Am I a 21st Century School Librarian?

I found reading Manifesto for 21st Century School Librarians extremely interesting. I guess I am not quite a 21st Century TL, but thanks to my UBC Web 2.0 course I am on my way.
The following are things that I do that bring me closer to being a 21st Century School Librarian:

I do market my books using the social networking tool of LibraryThing. I not only use this tool to list book titles, but to find books of similar interest that students, staff and I would enjoy reading.

My students are not blogging or tweeting about what they are reading yet, but I am planning on having them do this once the second semester begins. My guess is that some of the students will be able to tweet and blog better than me, but at least I have started a blog and we will learn together. I have yet to review a book on my blog, but I do plan on doing so soon.

In my Literacy class I have been trying to promote reading by having students listen to books. I started with books on tape and CD, and then progressed to downloading books onto MP3 players. My ebook collection is growing rapidly.

When I have students working on computers, I encourage them to search various parts of the Web. I try of offer them an array of search tools such as AltaVista, Kosmix, Browsys.

As part of my current job of Literacy Teacher, I have helped teachers to find websites, videos, webquests etc. that they have used with their students in their classrooms.

The school library is the place where all podcasting and video conferencing takes place.

I believe that on of the best ways to promote the library is by collaborating with other teachers and “know that one-to-one classrooms will change my (your) teaching logistics.

Other staff members and I are building our own learning networks in which we share are new technology lessons. I have also been able to provide a space and knowledge for other teachers to start their own learning networks. The concept is picking up speed in the building.

Technology is my current pro.d trend. I try to attend as many work shop as possible that talk and teach about how to make my teaching and classroom more tech savy.


It is true that I have not accomplished many of the tasks on Valenza’s list of what a 21st Century Librarian does, but I am slowly improving and do have some tasks that I am going to try to accomplish in the near future. I will begin with incorporating blogs into my classroom lessons. Along with this of course comes teaching students about norms of appropriate behaviour, discussing copyright issues and ethics.

Retooling- and re-learning will be a big concept in my transformation. I hope that eventually I will be able to proudly represent the new brand of TLs and be a 21 century information professional.