Abstract

The aim of this study is to classify the work contents of school library, as derived from international and national school library standards, and to examine the roles of teacher librarians according to these classifications. The roles of teacher librarians are categorized based on ALA’s Information Power, which defines them as teacher, instructional partner, information specialist, and program administrator. To understand the scope of school library’s work, five international school library standards and eight foreign school library standards (e.g., from the United States and the United Kingdom) were selected for analysis. A survey was then administered to 15 experienced teacher librarians to classify essential work contents for each of the defined roles. The findings indicate that the role of information specialist is consistently central to the teacher librarian’s responsibilities. Furthermore, the roles of teacher, instructional partner, and program administrator are adopted situationally, depending on the specific time, relationships, and content of the school library’s educational activities. While leader, as highlighted by AASL (2009), is an integral aspect of the teacher librarian’s overall responsibilities, it is considered an intrinsic characteristic underlying the four primary roles identified by ALA (1998).