Instructional Role of the Library Information Specialist
Domain 1: Instructional Role of the Library Information Specialist
This domain tests how the library information specialist works as an instructional partner: collaborating with teachers, integrating inquiry and information literacy into curriculum, co-teaching, assessing learning, promoting reading, and leading professional development. The exam favors a librarian who begins with student outcomes and content standards rather than isolated library skills.
Core rules and concepts
- Collaboration is cyclical: identify a curricular need, co-plan with standards, co-teach, co-assess, and revise.
- Anchor instruction in the AASL Shared Foundations (Inquire, Include, Collaborate, Curate, Explore, Engage) and relevant Illinois learning standards.
- Use backward design: set learning targets and acceptable evidence before choosing activities.
- Differentiate for English learners, students with IEPs or 504 plans, and struggling readers through accessible formats and scaffolds.
- Reading promotion is instructional when it builds choice, relevance, and reader identity.
Worked example
A seventh-grade science teacher plans a disease research project. The librarian asks for the science standard and the desired product, then co-writes a question-framing mini-lesson and a source-evaluation rubric. They co-teach two sessions and score student work together. The reasoning is that the librarian did not substitute a generic orientation; the work began with the teacher's content objective, added AASL inquiry skills, and produced shared assessment evidence.
Traps
- Scheduling a class visit and calling it collaboration.
- Teaching database mechanics without a curricular purpose.
- Planning only library standards and ignoring the teacher's content standards.
- Skipping co-assessment, leaving no evidence of impact.