IASL's Reviews of Professional Materials

Henri, James and Asselin, Marlene (eds). Leadership issues in the information literate school community. Westport, Connecticut: Libraries Unlimited. 2005. 242 pp. ISBN 1-59158-184-2 (pbk.).

The opening chapter of this book indicates the position of leadership of teacher librarians, as presented in The information literate school community: best practice 1999, is still remaining unrealised. This sequel endeavours to present the issues teacher librarians need to address to ‘become leaders in the new emerging visions of schools’ (Henri & Asselin, p1).

The editors identify four major developments that will impact on the thinking and practices of teaching and learning:

  • New learners
  • New literacies and multiliteracies
  • New and multiple identities and communities
  • Teaching as a political activity (Henri & Asselin, p2).

Student-centred learning will focus on the Millennials; a generation of learners who consider that school is not the only place where learning takes place. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) will impact on and challenge the learning literacies and pedagogical practices of teaching and learning. ‘Globalization, diversity and the rapid development and proliferation of information and communication technologies’ will define our community structures and our identity within community. The ‘networked society’ will place teaching in the midst of political activity as ‘social justice, globalization, ethical use of information and empowerment’ become integrated into curriculum and classrooms as students endeavour to understand and develop meaning about the world they live in (Henri & Asselin, pp.2-5).

Each chapter included in this sequel addresses the theory, research and practice of leadership in the information literate school community.

In his chapter, James Henri defines the information literate school community and relates this to broader corporate contexts such as learning organisations, communities of learners and collaborative learning communities. He indicates this type of focus will redefine the school and education culture and argues that being information literate is a process of becoming informed and requires a mastery of learning the processes.

Cushla Kapitske tackles the impact ICTs have on the teaching and learning spaces and the resulting forms of text that have emerged. She suggests that these new notions create some level of adult anxiety, as the emerging learning spaces and text are unfamiliar to the adult but highly familiar to the Millennials. Her review of these perspectives is explained in the context of the literacy curriculum of one educational system - Education Queensland, Australia. Sue Spence shares her experience at Adelaide High School, Australia on the integration of ICTs in teaching and learning. She provides a variety of technological scaffolds for learning that support resource-based learning and an inquiry-based approach.

Louise Limberg challenges how information literacy is taught. She advocates it is necessary to move away from the traditional patterns of doing and teaching research to recreating instruction to fully support the complexity and depth of the many and varied models of information literacy available to the practitioner. Limberg supports her position with findings from three of her studies on what teacher librarians actually teach. Jedd Bartlett demonstrates the effective practice of recreating instruction by describing an innovative program that focuses on student-centred learning and inquiry-based processes.

Elizabeth Lee adopts the premise that the skill to read is the foundation on which all other literacy skills rest and the teacher librarian has a strong leadership role within this literacy development and the connection with the technology.

The leadership role of the school principal is pivotal to the success of developing an information literate school community. Dianne Oberg and James Henri present a role profile of the principal as sourced from a review of professional and research literature. An international study of seven countries helps to extend this role profile and adds depth to the important relationship between the school principal and the teacher librarian for the advancement of the school library within the information literate school community. Jean Brown and Bruce Sheppard, in their chapter, endorse the view that teacher librarians need to be mirror images of teacher leaders and describe four areas of competency required to develop this image – 1) knowledge base, 2) technical skills, 3) personal, interpersonal and team skills, and 4) a particular system of values and beliefs.

Anne Clyde raises social justice issues in her chapter. She argues that school library policy needs to acknowledge international and national polices as well as political and educational documentation on the wide-ranging social and human rights issues. The teacher librarian plays a crucial leadership role in resource and educational developments within a school community. Clyde also raises other issues such as HIV and sexual orientation.

Knowledge management and knowledge creation are corporate world aspects addressed by Sandra Lee. She presents an overview of the main views and components of knowledge management and identifies schools as similar environments for knowledge management. Lee includes the perspectives of the teacher and the student as knowledge builders within an information literate school community.

Lesley Farmer (North America), and Linda Selby and Maureen Trebilcock (New Zealand) present chapters on specific international contexts of educational change and how teacher librarians can be leaders within these educational environments. Ken Haycock discusses the system issues in developing partnerships with the education authorities. He presents components for a policy framework that must be in place to ensure a whole school approach is adopted for the development of an information literate school community. Marlene Asselin reviews trends in educational reform and presents three Canadian models of educating pre-service teachers about school libraries and information literacies with the view that this approach can prepare pre-service teachers as effective members of information literate school communities.

This book will be a valuable resource for educators involved in re-thinking the school learning community, particularly catering for the new learner through the integration of multiple literacies and ICTs across curriculum structures within a global world. Readers will be challenged by the diverse points of view, but this only reflects the complexity of the world our Millennials learner inhabits and the multiple messages they need to decipher to develop knowledge, meaning and understanding.

(Editor note: An edition of this book is available for sale in Australia, New Zealand, and Hong Kong. The information literate school community 2: issues of leadership, New South Wales: Centre for Information Studies, Charles Sturt University. (ISBN 1-876938-72-2).

Reviewed by Karen Bonanno, Director, KB Enterprises (Aust) Pty Ltd, Zillmere, QLD, Australia; IASL Executive Secretary.

Buy the Book Today!

Last Updated 4 June 2006 (KSB)