Diffusion of Information and Knowledge: How Information Becomes Meaningful - Evolving Global Information Infrastructure and Information Transfer - page 109

must be given opportunities to learn utilizing their preferred learning styles and be
active participants, engaging with other learners and the instructor.
Computers and the Internet have reshaped the technology associated with the
teaching/learning process. Sophisticated software has enabled the “virtual” lib-
rary and classroom. Computers and the Internet provide gateways to learning that
change our concepts of schools, instruction, teaching, and libraries. Stielow (2014)
examines the revolutionary changes that confront education generally and libraries
in particular. Although focused on academic libraries, Stielow provides insight into
the cataclysmic changes that are influencing the roles of schools, teachers, librar-
ies, and librarians.

Library and Information Professionals Promote Diffusion

In recent years, the role of library and information professionals has shifted from
the more passive role of the past to a much more assertive role in providing library
and information services to clientele. This shift, perhaps more appropriately termed
a revolution, shifts the role of the library and information professional from that of
dissemination to diffusion.
Special librarians led the way in this revolution, and we include school librarians
in this category. Special librarians typically are the information specialists in an or-
ganization: a law firm or library, a medical school or other facility, a corporate en-
terprise, an information entrepreneur who contracts for information services, or a
librarian in a public or private elementary or secondary school. These information
professionals are the information experts surrounded by professionals with subject
area expertise in such fields as medicine, law, educational theory, management,
economics, and a variety of other professional fields. It has typically been their role
to assess the information needs of their clientele and to help them utilize this in-
formation in their professional work. In doing so, they are engaged in the diffusion
of information, often specialized information.
School librarians led the way, as reflected in their standards. In Information
Power: Guidelines for School Library Media Programs (American Association of
School Librarians and Association for Educational Communication and Technology
1988, 26), the role of the school librarian is defined as information specialist, teach-
er, and instructional consultant. These standards identified the role of librarians as
providing the following:

• Access to information and ideas by assisting students and staff in identify-

ing information resources and in interpreting and communicating intellectual
content