Thesis (M.A.)--Rowan University, 2007. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references.

The roles of the person who works in a school library, as well as their title - librarian, teacher-librarian, library teacher, library media specialist, school librarian, library media teacher - have undergone countless revisions since the first official school libraries opened their doors in the early 1900s. Although school library media specialists (LMSs) have struggled to negotiate their identities in public K12 education for decades, this "identity crisis" seems to have reached a critical point due to changes in U.S. learning environments brought about by federal legislation, the implementation of standards-based teaching, the emphasis on standardized criterion referenced testing, and the proliferation and ubiquitous use of computers and the Internet as information sources. Although teacher identity has been thoroughly studied, the ways in which LMSs describe themselves in their professional role and how their identities change from pre-service to in-service are rarely investigated. Using Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner, and Cain’s (1998) theory of identity and their concept of figured worlds as a framework, this study explores how four novice LMSs negotiated the identities made available to them in the figured worlds of their public K12 school environments. The following questions guided the study: 1. How do novice library media specialists describe their professional identities? a. How does personal history inform the construction of professional identity of novice library media specialists? b. How do novice library media specialists negotiate identity within the figured worlds of public K12 schools? The four participants were first year LMSs recruited from a large urban school district in the southeastern United States. Data collection took place over the course of the 2011-2012 school year and included in-depth interviews, document analysis, journal responses, and observations. Findings indicate that the figured worlds in which novice library media practitioners begin their careers are often shaped by the experiences that faculty, administrators, and students have had with previous LMSs and bear significant influence on the identities afforded new LMSs as well as their own experiences with LMSs prior to their preparation programs.

This two year masters thesis is written in the scientific field of library- and information science. The purpose of the study is to investigate the collaboration between teachers and librarians in different types of school library organisations. Two school libraries with only the school as a target group, two integrated public- and school libraries, one school library division and one public library that provides the school with school library services has been studied. The study takes place in Uppland. The theoretical framework used is based on Montiel-Overall and her four models of collaboration: coordina-tion, cooperation, integrated instruction and integrated curriculum. The first research question focuses on the col-laboration between teachers and librarians based on each of the TLC-models. The second research question goes into factors that limit collaboration between librarians and teachers. The methods used are qualitative text analysis and qualitative interviews. The main focus is on the interviews. The study is based on the librarians point of view. The interviews and the text analysis are analysed together under six different subject fields based on the research questions. Collaboration takes place largely within the models A (coordination) and B (cooperation). Some collabora-tions conducted in the school library organisations has however components from model C (integrated instruc-tion). It is less common with deeper forms of collaborations in the result of this study. A lack of resources like time has been observed that limits the collaboration between teachers and librarians. The collaboration between teachers and librarians need to be emphasized and prioritized.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how school librarians describe that they can help students with their reading and linguistic development within the school subject Swedish by motivating them to read. We also intend to study if they take on a more didactic teaching role when it comes to the students’ linguistic development by utilising and reading comprehension strategies in their work with the students. The theories applied encompass different reading comprehension strategies, motivation for reading and theories of preunderstanding together with Lev Vygotskijs theories about the socio-cultural perspectives. The empiric material have been collected through interviews with four school librarians and observations of three. The material have been analysed and interpreted through theories and earlier research. The major findings are that the school librarians can affect the students’ motivation for reading by presenting new books, by allowing the students to choose their own books and by providing a broad variety of book to choose from. Furthermore we found that the librarians use severar methods for reading comprehension in their work, for example Concept Oriented Reading Instruction and Reciprocal Teaching.

<p>This master's thesis examines information literacy and students in secondary education. The study is framed within a sociocultural perspective of learning and the method used is questionnaires. The major question posed is how and where students seek information. Other questions are if the students critically evaluate and analyse in­formation sources and if teachers and school librarians cooperate with each other in order to help the students with their assignments.</p><p>The findings indicate that most students regard information seeking as fact-finding or finding the right an­swers to the question. Only one third of students experienced information seeking as seeking and using informa­tion for understanding a topic. The first place the students look for information is the Internet. Half of the stu­dents think they have been trained in information seeking. More boys than girls believe they have been trained. Three quarters of the students do not think they need more training in information seeking. Two thirds of the students think they have been sufficiently trained in source evaluation and more boys than girls believe they have been sufficiently trained. Just over half of the students do not think they need more training in source evaluation.</p><p>A good half of the students think the school library is quite important and almost half of the girls and one third of the boys visit the library once or twice per month. The cooperation between the teachers and the librari­ans does not work as well in the schools as the teachers and librarians wish but is improving. The majority of the teachers and librarians think their cooperation needs to be improved. The majority of the teachers think there is a correlation between information seeking and learning outcomes. All the librarians think the library is a resource that ought to be integrated in the students' education.</p><p>My conclusion is that the majority of the students are not information literate. To be information literate, the students need to have the ability to locate and evaluate the required information. Information seeking as scruti­nizing and analysing is a pre-requisite for lifelong learning.</p>

