Teacher as a School Librarian: a Study of School libraries’ in Thabuththegama Educational Zone of Anuradhapura District, Sri Lanka.

Abstract

School teachers are working as school librarians in the Sri Lankan context .This paper focused to identify current state of the school libraries and to identify the teacher’s role as a librarian in the schools of Thabuththegama Educational Zone. According to the IFLA school library guidelines (June, 2015)there are commonly identified qualifications for professional school librarians. Few researches done with school librarians’ role at the institution level .But in the Sri Lankan context there were various school library development projects, seminars, workshops done by national and international level. According to Wickramanayake (2015), the majority of school libraries in Sri Lanka are run by less qualified school librarians with no professional librarianship. Questionnaire based survey method was used to gather data. Forty six school librarianswereresponded and the rate of response is 100%. According to the analytical results, there was 17% of libraries did not have separate library building and they use small room as a library. Then, there was 83% libraries had a separate building for library. Only 17% was school librarians position and 7% teachers assigned for libraries.2% was office assistant and 2% was Library assistants. Seventy two percent of teachers(72%) were assigned to library with teaching another subject.85% school library teachers had an experience and they would like to develop school libraries. No school librarian’s appointment receives to the area. School Principal assigned a teacher to look after the library volunteer. Findings of the study was educational authorities should create school library position and recruit accordingly and decision should be taken to appoint separate qualified teacher for the school library fulltime and trained them. Libraryservices board North Central Province help to build up school libraries with organizing workshop, seminars,training sessions and Readingcamp for students from 2015.