Resumen de Barriers to information seeking in school libraries: conflicts in perceptions and practice

Eric M. Meyers, Lisa P. Nathan, Matthew L. Saxton

• Introduction. This paper investigates barriers to adolescent information seeking in high school libraries within the framework of Kuhlthau's model of intermediation.

  Method: In-depth interviews and corroborating observations were conducted at six high schools in the Pacific Northwest over a sixteen-month period.

  Analysis. The data suggest inconsistencies between teacher-librarians' self-perceptions of their role and their daily interactions with students. Harris and Dewdney's principles of information seeking are employed as an analytic framework to provide a structure for categorizing and examining these inconsistencies.

  Results. The identified barriers to student information seeking include a lack of collaboration, students' lack of autonomy, limited access to resources, devaluation of interpersonal sharing for academic purposes, lack of affective support, and failure to validate students'; previous experience in seeking information.

  Conclusions. These findings suggest future direction for pre- and in-service education of teacher-librarians to prepare them to recognize how the unique barriers within school contexts can constrain both their mediational behaviour and students' information seeking opportunities.