The Roles of teacher librarians: A Sri Lanka perspective

Abstract

The research was undertaken to identify the roles of teacher librarians in Sri Lanka as perceived by them. It also aimed to discover the actual/current roles that they performed and the consistency between the perceived/expected and the actual roles. The research employed a survey method, with questionnaire as the data collection instrument. The instrument was developed based on existing standards on role statements of teacher librarians. The questionnaire was administrated to 200 teacher librarians in Colombo and Gampaha Districts in the Western Province of Sri Lanka of which 166 (83%) responded to the survey. The responses were tabulated to determine the roles considered positive (strongly agree and agree) by the teacher librarians. Some of the principal findings revealed from the study were as follows: The majority of the respondents agreed with the role statements based on existing standards; there were differences between the perceived and actual roles especially in the area of information technology. The research also identified problems faced by teacher librarians in performing their roles, among others inadequate training and, lack of facilities and guidelines on the roles that they should performed. The study derives a clear understanding of the role of teacher librarian is very essential for Sri Lanka. This need should start to germinate at the level of educational policy maker and should go down to the teacher librarians.