The Role of the TL Continued...

Our first assignment for this subject asks us to critically compare two aspects of the views of (a) Herring and (b) Purcell on the role of the teacher librarian. Purcell's article is devoted almost entirely to the various roles the TL takes on, whereas this is only a small part of the Herring article. Purcell gives us snippets of what the different roles entail but doesn't really say why these roles are more important than others. I kind of feel we don't really find out what she thinks - we just get a brief overview. It's like, here - these are the roles and this is a little bit what they're about. Whereas I want to know a bit more why. I also don't feel she has cited enough references. Herring's chapter is presented differently. He's shown us what a few different organisations/people have said and then it's a case of you make up your own mind. Which is good in a way. Everyone's ideas about what the role of a TL is, is of course, very different. Now it's up to us to work out what aspects of the role we feel are important enough to address in our assignment. Personally, I think most aspects could be melded (is this the right word?) together under just a few titles. For example, a TL in the role of teacher, could also be described as a leader. Or, if you are a TL acting in the role of information specialist, then don't you also need to act as a leader and a teacher to fulfil your role? I'm still considering how to work around this in my assignment. Maybe this is where Purcell and Herring fall down - they don't consider how intricately woven the ties are between the different aspects of the roles.