Howard Jones – Roles of the School Library Media Specialist

                Usually, library media specialists are teachers before they are librarians. This is important because part of library media specialist responsibility is teaching. According to the book, Information power:  Building Partnerships for Learning (1998), There are four areas of responsibility for the school library media specialist, and these responsibilities are: being a teacher, being a instructional partner with classroom teachers, being a information specialist, and being a program administrator. Because of the need of library media specialists to stay abreast of new information technologies, they must be life-long learners. Library media specialists must also love their job because they must encourage students to love coming to the library to read and do research, and the must also encourage students to be life-long learners. These things are very important in making a great library media specialist.

                The role of being a great library media specialist is being a great teacher. The library media specialist must be able to teach skills students need to learn. A skillful library media specialist makes the classroom teacher job much easier, and the whole school is better off because of the encouragement and inspiration of the library media specialist. The library media specialist is so helpful in helping students become independent learners, and this also make the classroom teacher much easier because the students are able to do their own research to find the information that they need to learn.

                Being an instructional partner with the classroom teacher, this allows the library media specialist and the classroom teacher to work together for the student learning. Information Power: Building Partnerships for Learning- shows that, “As instructional partner, the library media specialist joins with teachers and others to identify links across student information needs, curricular content, learning outcomes, and a wide variety of print, non-print, and electronic information resources”(P.4). It is so important for teachers and library media specialist to collaborate to plan for student learning according to Information Power:  Building Partnerships for Learning (p.4). Library media specialists must be able to locate information, using information technology, print, and non-print if they are to help teachers in student learning.

                Being an information specialist is so important to being a library media specialist. In order for an information specialist to be able to guide teachers and students in selecting the appropriate information that they need, he or she must be an expert in searching for information. According to, Information Power: Building Partnerships for Learning (1998), the library media specialist, “Provides leadership and expertise in acquiring and evaluating information resources in all formats (p.4).

                Being a program administrator is also important to being a great library media specialist. The library media specialist is the administrator of the library. The library media specialist must be able to administer a budge and plan for the library needs. The library media specialist is a program administrator, and he or she must be able to plan all activities for the library. According to, Information Power: Building Partnerships for Learning, (1998), as program administrator the library media specialist “Works collaboratively with members of the learning community to define the policies of the library media program and to guide and direct all the activities related to it” (p.4).

The evident is clear that a library media specialist must be specialist in all of the areas mention if he or she is to be a great library media specialist, and if any one of these areas is lacking, the students will be the ones that will suffer. In order to be a great library media specialist, he or she must be a great teacher, a great instructional partner, a great information specialist, and a great program administrator.