When school librarians are hired, most of them will find positions as the only librarian in the school. Their training, their ideals, and what was once a clear vision of the profession can become murky when removed from their classrooms, their professors, and their peers. New school librarians can look for help in the district policies and…

To assume the role of technology leaders and information literacy specialists in their schools, librarians need access to the most current information. And, they do this by helping each other. There are many definitions, but professional learning networks (PLNs) involve sharing work-related ideas with a network of colleagues via various digital…

Communities of practice offer reference librarians a conceptual model through which to develop and maintain general and subject specific knowledge. Reference librarians acquire general and subject-specific knowledge in many ways, sometimes independently and sometimes collaboratively. Applying the concept of the "community of practice" to reference…

Many programs for mentoring of librarians exist within organizations, for specific areas of librarianship, or for particular groups of librarians. These programs generally depend on face-to-face contact and some organizational commonalities or similarity in positions. With the advent of online communication, could a more general program matching…