What is in a name? Over the last 25 years (probably longer) the title of school librarian has morphed from school librarian to media specialist to teacher librarian. In Canada and California, and maybe other places we are officially teacher librarians. According to AASL we are school librarians. You would be amazed (or at least I am) at the debate and passion this issue incurs. A recent webinar explored the issue, right after AASL's announcement - yes, we are school librarians. What is your take? Does the name matter? Why? Which would you choose? Why? I have a lot of thoughts about this seemingly innocuous question. Or two questions, really: What do we call ourselves? And, does it matter? I had to go with bullet points here, because my thoughts on this are flying in many different directions.
- It strikes me that this conversation, both the tone of the AASL discussion and the topic itself, reflects a profession that is somewhat in crisis, or at least in flux. If everything is hunky dory and things are going well, then you need to don’t devote a year of time to decide what to call yourself. The thrust of the AASL conversation was about branding and identity to the larger community, but I also feel that part of this question stems from the evolving self-identity of librarians, as well as the pressure of needing to continuously justify the importance of our work. So my first question is, who are we trying to define ourselves for? The public? Ourselves? Both?
- There was a lot of talk in the AASL webinar about the shift from an emphasis on information to an emphasis on knowledge. I like this. It reflects the shift in the research from a focus on “information literacy” to “guided inquiry." I think we’ve talked about this in class, too—the idea that information is the means, not the end. In some ways, I think this shift is about an acclimation to an information-saturated world. Perhaps 20 years ago the conversation was about, “Hey wow, look at all of this information!” And now it’s a given that the information is there, and the focus is on what we do with it.
- The move toward (or back to) school librarian as the “official” title for our profession is a way of re-encompassing what librarians do and are responsible for. I don’t know the whole history, but I can imagine that job titles like Library Media Teacher/Specialist and Information Technology High Priestess emerged due to changes in the profession and in school libraries. If librarians weren’t only reading books and helping with print reference anymore, but were doing more media and technology-related work, then perhaps some felt that a new title was needed to reflect these changes. Now I feel like there’s a move to bring it back and say, yes, libraries are changing and librarians are in charge of all of this— books and tech and computers and kindles and reference and databases and all of it— to sort of bring it all back in under the umbrella of librarianship. I appreciate that—it strikes me as a more integrative step than fracturing the job title. It’s post-postmodern!
- That said, I kind of think people should get to call themselves what they want, as a general rule, though I suppose professional associations get to be a little bit fascist about it, if they want to be. It was interesting for me to read some of the comments on the ALA and AASL websites about this issue—some school librarians clearly felt strongly about their professional identity and job title. So yes, names do matter. And I think there’s room for variation, too. I think what’s ultimately most important is that our role is clear to our students, teachers and families that we serve. “School librarian” is simple, direct, and to the point. I must say, I also like teacher-librarian. But maybe the “teacher” should be implied? Like all librarians are teachers?
- I identify myself a school librarian, so I am happy to accept this AASL guideline. I think it’s an appropriate name. It’s easily understood, and it’s broad enough to encompass the many facets of contemporary librarianship.
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