A
rolling research library seems like a good idea in theory. That is, until you realize that the librarians of the collection are the student council and volunteer teachers. Students and teachers that are expected to:
- Select materials
- Catalog
- Maintain the collection
Excuse me? First of all, isn't cataloging annoying, tedious and tends to be complicated in the rules department? I'm pretty sure I remember having at least one nervous breakdown during my cataloging course (but then again, that could be a result of the teaching style). Either way, cataloging is an area of librarianship that many seek excessive distance, so how would students be experienced enough in their short 13 years to do it?
This library is an enormous blow to school librarians in the state of New Jersey. If the department of education for NJ did
not make such stringent guidelines for which classes I am required to take in order to be a media specialist, I would imagine them unaware of what it takes to be an effective school librarian, but they
did. They
are aware of the education process that churns out librarians, and yet they anticipate teachers and children to be able to do our job? Excuse me, what?
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2 comments:
I think the cataloging portion of that is the only one I really take issue with. Of course, it doesn't necessarily go into much detail about what exactly is involved in cataloging, and it might just be poor word choice on the part of the website/author because couldn't cataloging at a simplified level include just maintaining lists of book title and location on which cart and which room the carts are in?
I do like though that both students and staff were involved in selecting materials. Very often I've found that materials are just provided to teachers and kids and they're forced to use them regardless of their feelings on the materials.
This is reading like an eCompanion discussion response. My apologies.
Gah! As you should. eCompanion discussions... ::shudders::
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