Competency 9: Internet

The Internet offers a multitude of websites for school librarians. Several of my favorite websites are listed in the "School Librarian Websites" section of my blog. In my search for a credible website relevant to my blog topic, I used an advanced search for "school librarian role" (no parentheses) and specifyied the .org domain on the Google search engine.

I ultimately chose the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) website for the purpose of this competency. While the American Library Association (ALA) website is probably the most comprehensive website for librarians in general, the American Associan of School Librarians website, which is actually linked from the ALA website, is designed specifically for the school librarian. The title of the webpage retrieved in my initial search was Information Power: Building Partnerships for Learning: Roles and Responsibilities of the School Library Media Specialist. This article outlines and summarizes four key roles of the school library media specialist: teacher, instructional partner, information specialist, and program administrator.

The AASL websites provides many resources and useful links for its members, parents, administrators, and school librarian students. From the home page, there are links to information about the American Association of School librarians, issues and advocacy, conferences, guidelines and standards, continuing education, and research and statistics among others. A particularly useful link to the school librarian is the link to publications and journals which takes the user to a page with more links categorized by user and interest. Especially helpful is the "Essential Links: Resources for School Library Media Program Development" described as a wiki that "offers bibliographies of resources arranged alphabetically by frequently used topics." From the main page, topics of interest to the school library media specialist, including censorship, privacy, literacy, professional publications and many others, are listed in alphabetical order in the table of contents link.

I chose this website for inclusion in my blog because of the valuable resources it offers not only current school librarians but for anyone entering the profession. It's link to other related websites and publications makes this website an essential tool for the proffessional school library media specialist.