Librarian-Teacher Collaboration

I thought it would be interesting to explore librarian-teacher collaboration as a means of publicizing elementary school libraries and as a way to strengthen information literacy skills in students. Librarian-teacher collaboration means working together in many ways, including brainstorming research topics, answering reference questions, planning lessons, setting goals for students, team-teaching, and discussing current issues and best practices in education.
In most cases, it is up to school librarians to initiate collaboration with teachers because many of them do not fully understand how librarians can help or what their roles are beyond checking out books. However, Bishop (2003) indicates that once a librarian and teacher share a successful collaborative experience, other teachers become more willing to seek out partnerships as well. Since it is up to school librarians to initiate most collaborative efforts, they must be able to “sell” the importance of working together by showing teachers what is in it for them (half the work done by the librarian could be enough reason for some).
Peter Milbury, a Library Media Teacher in California, wrote an article for Knowledge Quest (AASL’s main publication for school librarians) listing the top ten important reasons for collaborating. Among some of his reasons are collaboration increases student achievement, reinforces the librarian’s role as an educational leader, and guarantees that the ethical use of information is integrated into instruction (Milbury, 2005). In addition, I would like to add that collaborating provides an excellent opportunity to promote the resources and services that the library has to offer to teachers and students alike.
According to Small (2002), many school librarians find it difficult to initiate and carry out collaborative plans. Why is this? “One possible explanation is the lack of a common collaborative mentality” (Small, 2002). School-librarians-in-training are taught to establish collaboration with teachers, yet pre-service teachers are taught to focus on managing self-contained classrooms. There’s something wrong with this picture because “collaboration cannot be fully realized without creating a collaborative culture in which all partners see the importance and understand the benefits of collaboration to themselves, each other and their students” (Small, 2002). Sadly, in my search of the literature through LISTA and ERIC, all of the articles on librarian-teacher collaboration were published in librarian-based journals like School Library Journal, Teacher Librarian, and Knowledge Quest, not in any journals aimed specifically at teachers. This further supports the fact that there is a disparity in the vision for collaboration.
In addition to not sharing a common collaborative mentality, not all teachers and administrators have a clear understanding of information literacy skills. One way to enhance teachers’ knowledge of the possibilities of collaboration and the importance of information literacy skills could be to offer “in-service training in information literacy for teachers and administrators so they are able to assist the school librarians in helping students become effective users of information” (Bishop, 2003, p. 6).
In my own experience, I have come to realize that meaningful collaboration takes time and effort from all parties involved, but it is well worth it. The Head Librarian with whom I work makes an effort to interact and plan projects with teachers, but most of her interactions are brief and do not include all the steps necessary for instructional design. When I become a school librarian, my goal is to become highly involved with teachers in a way that supports them, the curriculum, and the students. In order for teachers to want to collaborate with me, I must show them that I am dependable, creative, and a team player not out to tell them what to teach and how to teach it, but to support their needs while incorporating important information literacy skills. Teachers would also be more willing to collaborate if they knew about the research that supports librarian-teacher collaboration, such as increases in student achievement. It would also be important to note, “Research has shown that teaching library skills in isolation is not conducive to learning” (Bishop, 2003, p. 3). Therefore, library skills should be introduced as needed to students in their classroom assignments. Once teachers understand this I think they will be more willing to participate in collaboration. Rather than requiring students to come to library class each week for a formal lesson, I may consider having shorter weekly class periods to read stories and check out books, but also leaving most of my schedule open to teachers to bring their classes in to work on projects in which I could incorporate teaching information literacy skills in context.


Bishop, K. (2003). Connecting libraries with classrooms. Worthington, OH: Linworth Publishing.

Milbury, P. (2005). Collaboration: Ten important reasons to take it seriously. Knowledge Quest, 33(5), 30-32.

Small, R. V. (2002). Collaboration…. Teacher Librarian, 29(5), 8-12.