1 online resource (xii, 184 leaves : ill.) / A high level of literacy is essential if a child is to be employable and determines the role a person will play in the globalised information age. In South Africa the literacy levels, including reading levels, of school children is extremely low. The study forms part of a longitudinal reading and literacy intervention project undertaken over a five year period in two disadvantaged primary schools in an urban township. The project focused on capacity building and resource building of the school community including the teachers, learners, school librarians and parents. This dissertation describes an action research study that focused specifically on setting up school libraries in each of these schools and the professional development of the teachers in order to contribute to the teaching and learning practices in the schools. It offers critical reflections on the process and findings and contributes to research on school libraries in South Africa. / Information Science / M.A. (Information Science)

The purposes of this study were to determine the initial impact of the Oklahoma Library Media Improvement Grants on Oklahoma school library media programs; assess whether the Oklahoma Library Media Improvement Grants continue to contribute to Oklahoma school learning communities; and examine possible relationships between school library media programs and student academic success. It also seeks to document the history of the Oklahoma Library Media Improvement Program 1978 - 1994 and increase awareness of its influence upon the Oklahoma school library media programs. Methods of data collection included: examining Oklahoma Library Media Improvement Program archival materials; sending a survey to 1703 school principals in Oklahoma; and interviewing Oklahoma Library Media Improvement Program participants. Data collection took place over a one year period. Data analyses were conducted in three primary phases: descriptive statistics and frequencies were disaggregated to examine mean scores as they related to money spent on school library media programs; opinions of school library media programs; and possible relationships between school library media programs and student academic achievement. Analysis of variance was used in the second phase of data analysis to determine if any variation between means was significant as related to Oklahoma Library Improvement Grants, time spent in the library media center by library media specialists, principal gender, opinions of library media programs, student achievement indicators, and the region of the state in which the respondent was located. The third phase of data analysis compared longitudinal data collected in the 2000 survey with past data. The primary results indicated students in Oklahoma from schools with a centralized library media center, served by a full-time library media specialist, and the school having received one or more Library Media Improvement Grants scored significantly higher academically than students in schools not having a centralized library media center, not served by a full-time library media specialist, and the school not having received one or more Library Media Improvement Grants. Students in schools having even one of these components scored higher academically than students in schools with none of these components.

1 online resource (xii, 184 leaves) : illustrations / A high level of literacy is essential if a child is to be employable and determines the role a person will play in the globalised information age. In South Africa the literacy levels, including reading levels, of school children is extremely low. The study forms part of a longitudinal reading and literacy intervention project undertaken over a five year period in two disadvantaged primary schools in an urban township. The project focused on capacity building and resource building of the school community including the teachers, learners, school librarians and parents. This dissertation describes an action research study that focused specifically on setting up school libraries in each of these schools and the professional development of the teachers in order to contribute to the teaching and learning practices in the schools. It offers critical reflections on the process and findings and contributes to research on school libraries in South Africa. / Information Science / M. Inf. (Information Science)

The purpose of this study was to investigate the awareness and preparedness of the Inkandla and Mbazwana school clusters concerning the sharing of information resources. This investigation needs to be viewed bearing in mind the contexts of developing countries. These countries are poor but experience varying degrees of poverty, and there is always a shortage of funds to support quality assuring programmes, for example libraries. Access to amenities like laboratories and libraries is generally viewed as a luxury, more so by people who went through their education deprived of these facilities but who managed nevertheless to obtain high qualifications. The argument tends to be "some of us made it without libraries, therefore they are not important". Unfortunately many policymakers think like this. There have always been sectors pushing for the development of school libraries, coupled with resource based learning as this approach is regarded as likely to produce independent, lifelong learners. A resource based curriculum requires an abundance of resources, however the issue of lack of funding referred to above, may prevent any individual school from having all the resources required to support a resource based curriculum. Creative ways of ensuring the availability of resources to all schools have been conceived and clustering schools in order to encourage them to share resources and expertise is one of them. The KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education has used the clustering of schools for resource sharing. The evolution of the clustering project however, took different forms and subsequent events showed that the form taken either allowed for further growth and development, or subjected the project to failure and decay. The Inkandla and Mbazwana scenarios, presented two different models and different evolutionary histories that present interesting topics for research, and both scenarios had different stories to tell. Issues of acceptance, that is awareness and preparedness, accessibility, and community dynamics play a major role in ensuring the success or failure of a project; and this is very evident in Mbazwana and Inkandla. This study attempted to measure the levels of awareness and preparedness concerning the sharing of information resources. Preparatory ground work among communities was necessary to ensure the people were willing to embrace the concept of resource sharing and its values. Three methods were selected as appropriate to the study that is reviewing the relevant literature and data collection by questionnaire and interview schedule. Two nodal points were studied, one at Inkandla and another at Mbazwana. Stratified sampling with ten respondents from each cluster was used to make the sample representative. Since the study needed to establish the levels of awareness and preparedness by these cluster members as well as nodal schools of the clustering concept, it emerged from the study that there are two types of awareness, that is, awareness of the vision, and awareness of the centres or nodal points and their resources. Responses concerning awareness of the vision yielded a variety of results because the levels of awareness differed from individual to individual, and it is the levels of awareness that eventually determine levels of preparedness to embrace the concepts, ultimately affecting the use and non-use of the centres. The study revealed that even though the concept has numerous challenges, the population studied was not generally averse to the concept, however, a lot of preparatory work needs to be done prior to setting up such projects. Once set up careful monitoring and a timely response to problems is important for the sustainability of these centres. / Thesis (MIS)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, [2006].

