Promoting Inclusion in School Libraries

Abstract

Several international documents explicitly point out the responsibility of libraries in supporting people with special needs, actively promoting social inclusion processes. In the school context, one of the challenges lies precisely on its ability to achieve that all students, regardless their differences and their specific needs, are able to succeed in their learning. In Portugal, the integration of students with special educational needs in regular schools brought new challenges to school libraries. In this paper we present some insights from some projects held in the SL. The results of these studies show that in general both teachers librarians and special educators are little aware of the important role that the school library can play with these students and that a collaborative work with the teacher librarian have positive impacts, both in increasing the self-esteem of students and developing their reading and information literacy skills.