Programmatic Role of Education Libraries in Informatics to Support Preservice Teacher Preparation Programs

Background/Context: The management, processing, and transformation of information constitute central tasks in education. Education informatics intersects the theories and practices of both informatics and education. In particular, informatics aids in the systematic incorporation of technology as educational stakeholders represent, process, and communicate information effectively. The systematic study of those informational structures and interactions, particularly the application of technology to discovering and communicating education information-education informatics-is less prevalent. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: As education librarians seek to collaborate with preservice teacher preparation programs, they need to apply informatics principles to optimize the library's ultimate impact on student achievement. Specifically, education librarians need to examine several levels of information processing systems: student, faculty, program, institution, and government entities. Furthermore, education librarians need to identify the conditions or environments of these information systems because the infrastructure, available resources, and knowledge base all impact student learning. Setting: The settings for this study were preservice teacher preparation programs and academic libraries. Population/Participants/Subjects: The participants were preservice teachers, teacher preparation faculty, and librarians. Research Design: This is a secondary analytic essay. Conclusions/Recommendations: With the burden that teacher preparation faculty have in offering a well-rounded and time-efficient program, postsecondary education libraries and their staff can support efforts to address informatics, leveraging their contributions of resources and informatics expertise. Academic librarians have in-depth training in informatics in that they look at information systematically. Particularly in those institutions where librarians are assigned subjects in which to specialize, they can link their professional skill to content-area needs.