School Librarians: The four hats
By:
Pamela MartineauFall 2009
School librarians like to talk about the four hats they wear on the job: library administrator, collaborator with teachers, direct instructor to students and reading advocate. All of the roles are important, they say, but the reading advocacy is perhaps the one most stereotypically associated with school librarians. And even in the digital age, that stereotype still holds true.
Marie Slim, teacher librarian at Troy High School in the Fullerton Joint Union High School District, regularly goes into high school classrooms on her campus to give book talks. She reads dozens of young adult books each year to stay abreast of what kids read. The joy is palpable in Slim’s voice as she talks of getting a young high school student to read her first book—and then the whole series—after she introduced her to the “Twilight” vampire novels by Stephenie Meyer that have teenage girls swooning.
Connie Williams, president of the California School Library Association jokes, “Really, truly, the library isn’t sexy … except that it is.