This revised edition encompasses all levels of school library services, major developments in information technology, and widens the scope to cover all types of international schools. [p.7, ed].

This book illuminates school librarian and teacher librarian education and training in light of the 2015 IFLA School Library Guidelines, second edition. The Guidelines provide a framework for effective service delivery to ensure that students and teachers have access to quality library services delivered by qualified librarians and information professionals. The book focuses on moving professional practice forward, translating the Guidelines into actions ensuring effective education and training and improved practice. The book highlights issues and concerns related to school librarian and teacher librarian education and training. What attitudes, skills and knowledge are required to inspire students and support teaching and learning effectively? What curriculum content is required? How are field and practical experiences integrated appropriately into face-to-face and online educational and training programmes? How are leadership skills developed effectively? Case studies and innovative educational and training programmes from around the world illustrate the diverse ways of preparing librarians for the roles identified in the Guidelines. Topics covered include: delivering school librarian credentialled programmes; improving school librarian services; providing professional development; preparing and delivering educational and/or cultural programmes and services; managing human resources; collection development of digital and print resources; innovative aspects of technology use; promotion and advocacy; and evaluation and assessment.

These volumes provide a series of informative interviews with school/teacher librarians practicing in different parts of the world. The 2-volume set showcases the resilience, creativity, and best practices from successful school librarians from Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and North and South America. The librarians interviewed come from all different schools and schools systems, from a tiny recently built school library in a rural village in Africa to an ultra-modern library in Sweden. Featuring 37 interviews with successful school librarians from across the globe, the volumes let us hear the stories from countries around the world. They tell about their creative and innovative school library projects, their unconventional reading programs, and their best practices and experiences in addressing the challenges of supporting basic literacy. A wide selection of methodologies and approaches are discussed, offering a global “voyage” through topics important in school librarianship. The 2-volume set also addresses recent advancements in information and communication technologies (ICTs) and the shift toward inquiry-based learning that impacts school libraries worldwide. The books are packed with information that can be used by school librarians, teachers, school administrators and others in a variety of ways. Readers can borrow best practices from the experiences presented in the book, and the volumes can also serve as a strong voice for practicing school librarians and the profession, through expanding the opportunities for professional sharing in the international school library community.

Topics include general education in the country, history of school library development, administration and management techniques, programs, education, and certification requirements, standards and legislation, and professional support.

This book focuses on inquiry-based teaching, one of the five vital aspects of the instructional work of school librarians identified in the second edition of the IFLA School Library Guidelines (2015). Effective implementation of inquiry-based teaching and learning requires a consistent instructional approach, based on a model of inquiry that is built upon foundations of research and best practice. The book explains the importance and significance of inquiry as a process of learning; outlines the research underpinning this process of learning; describes ways in which models of inquiry have been developed; provides recommendations for implementing the use of such models; and demonstrates how the other core instructional activities of school librarians, such as literacy and reading promotion, media and information literacy instruction, technology integration and professional development of teachers, can be integrated into inquiry. Inquiry-based learning is part of “learning to be a learner,” a lifelong pursuit involving finding and using information. Inquiry develops the skills and understandings that learners need in new information environments, whether that be as students in post-secondary institutions, as producers and creators in workplaces, or as citizens in communities. Through inquiry-based teaching, school librarians help students to build the essential skills and understandings needed for dealing with complex learning challenges, including analysis, critical thinking, and problem solving. In this book, special attention is given to the development of students’ metacognitive abilities, which are essential to their becoming life-long and life-wide learners.

1.1 Preamble Schools are the production centres endowed with the noble responsibility of producing learned, civilized and worthy citizens of a country Every school has its own plan of action with a set of well-designed curriculum objectives. The aim of the school is not just academic achievement of the students, rather the development of overall personality of them. And so, emphasis is being given on scholastic, co-scholastic and non-scholastic skills of the students. Libraries in the schools are the strong supporting centres which supplement and complement the accomplishment of the objectives set forth by their parental bodies. They are the knowledge facilitation points in every school. According to the U.S. Commission on Libraries and Information Science (2005), “Students in schools with good school libraries learn more, get better grades, and score higher on standardized test scores”(p.4). As Ranganthan(1962) quoted ‘ The result of modern re-thinking on education is to make the library the heart of the school, from which every activity in the school radiates and by which it all gets irradiated’. International Association of School Librarianship (IASL) Policy statement on school libraries remarks that the school library is essential to "the development of the human personality as well as the spiritual, moral, social, cultural and economic progress of the community"(p.1).