Overview 

Early career school librarians (SLs) need professional support and effective mentoring to navigate the challenges and demands of an increasingly complex and challenging profession. Working together with a field coordinator and other collaborators, the PI of this project will implement a multiphase project involving 1) a national survey about the challenges recent library and information science (LIS) graduates face in their early years of school librarianship and 2) the use survey data to collaboratively design (alongside veteran school library mentors), implement, and qualitatively evaluate the impact of a formal mentoring network.  

This study was funded by a three-year Laura Bush 21st Century Library Program Early Career Research Development Grant. 

Three phases of the project

Phase I addresses Research Question one: What challenges do SLs face in the early years of their career? 

This phase includes designing, administering, and analyzing of a national survey about the challenges early career SLs face in their new professional roles. This survey, which will include demographic questions, close-ended questions and opened-text fields, aims to provide empirical data on the specific challenges that early SLs are currently facing. The survey findings and data will inform the content and format of the mentoring model that will be used in phase II of the project. 

Phase II addresses Research Question two: Does a formal mentoring network support SLs in the early years of their careers in the school librarianship as they implement services related to equity, intellectual freedom, and collaboration? 

This phase will focus on the development, facilitation and continuous evaluation of the mentoring program. While mentors will be recruited based on skillset, previous mentorship experience, and demonstrated leadership roles within the school library field, mentees will also be selected to participate in the program based on a set of ranked criteria. Data from the mentoring program will be collected, coded and analyzed to reflect the perspectives of participants. Findings from this phase will be shared through conference presentations and publications.  

Phase III will tackle research question three: Do mentees perceive a benefit from a formal cohort-based mentorship program in the early years of their career as SLs? 

The program’s impact on SLs will be assessed and presented in this phase. The PI will develop findings and prepare manuscripts to share the results in both discipline-specific conference avenues and interdisciplinary meetings such as American Educational Research Association. A framework for transitional mentorship programs will be promoted during each of these presentations and shared through the project website including: all project materials, meeting agendas and resources, findings and anonymized data sets. 

Project Impact  

The project will yield important empirical findings that will inform and serve as a model for mentoring programs in other SL preparation programs well after its conclusion. The mentoring framework and the findings in both phase I and II of this project could also impact the work of other LIS researchers in the United States who might consider implementing a transitional mentorship program at their own institutions. Most importantly, we hope that participants in this project will benefit from the network gained through this mentoring program. The data collected throughout this project will assist educators of SLs in their own planning on how to support their students leaving their programs.