The document summarizes a study that interviewed LIS and education faculty to understand their views on preparing teachers and librarians to collaborate in teaching 21st century skills. Both groups of faculty felt their fields address 21st century skills and that collaboration strategies should be taught, but collaboration in schools is difficult to achieve in practice. The study provides a basis for further research on how to better teach collaboration techniques.

1. Preparing Teachers and Librarians
to Teach 21st Century Skills:
Views of LIS and Education Faculty
DON LATHAM- ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
MELLISSA GROSS- PROFESSOR
SHELBIE WITTE- ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF LIBRARY AND INFORMATION STUDIES
AN ARTICLE REVIEW: STEPHEN SANDERS

2. Citation
Latham, D., Gross, M., & Witte, S. (2013). Preparing
teachers and librarians to collaborate to teach 21st
century skills: Views of LIS and education faculty.
School Library Research, 16. 1-22. Retrieved from:
http://www.ala.org/aasl/sites/ala.org.aasl/files/content
/aaslpubsandjournals/slr/vol16/SLR_PreparingTeacher
sLibrarianstoCollaborate_V16.pdf

3. Goals of the Study
 In LIS literature, a school librarian’s major contribution
to an academic institution is being able to collaborate
with teachers to help them and the institution achieve
their educational goals.
 Collaboration between the two groups, however, is
usually the exception rather than the rule
 Latham et al. hope to find out why that is the case in their
study, using interviews with LIS and education faculty of
a research university in the U.S. to find the answers

4. The Interview Process
 Interviewing six faculty from both the LIS and
education departments, Latham et al. sought to find
out how both sets of faculty viewed:


How 21st century skills are being taught to pre-service students
at their institution. (Are they integrated into the curriculum?)
And:
Do they teach/promote librarian-teacher collaboration
techniques to their students?
 The interview also took into account the participants
experiences with librarian-teacher collaboration,
where such collaboration is taught, and where it
could be taught

5. Results of the Interviews
 Both LIS and education faculty felt that their fields address 21st
century skills
 Both sets of faculty believe that collaboration strategies should
be taught at pre-service institutions
 Both sets of faculty felt that librarian-teacher collaboration in
schools is a worthy goal, and is possible, but is difficult to achieve
in practice
 Suggestions were made on how to begin teaching librarian-
teacher collaboration techniques in LIS and education
classrooms, but no real solutions were reached

6. Conclusions
 The article is well written, by authors who are
knowledgeable in the LIS field
 Methodology is sound and well explained
 The study is limited, given the small sample size of
participants in the interview. However, the study does
provide a good basis for further research on this topic.
 Until then, any librarian-teacher collaboration will have
to be preempted by LIS and education professionals in
the field, at all levels of education.