The purpose of the dissertation was to evaluate the Russell High School library collection in meeting the curricula needs of learners. A study population consisting of 150 learners, 13 teachers, the librarian and Principal was surveyed by means of questionnaire and interview. Three types of questionnaires were used, one each for the learners, the teachers and the librarian. The Principal's interview was based on a checklist. Results were discussed in terms of frequencies and cross-tabulations of responses were made. Results are graphically displayed in the form of tables, pie charts and bar charts. The present situation of the library and its problems are discussed with regard to resources, the availability and suitability of the present collection, types of materials used, and satisfaction with the library by users as well as encouragement from teachers and the librarian to learners in the use of the library. The discussion was situated within the current requirements of Outcomes-Based Education as guided by Curriculum 2005 and 21. The study findings indicated that learners and teachers were satisfied with the library stock although a need for books, especially new titles, was identified. Learners and teachers felt that more books and better infrastructure for example, computers, television sets, and more space were needed. It was also revealed, however, that the budget was severely limited. These findings are discussed within the framework provided by a review of international, African and local school libraries. Recommendations for possible future services are made in the light of this discussion. / Thesis (M.I.S.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2001.

Abstract available in pdf file.

Orientador: Sergio Ferreira do Amaral / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Educação / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-13T07:19:51Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Santos_GildenirCarolino_D.pdf: 4566029 bytes, checksum: 9b2ce0a20310e771ad8b8ed4b433abc5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008 / Resumo: O presente estudo, de caráter descritivo-análitico, com foco na pesquisa exploratória, analisa as percepções dos gestores, através de diretores e vice-diretores em 04 (quatro) escolas públicas e municipais de ensino fundamental e médio, sobre aspectos relacionados à administração pelas habilidades e competências de operar em suas escolas à rede BEDnet. O principal objetivo desse estudo é, a partir das percepções particulares investigadas, compreender o sentido do trabalho coletivo perante as habilidades apresentadas e o que o mesmo pode significar para as escolas públicas e municipais de ensino fundamental e médio ao ingressar na BEDnet, através da competência informacional. Foram empregados nos procedimentos de coleta de dados: entrevista, baseada no roteiro de entrevista de indicadores de desempenho, com ênfase na experiência de vida de cada sujeito pesquisado como gestor e; a aplicação de um questionário de afirmativas e respostas abertas contendo 15 questões e semi-estruturado a partir da noção de quatro grandes áreas de atividades (pessoal, profissional, tecnológico e gestão) relacionadas a seu conhecimento e administração da rede BEDnet. Por fim, estes procedimentos nos levaram a identificar as habilidades e competência informacional dos gestores como receptores e disseminadores de conhecimento na integração e compartilhamento do portal BEDnet. Finalmente, a investigação não se finaliza aqui, representa apenas uma etapa concluída de um estudo mais amplo, onde a metodologia apresentada poderá ser estendida e aplicada em escolas públicas, deficientes de bibliotecas escolares presenciais. O compartilhamento de saberes e união dos conhecimentos técnicos e teóricos dos bibliotecários, professore e alunos, demonstrarão que é possível aplicar na realidade a construção de um projeto social necessário para a complementação do ensino nos dias de hoje. / Abstract: This descriptive and analytical study, focusing on an exploratory research, analyses the perceptions of managers, through the views of 04 (four) public and municipal elementary and middle schools directors and vice directors, on issues related to the administration, skills and competencies to operate the network BEDnet in their schools. The main objective of this study is, starting from the individuals perceptions investigated, to understand the sense of collective work in face of the skills presented and the meaning for public and municipal elementary and middle schools to join the BEDnet through the informational competence. The procedures for data collection were: interviews, based on a previous plan of performance indicators, emphasizing the living experience of each subject searched as manager, and also, applying a half-structured questionnaire of affirmative and open answers containing 15 questions, starting from the notion of four major areas of activities (personal, professional, technological and management) related to their knowledge and network administration of BEDnet. Finally, these procedures led us to identify the skills and informational competence of managers, as receivers and disseminators of knowledge in the integration and sharing of BEDnet portal. Finally, the research does not end here, it represents a first step in a broader study, which methodology could be extended and applied in public schools, poor of school libraries. The sharing of the librarians¿ technical and theoretical knowledge, teachers and students, demonstrate that it is possible to implement a social project necessary to complement the education today. / Doutorado

