A Look at the Different Kinds of Librarians

Hello again! This week I’ll be looking at a blog linked by one of my fellow students (Thank you for that, saved me a lot of time! XD). 

This blog post by Kerri Cicolani is entitled ‘Why do we need library technicians in our school libraries?’ and can be found here, http://hubinfo.wordpress.com/2010/05/11/why-do-we-need-library-technicians-in-our-school-libraries/. 

In this particular post the author talks, quite passionately, about her job as a library technician in a primary school setting and the differences between her position and that of a teacher librarian. The differences, she explains, are in their areas of expertise along with the knowledge and services each different kind of librarian can offer their patrons. For example, a library technician has experience with cataloging and web 2.0, while a teacher librarian has the skills and expertise in a school setting to be able to better help students with their curriculum work. Of course this isn’t all they do, this is just a small example of the differences in their day-to-day jobs. Cicolani also fervently shares her belief that in all school libraries it is important to have well trained staff, teacher librarians and library technicians both. 

I will admit that prior to reading this I didn’t really have that much of an idea for the differences between the many kinds of librarians. It was quite an enlightening read in that aspect and one I recommend to everyone!