Symposium on Information Literacy

Symposium on Information Literacy

Conducted by National Institute of Library and Information Science on 12th of July 2013.

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This describes the status of a traditional school library.

In the traditional school students used their ‘Text Books’ and ‘Note book’. Teachers used only the ‘syllabus’, ‘Text book’, (sometimes) ‘teacher guide’, and ‘chalk and talk’ method. School library didn’t contribute for the teaching learning process. It was an isolated body.

SLDU-MOE identified this situation and introduced ‘Library and Learner Resource Center (LLRC)’ concept to get the maximum contribution of the school library for the teaching learning process. ‘Librarian’ was introduced as ‘Teacher Librarian (TL)’. TL is a special person who helps students and teachers for selecting library resources for the teaching learning process. TL’s another special duty is creating learning opportunities.

Even though the situation was changed according to that LLRC concept, all the LLRCs were not in same level. Because of that SLDU-MOE decided to create ‘Model LLRC’ for each province. It was expected active contribution of MLLRC for the teaching learning process and maximum use of all types of the library resources (books, audio, video, multimedia, graphics, maps, models, …. etc. ). SLDU expected to distribute the message through model based trainings using those MLLRCs.

According to that 9 fully furnished MLLRCs were built up.

 To develop the MLLRCs in to the expected level, SLDU conducted school based training with the contribution of library experts.  

But according to the school visits SLDU-MOE identified that, none of them was able to reach to the expected level.

So, SLDU-MOE has to find out solutions for the following questions.

• Whether the physical resources and training provided were adequate or not?
• What else should be done to develop MLLRC?
• How shall we use Empowering 8 for this purpose?

For that following objectives were identified.

• Conducting a need analysis for developing a MLLRC
• Implementing a school based instructional program to the authorities of the MLLRC.
  
  

Strategies to enhance the MLLRC

• Teamwork with  stakeholders, 
• Proper management,
• Identification of people with talents, 
• Continuous monitoring
• Academic support the of library professionals with the main consultation of NILIS with the coordination of SLDU-MOE.

After several visits, highlighted change was visible. The Library MLLRC was attractive. Different kind of new materials were developed. Information collections were available. Audio-visual unit was so popular among students. Students were having the opportunity to play some intellectual games in the library. MLLRC was an attractive place for the students.

Through this the ideal National Program was identified. It should be model based training at a selected MLLRC

Participants for the program should be

• Principal, Teacher Librarian, Library assistants and Teacher-in-charge of Audio Visual Unit of the selected MLLRC
• The principals of the MLLRCs of other provinces
• Provincial Library Coordinators
• Officers of SLDU-MOE

Main objectives of the program should be

• Sharing the innovative best practices and experiences
• Suggestions of participants for further development.

This program was named as “Reader Leaders”. “Reader Leaders” program was put into practice initially at the Rangiri Dambulla National College.

 The first Reader leaders program was conducted at Rangiri Dambulla M M V

The first item was the explaining the successive   management of program.

 Next item was the Comparison on national policies and the practices of the Rangiri Dambulla National School by SLDU-MOE.

Library practices

After that participant visited the MLLRC and identified the best practices. Teacher librarian explained how all these things were done.

After that Teacher-in-charge of Audio-visual unit explained what kind of program he is conducting.