Introduction. The concept of emotional labour can be described as the strategies used to express emotions required of a job, and the strategies used to suppress those emotions that are inappropriate in the workplace. This paper aims to examine the emotional labour of Swedish high school librarians. Method. For this study, six high school librarians were interviewed about emotional situations in the workplace and how they handle their emotions. The interview transcripts were analysed thematically, using QDA Miner Lite software. Analysis and results. Emotional labour theories and role theory were used to understand the librarians' emotional labour. The findings show that emotional labour occurs in interactions with students, teachers/colleagues and managers. Situations that require emotional labour include students that make a racket in the library, students in need of support in personal matters and challenges of instructional work. However, the most prominent theme concerns teachers/colleagues and managers who do not have accurate knowledge of the librarians' competencies. The librararians use deep and surface acting strategies to handle their emotions, as well as situation modification, situation selection and venting. These strategies are used both during interaction and before/after (outside of) situations. Conclusion. Interactions with students are not the primary cause of the librarians' emotional labour. Rather, the main reason for emotional labour is managers' and colleagues' limited knowledge of school library work and the competencies of school librarians. One effect of this limited knowledge is that the librarians do not always get the opportunity to practice their competence. Another effect is the risk that the students do not get equal access to the librarys' and the librarians' services – in turn, the risk of this inequality affects the librarians' emotional health negatively. This is a two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Science.

The problem addressed by this investigation is whether the provision of centralized school library services is related to the reading habits and reading abilities of elementary school children. In considering this problem, a survey approach was utilized which entailed the examination of standardized reading achievement test scores, student reading records, and parent, teacher, and student questionnaire responses.

Thus far the research on how schools have managed the sudden transition to distance education due to the COVID-19 pandemic has mainly focused on the experiences of teachers, and the voices of school librarians have gone unexplored. This study aims to explore the transition to distance education from the perspectives of secondary school librarians in Sweden. The study focuses on how this transition affected school librarians’ working practices and the factors that impacted their abilities to rebuild their usual activities and services in new formats. This study uses an infrastructural perspective to analyse the school library as a part of the wider school infrastructure, and considers the enforced transition to distance education as a kind of infrastructural ‘breakdown’. School libraries are treated as multifaceted infrastructures with material, structural and relational/cultural factors which all may contribute to their success. Through a thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with 14 librarians at 12 secondary schools in Sweden, I identified four themes in the ways informants talked about the transition process:  1.     Most well-established practices, relationships and collaborations could be adapted.  2.     The library room had social functions that could not be fully rebuilt online. 3.     Systematic integration, strong relationships and a culture of library use contributed to successful transitions. 4.     Work to make libraries more accessible and visible became more important. This is a two years master's thesis in Library and Information Science. / Hittills har forskningen om hur skolor har hanterat den plötsliga övergången till distansundervisning på grund av COVID-19-pandemin fokuserat till största delen på lärares erfarenheter, och skolbibliotekariers röster har inte utforskats. Denna studie syftar till att utforska övergången till distansundervisning utifrån svenska skolbibliotekariers perspektiv. Studien fokuserar på hur denna process påverkade skolbibliotekariers arbetspraktiker, och de faktorer som påverkade deras förmåga att återskapa sina vanliga verksamheter i nya format.  Studien använder ett infrastrukturellt perspektiv för att analysera skolbiblioteket som en del av en bredare skolinfrastruktur, och betraktar den påtvingade övergången till distansundervisning som ett slags “infrastrukturellt sammanbrott”. Skolbibliotek behandlas som mångfasetterade infrastrukturer, med materiella, strukturella och relationella/kulturella faktorer som alla kan bidra till deras framgång. Genom tematisk analys av semi-strukturerade intervjuer med 14 bibliotekarier på 12 gymnasieskolor i Sverige identifierade jag fyra teman i hur informanterna pratade om övergångsprocessen:  1. De mest väletablerade praktikerna, relationerna och samarbetena kunde anpassas. 2. Biblioteksrummet hade sociala funktioner som inte helt kunde återskapas på nätet. 3. Systematisk integrering, starka relationer och en kultur av biblioteksanvändning bidrog till framgångsrika övergångar. 4. Arbetet för att göra biblioteken mer tillgängliga och synliga blev viktigare.