SCHOOL LIBRARIES WORLDWIDE

Volume 8, Number 1, January 2002

Theme: The Multiple Dimensions of Principal Involvement

The Role of the Principal in the Evaluation of the School's Library Media Specialist [PDF file]
Miles Bryant, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA
Abstract
As many library media specialists in the USA know, the manner in which administrators evaluate their work seldom covers the many facets of work in today's school media center. Many factors combine to compromise the utility of the evaluation of library media specialists by the school administrator. Paramount among these factors are: 1) increased demands on the school principal as the instrument of accountability; 2) the tendency to use an evaluation model designed for teachers, not library media specialists; and 3) the dramatic changes that have occurred in the work of the library media specialist. This author analyzes briefly each of these influences and makes recommendations relative to how the evaluation of the school's library media specialist should be altered to provide a more effective means of helping achieve "information literacy", one of the 21st century's goals in the education of American children.

Copyright of works published in School Libraries Worldwide is jointly held by the author(s) and by the International Association of School Librarianship (IASL).The author(s) retain copyright of their works, but give permission to IASL to reprint their works in collections or other such documents published by or on behalf of IASL. Author(s) who give permission for their works to be reprinted elsewhere should inform the editor of School Libraries Worldwide and should ensure that the following statement appears with the article: Reprinted with permission, from School Libraries Worldwide, <issue volume, number, date, pages>.

Last updated 12 September 2008 (KSB)