School Libraries Worldwide
January 2016 (Volume 22, Number 1)

Celebrity: Teacher Librarians as Central Figures, Heroes, Key Players

Call for Papers–Due October 1, 2015

Editors: Marcia Mardis and Nancy Everhart
Guest Co-Editor: Rebecca Hunt

School Libraries Worldwide is the official professional and research journal of the International Association of School Librarianship (IASL). It is published twice yearly, in January and July, and is available online and through select periodical databases. School Libraries Worldwide publishes new works of current research and scholarship on any aspect of school librarianship. All papers are double-blind peer reviewed and adhere to the highest editorial standards.

The January 2016 issue of School Libraries Worldwide will center on the theme of Celebrity: Teacher Librarians as Central Figures, Heroes, and Key Players. As Annenberg Fellow Neal Gabler wrote in his seminal 1994 essay Toward a New Definition of Celebrity[1], “Celebrity is a learning process toward self-actualization and realization…celebrity is about gaining attention and acknowledgment —about not being like everyone else.” (pp. 10, 13). For this issue, this definition is our point of departure in considering school librarians’ many celebrity roles. We encourage papers that affirm, refute, or extend this notion.

This issue will provide an opportunity for researchers to share their research relating to the librarian’s role in school libraries. Possible topics include, but are not limited to, research about:
·       Leadership development and enactment;
·       Librarians as educational technology and social media leaders and/or influencers;
·       Professional recruiting and retention strategies, i.e., “selling” teacher librarianship as a career;
·       Marketing and promoting the school library’s programs and services;
·       Advocacy challenges and effective strategies;
·       Effective student, faculty, and/or community programming facilitated by teacher librarians;
·       Librarians as agents of change and innovation;
·       Librarians as characters in history and fiction;
·       Celebrity and youth culture/fandom; and
·       Celebrity authored children’s literature.

School library researchers are invited to submit papers reporting their own original research that has not been published elsewhere. Authors who wish to know more about the issue theme should contact the editors.  School Libraries Worldwide also welcomes submissions of excellent research on any topic relating to school librarianship for the open section of the journal.

Deadline for submissions of full papers: October 1, 2015.
Authors interested in contributing to this issue should contact the editors, Marcia Mardis and Nancy Everhart at slw@cci.fsu.edu and the guest editor, Rebecca Hunt (rhunt@niu.edu).

Submission guidelines are available online at: http://www.iasl-online.org/pubs/slw/slw_guidecontrib.html
Note requirement that all submissions must take place through the online submission system: http://slw.cci.fsu.edu