In April 2021, I conducted a survey among school librarians whose libraries are subscribed to Scholastic's literacy program. The later was earnestly bent on helping the former survive through the pandemic. As an invited speaker, I had the chance to develop a survey on the status of school librarians during the pandemic. In the study, four roles of the school librarian were identified. I then further developed the result of the survey into a webinar that has a priming and post activity for participants to do asynchronously.
Around July, when the PBBY had a round table discussion with librarians, PASLI President Ms. Ching Basagre and NLP librarians presented the services and programs they have been running during the pandemic. All these information prompted me to go back to the survey of April 2021, reread the blog posts I have on SLIA and whip up a proposal for the PLAI Congress. This month, I received a letter of acceptance.
As I have been developing the paper for the past two weeks now, I found this chart by the American Association of School Librarians that spells out the varied roles and responsibilities that school librarians do in and for the learning community during the COVID era. What makes this chart valuable is the identification of different learning modalities, vis-a-vis the functions and purposes of school library work. This will definitely help me shape the paper I am writing. Also, it lends insight into the work I do in the Academy and the advocacies that go along with the practice of librarianship.
