Negotiating the Social Organization of School Library Work

Abstract

I investigated how school library work is socially organized and how that social organization affects cooperation with teachers and others in the school. The research uses the institutional ethnography frame of inquiry, providing a way of looking at how the role and function of the school librarian/ school media specialist is socially-organized and institutionally-oriented. The social organization was apparent in the categories of collaboration, technology, and access. A better understanding of how library work is socially organized will help working librarians understand how to negotiate their workplace more effectively. An understanding of how to examine the social organization of an institution can help inform research and teaching in school librarianship as well. This presentation is a follow-up to a presentation at IASL 2008 conference in Berkeley, California.