School Library Media Coordinator - Essay Example

Whereas pedagogy used to be the norm from kindergarten and through the school years and even within the portal of the colleges, now the focus is shifting to enable students grasp the methodologies for self-learning in the primary school years. The library used to be more of a place for reading entertainment. However, now the library has taken its rightful place as powerhouse of knowledge and information, almost a window to the world. Today, the wonders of knowledge and information and their utility occur with little gap in between.

Take, for instance, the fields of information and communication technologies. These have become so all-encompassing and intertwined that students are getting the opportunity to use them long before they learn the fundamentals of what drives them and how they operate. Mobile phones, video games, the internet, gadgets like mp3, iPod, iPhone, etc. have students knowing lot more about these even before they start learning the dynamics of electrons, magnetism, calculus, conversion of energy and so on.

The importance of the school library has dramatically increased in the past few decades. Knowledge and its application have become far too advanced and quicker than ever before for libraries to remain like a silent spectator in the background. Today, the function of library is a. The library has become a window to every activity from simple reading room containing literature classics to the volumes containing information about intriguing botanies and awe-inspiring planetarium. The library is now the buzzword for every subject, the initiating and training grounds for knowledge building in social sciences, physics and mathematics, the forerunner to specialization in different fields of science and arts (School Library Media Activities Monthly).

Before the advent of the information era, the scope for utility of knowledge had to wait till the student completed studies and entered her/his career. Indeed, there was such a wide gap between learning and application of knowledge that most students had forgotten all that they had learnt in schools and colleges in view of the system-oriented assembly-line method of operating prevailing in every corporation, institution and agencies. This way, students simply became nothing less than robots performing the same mundane activities on rote.

Education was a dull, repetitive, cyclic and boring affair. The information and communication era has changed all this. Nowadays, education must focus on specialization besides general knowledge to provide students the cutting edge in their area of interest and ability to grasp. There is the need for libraries to provide extensive information beyond the limited dose provided in graded textbooks. Thus, the treatment of library by learning institutions is becoming the litmus test for its efficacy and reputation.

The value and importance of learning and teaching with the use of libraries must be the rule rather than the exception. Knowledge is far too advanced and complex now. It is not possible to depend solely on pedagogy style, classroom teaching. The