Citation
Blesh, T.E. (2021), "Book review", Asian Education and Development Studies, Vol. 10 No. 4, pp. 615-615. https://doi.org/10.1108/AEDS-10-2021-288
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited
Reviewer information
Effective school librarianship successful professional practices from librarians
around the world
Pub: Apple Academic Press Inc.
Pub Date: April 2018
Hard ISBN: 9781771886567
E-Book ISBN: 9781315149578
Pages: 534pp w/Index
Binding Type: hardback
Notes: 69 pages of color illustrations
This two-volume set, by author's names, is a wonderful way for school librarians and classroom teachers to gain ideas from personal narratives presented by practicing librarians around the world. Each interview provides the librarian's biographical information, experience, education and what they bring to the profession and their community prompted by interview and follow-up questions. Volume one covers North America, South America and Europe; Volume two includes Africa, Asia and Australia.
Recently, there has been more attention paid to the influence of libraries at the global level, particularly in underserved areas. These books focus on interviews with school librarians around the world who share their stories, experiences, best practices and struggles. They bring to the reader their own specific cultural and professional backgrounds along with new ideas to provide services and literacy experiences to their communities. These case studies show many commonalities, not only in practices but also in the challenges of being a school librarian in their own country. There are many ideas that will incentivize library students, new school librarians, long-time practitioners and administrators.
Although the intended audiences for these books are school libraries, librarians and teachers, large libraries and library science schools will benefit greatly from including these volumes in their collections. The interviews focus on day-to-day library management, responsibilities and programming in addition to the importance and passion of serving students and teachers as an integral part of the school community. There is much to learn from these two very readable and interesting volumes.
As a reviewer, the tenacity of these librarians from well-to-do schools to schools in under-developed locations was fascinating. Their stories share the extent to which they can be creative and serve their children and young adult constituencies regardless of resource availability, economics, national library standards or administrative support. There is a treasury of useful ideas hidden among the pages of these two volumes.