The Role of the Principal in the Evaluation of the School's Library Media Specialist

Abstract

As many library media specialists in the United States know, administrators' evaluation of their work seldom covers the many facets of work in today's school media center. Many factors combine to compromise the utility of the evaluation of library media specialists by the school administrator. Paramount among these factors are: (a) increased demands on the school principal as the instrument of accountability; (b) the tendency to use an evaluation model designed for teachers, not library media specialists; and (c) the dramatic changes that have occurred in the work of the library media specialist. This author analyzes briefly each of these influences and makes recommendations about altering the evaluation of the school's library media specialist to provide a more effective means of helping achieve information literacy, one of the 21st century's goals in the education of American children.