In each other's memory: Stories of elementary teacher-librarians and their work (School librarians)

This study addresses some of the silences in the literature about the work of women who are teacher-librarians. The study examines their initial motivations for their decisions to become teacher-librarians, the ways they negotiate work relationships with their classroom teacher-colleagues, and the ways they negotiate relationships with their families and their friends. Through a series of in-depth interviews, eighteen women who carry out their work in central city, commuter shed and rural schools in Kentucky tell about their life histories and their experiences as elementary school teacher-librarians. In their life history narratives, participants describe their understanding of their work, the meaning their work holds for them and the place of their work in their lives. Participants described a desire for autonomy as one of their initial motivations for becoming teacher-librarians. They construct autonomy as having a degree of freedom from bureaucratic strictures and a measure of control over their work. The literature on teachers and teaching suggests two very different meanings for autonomy: autonomy as a kind of distancing from relationships with others and autonomy as being in-relations with colleagues. The data suggests that teacher-librarians achieve a greater degree of autonomy when they are in-relations with their classroom teacher-colleagues. They negotiate these relationships to form the effective networks necessary to carry out their work. The effective network acts as a foundation for the operation of a collaborative school culture. Teacher-librarians are also members of extended networks with links that are fashioned from kinship and friendship. The data suggests that the participants' personal lives significantly shape their work lives through their subjective experiences as wives, mothers, single women, daughters and friends. This study concludes that it is who these teacher-librarians are that determines the meaning they give to their work and how they translate that meaning into professional practice.