August 2007 — Features
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The New Librarians
They aren't merely no-nonsense book providers anymore. In the digital age, they are multitasking information managers— part teacher, part technologist.
AT THE LIBRARY ON THE CAMPUS of Sandra
Day O'Connor High School in Helotes, TX, you'll see a
few things you may not have anticipated, such as 60-foot
ceilings and four television sets, all housed in 19,000
square feet of technologically augmented space. Every five
years, the facility gets new computers and printers. In two
years, it'll be getting digital LCD projectors, which will be
hooked up to workstations.
Oh, and there's this, too: a coffee bistro—park benches with pillows, glass-top tables, students playing guitar. National Honor Society students are the baristas, making 300 cups of Starbucks each day, to be doled out for free before and after school. Who picks up the tab for the joe? Meet Jack Strawn, school librarian.
Whether through coffee or computers, Strawn is a huge believer in getting with the times. "We're trying to reach the kids where they are," he says. "If our students see that we can't text-message or use an iPod or do a blog, they tune us out. If we're going to be effective educators, we need to speak their language."
When he's not being a cafemeister, Strawn conducts classes, guides students who drop in for help with research, and leads a workshop for parents on how the teenage brain works. Recently he facilitated a blog for his students that focused on Macbeth. The students applied psychological testing and analysis to the play's six main characters and then posted the information online. "I think it had a dramatic effect on students and their achievements," says Strawn. "Their test scores were extremely high."
Strawn is among the vanguard of the new breed of school librarian, with responsibilities extending far beyond the conventional perception of librarians as blue-haired "shushers" and Dewey Decimal savants. Today's school librarians do much more than stock shelves with books. They may do any or all of the following:
- facilitate "library" classes that help students understand how to use technology to conduct research, doling out homework and conducting assessments
- meet with teachers to help them infuse technology into their curricula, sometimes by doing online searches for information, using interactive whiteboards for presentations, or creating videotapes and DVDs
- attend conferences with other school librarians and media directors to learn about the latest technology for information management
In general, modern school librarians help usher in the technological changes that schools must address, and it can be the attitude and skill of the librarians that determines how smoothly and productively the transition to the 21st-century classroom goes.
