Educating School Library Professionals to Be Leaders: Community Service to Engage With a Diverse Public

• In Event: Leadership in the Professions

Abstract

This qualitative case study examines the development of professional leadership skills among pre-professional school library students during self-directed community service projects. Students who participated in this research lived in rural, sometimes high-poverty and geographically isolated communities, which emphasizes the necessity of developing leadership qualities that would interconnect the students, their schools, and communities. Students were interviewed three times during the study. Interviews were transcribed, evaluated, and coded for the emergence of seven dispositions, behaviors, and skills. Seven themes: caring, persistence, brokering connections, utilizing social capital, application of prior knowledge, vision of sustainability, and leadership behaviors when faced with challenges, emerged as representative qualities necessary for developing leaders in the field of school library science.

Authors

• Jody K. Howard, Old Dominion University

• Sue C. Kimmel, Old Dominion University

• Bree Ruzzi, Old Dominion University