Saturday, January 19, 2008

Is a Library Technician (LT or LIT) allowed to teach LTs?

I have received the following question, any response to this?
Hello Mohamed:

I found this blog post on Sunday and I'm sending it round to anyone I think might be interested. Do you know if LTs are allowed to teach LTs in your area or if a university degree is required? Cheers.

Julanne Hennessy, Library Technician

Suggested reading:
See also a blogpost by Derek Whitehead that shows concern (among others) at least on two related issues in the professional circles:
  • it seems likely that we haven't got a systematic enough approach to articulation between paraprofessional and professional qualifications

  • there is a strong preoccupation with the relative roles and status of librarians and library technicians, as one might expect

Quotes (for reflection): "As with teacher-librarian jobs, full-time library technician positions tend to be a secondary school phenomenon." Anybody home?Who's really left in Ontario's school libraries?Glenn Turner

"A library technician recently contacted me for advice on how to teach the school staff about the Focus on Inquiry document (Alberta Education 2004). Though I applauded her initiative in seeing the need to teach children using an inquiry model, I questioned why this job was being done by non-certificated staff. I am told by learning resources consultants from across Alberta that it is common for non-certificated staff to teach information skills." Almost extinct
Teacher–librarians are Alberta’s newest endangered species
, Fern Reirson

And, the punchline is, if you wish to see the trend, as to how many LTs have teaching qualification, wait for the results of this survey: Australian School Libraries Research Survey

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

hi Mohammad

Just thought of you a couple of days ago and thought I should send you an update as you had been supportive before. Did you see that the Library Technicians employed as teachers problem has been fixed?
http://librarytechnician.blogspirit.com/ It's a bit of a relief. The information was passed on to me. So now, in order to teach library technicians, you can have a degree or a diploma (or equivalent). Not sure how it works in Canada, but here in Oz the diploma is the qualification that library technicians get. Not that I want to teach at the moment, but it's nice to know it's back on the table as a possibility again.

hope all is well at your end of the planet
cheers
jay