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• App. A

2. Leadership: Library Staff Involvement with Administrators, Teachers and Colleagues

The survey provided a list of professional activities that librarians and their staff are expected to perform and asked librarians to indicate how many hours per week they and their staff typically spend on each of these activities. The data revealed two groups of correlated activities. One set of activities related to library staff involvement with a range of school professionals and colleagues through meetings and committees. These activities represent the extent to which librarians constitute an integral part of the school and profession. Such activities were defined in previous studies as leadership activities.

2.1 Elementary School Libraries

The leadership activities that were positively and significantly correlated at the elementary school level include librarians':

• Meeting with the principal and other school administrators
• Attending faculty meetings
• Serving on the school's curriculum committee
• Meeting with colleagues in the district

2.2 Middle/Junior High School Libraries

At the middle/junior high school level, the leadership component of library staff included four variables:

• Meeting with the principal and other school administrators
• Attending faculty meetings
• Meeting with colleagues in the district
• Meeting with colleagues outside the district

Librarians' attendance of faculty meetings and meeting with the principal and other school administrators can be seen as recognition by administrators and teachers of the teaching role of librarians. The professional status of the librarian, enhanced through meetings with colleagues in and outside the district is of greater importance at the middle/junior high school level than at the elementary school level.

2.3 High School Libraries

The leadership activities pursued by library staff at the high school level were similar to the activities at the middle/junior high school level but yielded higher correlation coefficients. The leadership variables identified as correlated include:

• Attending faculty meetings
• Meeting with principal and other school administrators
• Meeting with colleagues in the district
• Meeting with colleagues outside the district

The correlation between librarians meeting with the principal and other school administrators and attendance of faculty meetings is even higher at the high school level than at the middle/junior high school level. The correlation between meetings with the principal and meeting with colleagues outside the district is also higher, pointing to the recognition by school administration of the importance of librarians' professional contacts.

Continue on to Chapter 4, Section 3