Open AccessGoing the Extra Mile: What Makes School Librarians Proactive?
Author(s) -
David Streatfield,
Bart Rienties,
Sharon Markless,
Simon Rae-Scott
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
school libraries worldwide
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2816-3788
pISSN - 1023-9391
DOI - 10.29173/slw6873
Subject(s) - school library , information literacy , professional development , reading (process) , psychology , pleasure , mile , medical education , public relations , pedagogy , sociology , library science , political science , computer science , medicine , geography , neuroscience , law , geodesy
This paper reports on a second round of analysis (conducted in 2012-13) of the results of the national surveys of UK school libraries completed in 2010, involving self-eported activities and priorities of 803 school librarians. This further analysis highlighted four aspects of proactive school library manager behaviour relating to their approaches to: promoting reading for pleasure, information literacy development, collaborating with teachers , and actively exploiting ICT within the school. Various levers or drivers that are associated with proactive library managers were then identified from the survey findings. These are: supervision by senior managers and ready access to them; active development planning; the library manager's academic and professional qualifications. The relative strengths of each of these drivers were assessed from the data.