School Library Education in Canada: Leading for the Future
by Dianne Oberg
School libraries constitute the largest portion (approximately 75%) of the library sector in Canada and around the world. Despite their critical role in creating lifelong learners and the library users of the future, many school libraries in Canada are poorly resourced and staffed. The opportunities for school library education in Canada have been severely diminished. The challenges include: few providers and few faculty offering school library education; few students interested in the pathways leading to academic work; limited financial and human resources for school library education; and limited resources for research about school libraries.
Dianne,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing this important paper. As you are probably aware, I was particularly taken with your personal story related to entering teacher-librarianship. What a completely different world it was, that there could be no acclamations in board elections in the past! What would the future had been if that unlikely election win didn't occur for you?
Why have the Prairies and Atlantic Canada not had similar school library education opportunities, either in the past or present? Is it due to numbers? Funding? The lack of champions in those regions? How might places like British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario support those areas while still respecting the unique educational and cultural landscape there?
I share your concern about "limited access to graduate level education and extremely limited access to instructors and researchers" (page 4 of your paper). The University of Alberta has been fortunate to have you (and Dr. Branch and others) around to shepherd and promote the MEd TL-DL program. My other TMC8 paper asks similar questions about what we (and by we, I mean school library professionals in Canada) can do to find shepherds and help grow the flock. I hope that, while at TMC8, there will be ample time to discuss this pressing concern. The GCES sounds like a good solution to offer into the mix. What else can be done? (Reading your paper also made me realize I forgot to include references to OSLIP in mine - oops!)
Diana
To me the TL-DL program was the best learning experience I have had in my university career (through 3 universities, 2 bachelors, a graduate diploma and a masters). The connections I made along the way are still strong and we meet up at the yearly BCTLA conference to say hi to each other, despite never meeting in person during out time in the program. I am glad that something is being done with the GCES. Dr Branch-Mueller, Dr Rodgers, Dr de Vos and Dr. de Groot were excellent mentors who helped me understand how to be a better scholar and researcher.
ReplyDeleteThrough CSL's liaison work I have gotten to hear from people across Canada and the decline in enrollment in the TL-DL program matches up with the decline in positions. Particularly as conservative governments are elected those positions are cut, but equally problematic is that they are not being restored by incoming governments that are Liberal or NDP (e.g. Manitoba).
Out of interest, is there a PhD program you'd recommend? I've been looking at the San Jose joint program with the University of Manchester, but have yet to commit to anything.