Enhanced and changing roles of school librarians under the digital age

1. Introduction

In our earlier work (Lo et al. , 2014b), we confirmed from our survey that school librarians are not only managers of school libraries but are also playing other roles such as of educators, administrators, teaching consultants, information specialists and information literacy (IL) teachers. Unfortunately, in many countries, especially in Asia, there has always been a lack of understanding of such extra roles of school librarians in the public education system (Nakamura, 2000; Cheng, 2012). To make matters worse, many novice school librarians do not have a clear understanding of the potential contributions of school library programs to students' overall development process and their academic achievements (Chan, 2008), in particular with the current trend in enquiry-based learning (Lo et al. , 2014b).

Further, according to the University College London CIBER Research Team (2008) in the UK, information skills are vital for our next generation to survive in the information age, and thus should be inculcated in schools as early as practical. However, professional literature reveals that school librarians in many countries are facing similar problems related to their professional image, role and job satisfaction (Cheng, 2012; Hartzell, 2002; Miller, 2005; Nakamura, 2000; Wong, 1992; Zhan et al. , 2012; Zhang, 2010), together with a lack of resources, time, certified programs and training opportunities, recognition toward school librarians' qualifications, understanding and support amongst principals and other classroom teachers (Lo et al. , 2014b).

Previous studies focus mostly on school librarian's impacts on students' reading abilities and academic achievements (Lonsdale, 2003; Lance and Hofstede, 2011), instead of examining the collaboration between the classroom teachers and librarians. As such, this study was set out to answer the following research questions:

RQ1. To explore the emerging new roles of the school librarians under the new digital era.

RQ2. To explore the nature and scope of new changes in the practices amongst the school librarians through the cases in Hong Kong.

RQ3. To identify some key professional knowledge, skills as well as character traits needed for the school librarians to perform their new roles effectively.

RQ4. To determine the level of job satisfaction as well as their own view toward their new/changed roles as school librarians in the Hong Kong context.

1.1 Values and significance of the study