering on the concept of digital wellbeing. Digital wellbeing is defined as the capacity of individuals to look after personal health, safety, relationships and work-life balance in digital settings. This paper, focusing on the specific aspect of digital safety as one dimension of digital wellbeing, presents an examination current challenges, theoretical perspectives and approaches to research, methods and potential instructional interventions in relation to children's conceptions and practices of safety in online environments. It will present current findings and provide perspectives on moving forward with the research agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]