This master's thesis examines information literacy and students in secondary education. The study is framed within a sociocultural perspective of learning and the method used is questionnaires. The major question posed is how and where students seek information. Other questions are if the students critically evaluate and analyse in­formation sources and if teachers and school librarians cooperate with each other in order to help the students with their assignments. The findings indicate that most students regard information seeking as fact-finding or finding the right an­swers to the question. Only one third of students experienced information seeking as seeking and using informa­tion for understanding a topic. The first place the students look for information is the Internet. Half of the stu­dents think they have been trained in information seeking. More boys than girls believe they have been trained. Three quarters of the students do not think they need more training in information seeking. Two thirds of the students think they have been sufficiently trained in source evaluation and more boys than girls believe they have been sufficiently trained. Just over half of the students do not think they need more training in source evaluation. A good half of the students think the school library is quite important and almost half of the girls and one third of the boys visit the library once or twice per month. The cooperation between the teachers and the librari­ans does not work as well in the schools as the teachers and librarians wish but is improving. The majority of the teachers and librarians think their cooperation needs to be improved. The majority of the teachers think there is a correlation between information seeking and learning outcomes. All the librarians think the library is a resource that ought to be integrated in the students' education. My conclusion is that the majority of the students are not information literate. To be information literate, the students need to have the ability to locate and evaluate the required information. Information seeking as scruti­nizing and analysing is a pre-requisite for lifelong learning.

Denna systematiska litteraturstudie presenterar, diskuterar och analyserar tidigare forskning om skolbibliotekets påverkan på elevers studieresultat och läsutveckling. Syftet med studien är att undersöka skolbibliotek och skolbibliotekariens arbete och den eventuella påverkan de har på elevers studieresultat och läsutveckling. Frågeställningarna fokuserar på samarbete mellan bibliotekarier och lärare, men även på betydelsen av skolbiblioteket som plats. Materialet som har använts är tio publikationer varav sju är forskningsöversikter och tre är empiriska studier. Publikationerna söktes fram via databaser och genom manuell läsning av litteraturlistor. Urvalet gjordes ut ifrån att materialet skulle vara publicerat tidigast 1990, skulle vara inriktat på skolbibliotek inom grundskolan och fokusera på bibliotekariens roll för elevernas studieresultat och läsutveckling samt samarbete med lärare. Materialet kategoriserades sedan in i ett sökschema. I resultatet framgår det att bibliotekariens roll är viktig i undervisningen och bidrar till elevers studieresultat. Majoriteten av forskningen säger att samarbete mellan bibliotekarie och lärare är en vital grund för att främja elevernas studieresultat. Hur skolbibliotekarier bidrar till elevers studieresultat framkom dock inte lika tydligt i de valda publikationerna.

Results in international tests that measure primary school students' reading comprehension have indicated reduced results. It has raised discussions about how Swedish school libraries can increase students' reading comprehension, reading interest and literacy. Increased understanding of this could contribute to improve Swedish students' school results. The purpose of this study was therefore to investigate whether the compulsory school library can contribute to stimulate students' interest in reading and developing their literacy. The method for conducting the study was based on data collection based on documents from government investigations into the work of the Swedish school library to develop school students' interest in reading, literacy and reading comprehension. Data analysis was carried out through thematization based on a theoretical model of reading in relation to democracy, narrative imagination, and creative reading. The result showed that the school library of the primary school can stimulate students' interest in reading and reading literacy through new and varied offerings of analogue and digital books, increased staffing of trained librarians, joint activities for reading aloud, campaigns and book voting, premises and equipment that benefits varied reading, generous opening hours with increased lending, closer collaboration between school libraries and schools and a more even distribution of resources between different school libraries. One conclusion was that all school libraries need to provide more adapted service for all students, regardless of differences in linguistic background, reading interest, reading literacy and geographical location in Sweden. It is a service that libraries need to provide in an increasingly digitalised society.

School librarians working with reading promotion daily meet challenges regarding literature and reading from students. This requires for school librarians to know how to handle these daily challenges. This thesis aims to examine what challenges boys and girls respectively express regarding the school librarians work with reading promotion. This thesis also aims to examine what strategies and/or practices school librarians apply to meet these challenges. Seven semi-structured interviews were carried out with school librarians working in Swedish public and private schools. The results were analyzed using the sociocultural perspective on learning by Roger Säljö. The conclusion shows that a few school librarians see differences in the challenges presented by boys in comparison to girls while the other school librarians don’t notice any specific differences in challenges. The conclusion also states that the strategies and practices applied depends on the challenges presented and that there are some common strategies and practices among the school librarians. Some of these strategies and practices include involving the students in the library and reading promotion work, book talks, and reading focused projects.

The aim of this bachelor thesis has been to explore how teachers with long experience in the profession look upon the school librarian, if they see and are affected by any stereotypes. As my method I have interviewed five teachers and asked them a series of questions about how they have worked with the school librarians during the years and what they have thought about when they would hear the word librarian. I have used three major research questions: Since teachers visit the school library quite often in their occupation, how do they perceive the school librarian? How are teachers affected by the stereotypical image of the librarian? According to the teacher, has the librarian changed during the last 40 years? I have tried to distinguish if the teachers I interviewed talked about any stereotypical attributes, based on which I conducted an analysis about my findings. I was surprised to find that the teachers do not seem to have a stereotypical image of the school librarian, rather that they know that stereotypes exist but that they have realized that the librarians they met in their profession do not fit in any of the stereotypes. Still when they did talk about the stereotypical librarian they immediately thought of the old grumpy lady with her hair in a bun and glasses, who is very strict and boring. This study is rather limited by its size, which is why my findings only reflect a part of what teachers might think and not necessarily what everyone thinks.