This document discusses the benefits of collaboration between teachers and librarians for students, teachers, and librarians. It provides examples of how collaboration can enhance learning, instruction, and the library collection. The document also outlines librarians' understanding of collaboration based on their training and professional guidelines, and provides different levels of involvement between teachers and librarians ranging from networking to coordination to collaboration. Strategies for initiating collaboration and flexible library scheduling models are also discussed.

1. Collaboration and Schedules in
the School Library
By: Patricia Reardon

2. Collaboration is the action of
working with someone to
produce or create something.

3. Benefits of Collaboration
for the Students:
 Learning is maximized by the sharing of ideas and
experience.
 Assignments are more meaningful and better
planned.
 With the information literacy instruction embedded
in subject-based curriculum the information
becomes more relevant to the students lives and is
better understood.
 Students develop critical thinking skills needed to
evaluate resources
 Lessons that integrate informational technology not
only have more opportunity to be creative and
innovative but it also breaks the repetitiveness of
the everyday class activities.

4. Benefits of Collaboration
for the Teachers:
 Two minds are better than one! Each participant
contributes their own unique expertise and ideas to the
development of the lesson, creating a better learning
experiences for the students.
 Having the librarian's assistance and expertise for the
lesson saves the teacher time and effort.
 The more communication and collaboration with the
librarian about the curriculum subjects, the better the
library collection will be in those subject areas.
 Teachers get expert advice and assistance in
designing assignments that involve library resources
and information literacy concepts.
 Faculty member gets personalized reference and
research assistance from the librarian.

5. Benefits of Collaboration
for the Librarian:
 Collaboration helps demonstrate the librarian's
instructional value to the school.
 The Library help enhance the school’s curriculum and the
student’s academic performance.
 Librarians are better able to help students with
assignments.
 The end results of the collaborative projects demonstrate
the wide variety of opportunities information literacy
offers.
 Collaborating with teachers gives the librarian more
credibility and visibility in the academic community.
 It keeps the library active and involved in the school.
 It improves the statistics of the use of the library, which
will help to reinforcing budget proposal justifications.

6. Librarian’s Understanding
of Collaboration:
 As librarians, we are all aware of the value of
collaboration between teachers and the school
librarian because we learned about it in our
Library Science Program.
 And our understanding of it is essential in order
to comply with professional school librarian
guidelines.
 The importance of collaboration is reinforced in
our PDE 430 forms, Pennsylvania Guidelines for
School Library Programs, and the mission of
school libraries.

7. Librarian’s Understanding of Collaboration:
 PDE 430 Form states:
 Category III - Instructional Delivery –
Candidates performance appropriately
demonstrate integration of disciplines within
the educational curriculum.
 Meaning it must demonstrate evidence of
thorough integration and facilitation of
collaboration for instruction of information
literacy skills and use of technology within the
educational curriculum.

8. Librarian’s Understanding of Collaboration:
Pennsylvania Guidelines for School Library
Programs tells librarians to:
 Collaborate with classroom  Actively participate in the
teachers, reading specialists development, writing, and
and literacy coaches to assessment of the school or
enhance students’ reading district’s information literacy
experiences, promoting reading curriculum using the AASL’s
for information and pleasure. Standards for the 21st-Century
Learner and its benchmarks as
a framework.
 Collaborate with teachers to
design, instruct, and assess
student lessons or units  And then correlate the written
promoting authentic and information literacy curriculum
project-based learning and with the Common Core State
collaborate with teachers in Standards as collaborative
assessing and evaluating units of instruction are
integrated, instructional developed with teachers.
activities.

9. Teacher and Administrator’s Understanding
of Collaboration:
 They do not understand the value and
educational potential of libraries and librarians
because:
 Their teaching training emphasized on individual
classroom interaction between teacher and student
and lacked to mention the opportunities the library
has to offer.
 Many have misleading notions about libraries
being outdated and useless because of the
Internet.
 Unless the library is actively brought to the
attention of teachers and administrators it is
likely to go unnoticed and undervalued.

