Evolution and revolution in school library practice

Suzette Boyd as Director of Library Services at Methodist Ladies’ College in Melbourne has had a long career in teacher-librarianship and has an established reputation for taking risks and facilitating change.  
Since taking up her position at MLC four years ago her professional focus has  been managing change and reengineering traditional school library practice. In the four years at MLC the transformation that has taken place in the library has been described by the Principal David Loader as “breathtaking”  
 
Introduction
Against a background of the information revolution, in which the amount of information available on any given subject is increasing at an exponential rate; a paradigm shift in pedagogy from teaching students to helping students learn; and information technology making possible unlimited access to information on the Internet, our professional world has changed dramatically in recent years. We now see students accessing whatever they want on the WWW,  communicating by e-mail with experts around the globe without input from their teachers. Information Literacy skills will include skills that teachers don’t have and have not taught their students. 
Our expertise in this area is needed more than ever. What future are we as teacher-librarians going to respond to…or choose for ourselves?  
 
The current situation in school libraries
At the present time in school libraries there seem to be three prevailing scenarios or attitudes.

1. Doom and gloom - the worst scenario. Where the professionals have given up as it has all become too hard and the school administration has responded by putting the CD-ROM network and the Internet developments in the hands of the information technologists rather than with the information service professionals. 
Hopefully these schools are in the minority.

2. Evolutionary - I suspect a large proportion of school libraries are sitting here at the moment. (now for some generalisations - this is not my preferred model and so I guess I can only see the negatives) 
These libraries:

• focus on the daily routine, rather than long-term planning and goal -setting 
  have a wait and see attitude
• usually have a comfortable profile
• will have some resistance to change amongst the staff
• will implement new services, but will engage in little or no risk-taking
• have a “steady as she goes” approach
• can become complacent and
• do not acknowledge that paradigm shifts are possible in their organisation - “that would not be possible here”

3. Revolutionary 
This is a new era for libraries with many schools doing wonderful things. 
Revolutionary libraries:

• have shared decisions and a shared vision
• think big and take risks
• have strong leadership
• have a clear mission statement and clearly defined goals
• focus on mission critical practices
• practise “Total Quality Management” which in a library means total quality service
• encourage all staff to develop expertise and a profile
• are continually redefining roles
• provide varied opportunities for staff training and development
• value and reward competencies, not degrees - they foster the concept of a learning organisation
• reengineer traditional library practices
• compete successfully for resources within the parent organisation
• are used for benchmarking by other school libraries....and
• CHOOSE THEIR OWN FUTURE - this is the fundamental difference between evolutionary and revolutionary libraries.

Achieving revolution at Methodist Ladies’ College
When I was appointed to MLC in 1993 my brief was to take The Walton Library into the 21st century so some heady strategic planning had to take place. MLC is a day and boarding school for over 2200 students from kindergarten to year 12. he educational philosophy of the school is one that encourages active, self-directed learning, where students and teachers are learning together. The library needed to be brought into line with this philosophy. Following are the beliefs I brought to the job.
I believe in:

• The significance and importance of my role as a teacher-librarian.
• Being people focussed and service-centred.
• Always looking for a different way of doing things.
• Positivity (no negative signs, overdues are sent home to the students, not read out in class etc.)
• My staff . One of our emergency teacher-librarians has commented that I have more faith in my staff than they have in themselves. Well, after all, “none of us is as smart as all of us”.
• Having and sharing a vision and having clearly defined goals as “people who don’t have goals will be controlled by those who do”.
• Student-centred independent learning.
• Results and productivity. 

Steps to revolution
The revolutionary process began in 1993 with:

• The employment of professional staff and redefining the roles of those staff who wanted to stay on and be part of the change.
• Establishing user-friendly systems.
• Provision of student focussed services and a friendly vibrant atmosphere.
• Physical re-organisation of all spaces.
• Technology upgrade  - library now linked to school network for the first time.
• The development of a mission statement
• The Walton Library exists to provide a dynamic environment for independent learners, with services and curriculum resources of the highest quality and relevance. It embraces technological change and the promotion of reading and is a leader in Independent School Libraries in Australia.
• Getting rid of non-mission critical practices (like cutting articles out of newspapers and phasing out the Vertical File ).
• Marketing, marketing, marketing. 

