Workshop- Role of Librarians in a Hybrid Learning Environment

On 21 November 2020, Ms Tarannum Athar School librarian attended a virtual conference- The Role of Librarians in a Hybrid Learning Environment organised by Liferarian. The conference was attended by principals, authors, librarians, educationists and information curators from different parts of India and around the world.

Liferarian was started in 2016 by like-minded librarians mainly from International Schools and other IB accredited schools to collaborate, showcase, learn and support each other. This collaborative group meets once every year where individuals of varying skills, expertise and responsibilities come together to exchange ideas, learn and return to their schools with skills and new found courage to arrive at their respective goals and ambitions. As Ray Bradbury says, Teachers are to inspire; Librarians are to fulfill.

The session started with an introduction of Liferarian. The keynote speakers for the session were Ms Shabbi Luthra (Director, American School of Bombay) and Ms Parveen Sheikh (Principal, The Somaiya School). Both emphasised the changing role of the librarian whose job has changed from being the custodian of books to information curator. Librarians are the facilitators and information navigators. According to Dr Shabbi, librarians help a school cultivate partnerships within the school. She also added that the librarian should be ready for the future in a way that meets the needs of the students and the teachers.

After the keynote lecture, there were different activities planned for the attendees. There was a session by Ms Natasha Sharma, an Indian writer who writes primarily for children. She has books like Raja Raja and the Shampoo Sacks, Razia and the Pesky Presents, Rooster Raga, Kaka Munni etc to her credit. Ms Sharma discussed the new mode of online storytelling and stated it as a challenge for all storytellers and writers. The participants also got to know about Get Set Learn Library which is a community initiative by her son, Siddhant Sharma. Get Set is a digital reading outreach programme for economically and technologically disadvantaged children across government schools in India.

The next session was by another famous writer, Ms Shabnam Minawalla, who read aloud a few pages from her book - When Jiya met Urmila. She shared her experience of working with children and mentioned how her own children motivated her to write new stories.

A session on Searching and curating digital resources was conducted by Mr Irfan Sheikh who is a teacher- librarian at an IB school in Mysore. Mr Sheikh talked about the use of digital resources on Google with Google scholar, Google art and culture and Google books. He also informed participants about the correct way of searching videos on YouTube by choosing the correct filter option.

The next session was conducted by Ms Mangala Ganesh who is teacher- librarian at Silver Oaks School, Bengaluru. The session was called Manthan-Sinchan. Ms Ganesh offered some tips on planning, collaboration and execution so as to make a programme successful. She also discussed some programmes like the DEAR, ONRT, Story Week, Reading Marathon etc. which can be used in virtual library classes. She shared her experience of documentation which is very important in a librarians profession and said that things like students work, photographs, videos, newsletters, published articles must be kept for future reference.

The day-long conference got over at 5:30 pm. The conference provided rich experience to all the attendees and fostered friendship and solidarity.