Is school librarianship in crisis and should we be talking about it?

The information environment of a good school library has been undergoing a transformation, powered by technology and trans-media influences in our classrooms. The role of the teacher librarian is to promote books, reading and research, in old ways and new ways, so as to promote conversation and learning. The importance of the teacher librarian is intrinsically linked to effective and responsive information curation and dissemination in distributed environments withinand beyond the school. School libraries that adapt to thedigital needs of their students not only continue to build a reading culture in the school, but provide the divergence and convergence in media needed to provide the materials for motivation, differentiation, collaboration and connections necessary for 21st century learning. Yet there are new schools being built with no school library, and many schools that downplay the importance of a schoollibrary and trained teacher librarian in their midst. It is too simplistic to assume that technology and financial considerations are the driving force behind this shifting change. Is there also a crisis of competence? How should a teacher librarian utilize technology and social media to empower library services? How does a teacher librarian stay 'in touch'? While organizations already provide benchmarks and standards, the reality "on the ground' is that teacher librarians, as individual in schools, are faced with many challenges in this changing media landscape. This study sought to provide a small overview of information services in primary and secondary schools, to elucidate some of these foundational issues in 21st century teacher librarianship. By shining a light on key elements of the conversation, we can begin to understand what teacher librarianship needs to become in a 21st century globallyconnected world.