In 1994 we:

• Established teams - each team developed an aim and objectives and wrote action plans for each objective.
• Installed a CD-ROM network.
• Established international links for acquisitions (Baker and Taylor Link).
• Focussed on new user services and educational initiatives (new student cards, self-check, security system, Information Skills Program, Literature Club, Friends of the Library, Library Expo, Literary Dinner with Alison Crook Professional Development programs for teaching staff).

1994 was the big year for substance and a real enhancement of profile. 

In 1995:

• The reengineering process begins with outsourcing of cataloguing, resulting in the chance for teacher-librarians to develop new and revolutionary programs.
• Visitor’s days - other schools and libraries were by now calling regularly for information about our programs, so we instituted a visitor’s program.
• Conducted seminars on the Internet for parents.
• Information networker course for students offered at lunchtimes and after school.
• The library becomes a professional development provider for teachers, as staff request attendance at seminars run by library staff through our Director of Professional Development.
• Expansion of networked information services - e-mail, Internet, further development of CD-ROMs, catalogue, on-line ordering 

In 1996 the following initiatives were possible because of the decision to outsource our cataloguing

• Production and sale of CD-ROM User Guides - (revolution compared with evolution)
• Community Access . We opened our doors to members of the public until 9.00 pm. four nights a week and charged a $60 subscription for 10 weeks. This subscription included unlimited access to the Internet (revolution compared with evolution)
• Development of Library Home Page
• Start of Information Access program via electronic pathfinder (revolution compared with evolution)
• SEARCH pages on the Intranet to assist students using Netscape search engines.

The challenge : choosing our future
We cannot expect others to automatically think our profession is vital and provide resources and support - we have to make our leaders believe that we are the “star resource of the school” (as I heard the teacher-librarian described last year at the Learning Environment Technology Australia conference in Adelaide).

At this same conference, the C21st  was described as the competitive century, where creativity, individuality and risk-taking will be the most highly valued characteristics of an employee.

The challenge is to decide if we want to take the risk of choosing our own future. If we take up this challenge we will need:
 
We will need a leader with the following characteristics:

• knows his/her own strengths and weaknesses
• is good at judging others abilities
• is a good teacher
• delegates
• can handle it when people dislike him/ her
• can share credit and blame equally

We will need library staff (and all teams) with the following personality types:

• an intuitive to offer ideas and to spot trends
• a thinker to carry out procedures and to get things done
• a sensitive to provide a sounding board

We will need to be asking ourselves and our staff:

• What are we doing?
• What should we be doing?
• What should we be doing next?
• What should we be not doing 

We will also need:

• to build credibility by identifying areas of support from within the school
• to encourage staff  who are committed team members, rather than “I just work here”
• to encourage experimentation and risk-taking
• to build skills across all staff
• to have a set of beliefs that are identifiable in the form of a mission statement and that are compatible with the mission of the parent organisation.
• to value human resources and not allow technology to rule.
• to improve performance through the use of technology
• to think and act entrepreneurially
• to market ourselves and our library
• to be accountable and continuously evaluate our role and performance.
• to be prepared to throw off the old if it is no longer mission critical.
• to aim for and expect the best performance from ourselves and our staff.
• to make decisions with “the big picture” in mind.....  and let’s not exhaust ourselves with trivial change!!! 

Here are some comments that I try and keep in mind: 

“To create the future you have to challenge the past” (LETA ‘96) 

“If you always do what you have always done, 
you will always get what you have always got”(anonymous) 

“There are three types of people: 
People who make things happen 
People who watch things happen 
and 
People who say what the hell happened” 
(Gerry Smith, Principal, River Oaks School, Toronto)

This paper appeared in SCAN Vol 16, No 1 February, 1997 under the title of  “Choosing a revolution: the role of the information service professional into the 21st century”

Copyright 1997: Suzette Boyd