| The evolution of society and technology has yielded massive changes in education and school library media programs as the content of knowledge and ways of accessing it have continued to grow exponentially. Today, the school library media specialist is being asked to assume a leadership role in the areas of information access and delivery, learning and teaching, and program administration (American Association of School Librarians & Association for Educational Communications and Technology, 1998). Given the present environment, many institutions of higher education are reassessing their library education programs in an effort to better serve the needs of those who seek positions as library or information professionals.; A survey of 450 practicing Georgia school library media specialists was conducted to determine the job competencies that they use and value most. A stratified random sample targeted the three predominant instructional levels of Georgia school library media specialists. Eight research questions that related to the job functions of the school library media specialists and the differences between the groups were posed for the study. The instrument that was used for the survey was a modified version of Woodruff's (1994) Competency Survey for School Library Media Specialists.; The results of the study indicated that the respondents placed administration, information access and delivery, and collection development at the heart of the school library media program. Significant differences at the alpha .05 level were found to exist between the job competencies that were currently being utilized and those that were anticipated to be utilized to the greatest extent within the subsequent five-year time period.; While the respondents showed a high degree of general interest in technology integration and implementation, they showed less interest in specific applications and/or technologies that related to the learning and teaching construct (e.g., staff development, multimedia production, presentation and authoring applications, Web page design and development). Additional research is needed that would focus on the source of the disparity that is evident in the results of this and previous studies. |
