While previous studies have analyzed the contents of different librarians’ job descriptions (Brewerton, 2011; Park, Lu, & Marion, 2009), school librarians’ job descriptions have not received similar attention. The purpose of this study was to compare how well the performance responsibilities from Florida school librarians’ job descriptions agreed with the performance responsibilities from the American Association of School Librarians’ (AASL) professional standards outlined in their publication Empowering Learners: Guidelines for School Library Programs (AASL, 2009). Rates of agreement were calculated by using thematic qualitative content analysis to compare the subjects and actions of the respective performance responsibilities. Analysis showed the ages and origins of the job descriptions did not have a consistent influence on rates of agreement, though job descriptions within the range of 11-20 performance responsibilities tended to have higher average rates of agreement. The various aspects of school librarians’ roles as described in Empowering Learners were present in their job descriptions to different extents, with some aspects more frequently represented than others. The differences between the performance responsibilities in school librarians’ job descriptions and Empowering Learners may be a source of role ambiguity, conflict, erosion, and overload for school librarians.

Research has suggested that many school librarians engage in work outside of their roles as defined by their job descriptions and professional standards. These extra-role behaviors may be explained by Organizational Citizenship Behavior theory. This paper describes the theory, its origin, component behaviors, antecedents, and other factors that influence professional performance.

Gaming provides a number of social and educational benefits, and while games are present to an extent in American libraries, content related to supporting games and gaming in libraries is largely lacking in library programs in the United States. The researchers used a survey to determine factors that affected LIS educators’ inclinations to include or exclude content related to gaming in their curricula. LIS educators who included gaming-related content tended to have had more experience with gaming, higher preferences for multiple genres of games, more teaching experience, and a position title indicating tenure. LIS educators who excluded gaming-related content tended to have less experience with gaming, lower preferences for multiple genres of games, less teaching experience, and a position title indicating untenured status. LIS educators who currently excluded gaming from their curricula but had an interest in including it indicated that professional development materials and experiences, such as conference workshops, course modules, or best practices guidebooks might encourage them to do so.

Libraries are critical to literacy development, particularly in developing nations where literacy rates are low, poverty rates are high, and resources are limited. School libraries in developing nations often suffer from inadequate resources, staffing, and facilities. Mobile libraries have been delivering resources and services via land and water routes to communities in developing nations, though their support of school children may be limited. Emerging technologies in the form of digital mobile libraries offer the potential to bring high quality resources and services to schools and communities. In this paper, the authors discuss/explore myriad mobile libraries, particularly in developing nations, the state of school library programs in developing nations, and the potential of digital mobile libraries to transcend the physical walls of libraries to better foster literacy for students and their communities.

Our focus for this issue was on standards in their many varieties. Standards hold a certain fascination for me, and I thought about this topic in some depth while preparing to write this editorial. It occurred to me that our school librarians may be working with at least two types of standards: performance standards and professional standards. Performance standards can be represented by student achievement goals that are established by the governing agency for schools or by the performance measures that appear in school librarians’ evaluations.