Learning Experiences Involving School Librarians, Teachers, Public Libraries, and Parents

A State of the Art in Portugal

Abstract

In Portugal, schools tend to be a kind of shell where nothing comes in or goes out. And because of that, teachers and school librarians usually don’t know much about what other teachers and school librarians are doing. So, it is important to give teachers, school and public librarians and the community in general the possibility of knowing learning experiences, namely successful learning initiatives, what has been achieved, what difficulties had to be faced, how it is possible to innovate. In this research study, which involved 77 school libraries of a specific region in Portugal, I try to show what is being done in what concerns partnerships between school librarians and other teachers, public libraries and parents. It is fair to say that this concern with collaborative work is common to the great majority of school librarians in Portugal, namely since the National Reading Plan was approved in 2006, and some very interesting initiatives are taking place in our school libraries, whose effects upon students are obviously the most important thing in the whole process of establishing partnerships.