Comments on The Traditional Model of School Librarianship

While reading Buffy Hamilton's post about the 'Traditional Model of School Librarianship', two thoughts occurred to me. The first was the realization that I have often wondered how a school librarian would be able to accomplish everything that they should be doing (outreach, information literacy, creating relationships, ordering supplies, cataloging books, running the library) with a small or non-existent staff. It is simply impossible to do everything, or do it well. Which could be one of the reasons why administrators/purse string holders think that libraries are not essential.

My other thought is that the "new" model Ms. Hamilton is talking about is what college and university libraries have been doing for years with the liaison or subject specialist model. Having even two librarians and one support staff person for 1000 students would still be a better model. Being part of a team (both a library team and a instructional team) would help lessen the workload, create better educators and help with the creative process. Is this a model that we, as librarians, could suggest to our administrators. What is an acceptable ratio of students/staff to librarians?

This topic may be outside of the "technology in teaching" topic, but it is an important one to consider. How will we have the time to include new technology into our teaching if we are barely keeping up with everything else? As Ms. Hamilton said, media and technology take time (and can have a huge positive impact on learning), but if we have inadequate staffing levels are we setting ourselves up for failure? Are we fulfilling the idea that libraries/librarians do not have a large impact on teaching and learning?