Photo by Austin Chan on Unsplash
Teacher-Librarians – The Digital Curators.
We live in the age when it is often said, “Why does one need a librarian at all; just Google it!” But as Neil Gaiman aptly puts it, “Google can bring you back 100,000 answers. A librarian can bring you back the right one.”
In times of the Covid-19 pandemic, schools shutting down their premises all over the world, have created a concern of continuing education of students. With classes moving online on various platforms, teacher-student interactions are taking on a new form. Still, the learning has taken on new exciting perspectives, both for the teacher and the students.
Librarians & Tech Tools
There has been a plethora of information being shared online, from free read-aloud sessions to databases opening their doors for researching to a multitude of eBooks. There is now, more than ever a need of Information Professionals (read Teacher-Librarians) than before who are tech-savvy content curators, sieving, critically analyzing and evaluating through this tsunami of information to provide the exact resource to their teachers.
Librarians as Resource Persons
Liferarians, a community of teacher-librarians from IB schools all over India, was formed with the basic idea of collaborating resources and to support each other. As they faced the challenging task of defending their schools at such a time, a thought process was drawn up to have an information pool where the librarians can add and share at the same time.
Eager to learn and test their technology skills, 42 Liferarians, took out time from their busy, hectic schedules of working from home, to bond with each other besides imbibing new skills on a Zoom Cloud platform.
Librarians and Philosophy
Keeping the IB philosophy in mind, copyright violation was discussed by emphasizing on integrity when using and sharing resources. A brief overview of the essential agreements was outlined before running a short session on the use of Padlet.
Librarians as Collaborators
This online live session helped bond with our colleagues through face-to-face interaction, breaking the ice between so-far faceless communication of WhatsApp, to empowering the enthusiastic members to question the feasibility and practicality of this medium.
Librarians part of Liferarians
With a platform as Padlet at their fingertips, members have learnt how to create their information banks. It will not only serve their immediate school community but by collaborating and helping other librarians. And, these resources will continue to be accessible when we return to a physical school.
Liferarians are feeling more confident as they become media savvy with the latest technology and collaborating with other fellow librarians, thereby doing justice to a new role of Digital Curators. Here is the link to the Professional Development Session.
– Ms. Sunita Bakhru (Librarian)