10. Degrees of Collaboration
 Networking/Outreaching
 The exchanging of information for mutual
benefit and going beyond the traditional duties
of a librarian to provide on-site services.
 Coordination
 Two or more parties working together towards
a shared goal or vision.
 Collaboration
 The action of working with someone to produce
or create something.

11. Outreaching/Networking
 Maximize access to  Offer instructional
the library facility and technology
resources within and workshops to faculty
outside the school  Attending
library professional
 Blogging/ Tweeting/ workshops
Facebook  Form partnerships
 Attending with other school and
departmental and public libraries
grade-level faculty around you, in which
meetings you can share
 Creating Resource resources,
Lists for teachers technologies, and
have virtual
collaborations

12. Coordination
 Library orientation  Basic or
lessons standardized
instruction sessions
 Session on the in the library
resources and
databases  Creating a rubric,
available in the graphic organizer,
library for a etc., for research
research project. projects

13. Collaboration
 Sharing short term  Collaboratively
as well as long term design, instruct, and
mutual goals and assess the learning
benefits. activity.
 The librarian and the  Each participant has
teacher(s) work as a a unique expertise to
team and contribute towards
simultaneously teach the lesson.
the lesson.

14. Ways to Initiate Collaboration
 Always remain a good  Try to make your
rapport with the library schedule as
teachers
flexible and open as
possible.
 Utilize every Internet
source and
subscription data-  Be helpful and
base you can access
to retrieve the latest volunteer your
research, theory, expertise assistance
model program, and as much as possible,
case study information even if it does not fall
available.
under you job
description.

15. Ways to Initiate Collaboration
 Attend department or  Offer teachers ideas
grade-level meetings. of instructional
possibilities that
 Familiarize yourself include collaborative
with the curriculum for effort between the
each grade level. librarian and the
teacher.
 Volunteer to take part
 Offer the library media of an activity or project
center as the site for off the teacher’s
an "idea bank." hands and integrate
information literacy
into the
activity/project.

16. Ways to Initiate Collaboration
 Don’t expect to  Share the successes
collaborate with all the you’ve had with other
faculty right away faculty members
 First start with  As the word gets
collaborating with the spread around, more
highly interested and more faculty
faculty members will want to
 Display the finished start collaborating with
products of the you
activities  Soon enough you will
 Share the successes have to be setting
you’ve had with other priorities

17. Library Scheduling

18.  ALA and AASL have issued standards promoting
flexible scheduling in school library. ALA wrote, “The
integrated library media program philosophy requires
that an open schedule must be maintained. Classes
cannot be scheduled in the library media center to
provide teacher release or preparation time.
Students and teachers must be able to come to the
center throughout the day to use information
sources, to read for pleasure, and to meet and work
with other students and teachers.”
 Librarians try to keep their media center open as
much as possible but run into conflicts.

19.  In spite of research and standards issued by ALA
and AASL, there is still a large number of schools
that do not practice flexible scheduling, particularly
elementary schools.
 There are several different reasons for this. The
practice of flexible scheduling fluctuates depending
upon the grade and school.
 There are both positive and negative aspects to
each type of schedule.

20. Work Cited
 Hartzell, Gary N. "The Invisible School Librarian: Why Other
Educators Are Blind To Your Value." School Library Journal
43.11 (1997): 24-29. ERIC. Web. 19 Mar. 2012.
 Hartzell, Gary. "Tactics For Building Influence With Teachers."
Library Media Connection 27.1 (2008): 44. Academic Search
Complete. Web. 19 Mar. 2012.
 Manzo, Kathleen Kenned. "Libraries Seeking Updated Role As
Learning Center." Education Week 16.30 (1997): 1. Academic
Search Complete. Web. 19 Mar. 2012.
 Loertscher, David. "What Flavor Is Your School Library? The
Teacher-Librarian As Learning Leader." Teacher Librarian 34.2
(2006): 8-12. Academic Search Complete. Web. 19 Mar. 2012.
 Pennsylvania State Library, Harrisburg. Pennsylvania
Guidelines For School Library Media Programs. 1983. ERIC.
Web. 20 Mar. 2012.