Chattanooga School for the Liberal Arts librarian Charlotte Carr Vlasis is one of 10 librarians in the United States to be given an I Love My Librarian Award by the Carnegie Corp.‘I LOVE MY LIBRARIAN’ WINNERS• Julia Allegrini, Covington branch manager, Kenton County (Ky.) Public Library• Shahla Bahavar, director, Public Services Division, University of Southern California Libraries Los Angeles• Holly Camino, Buckeye branch manager, Medina County (Ohio) District Library• Kathy Meulen Ellison, teacher librarian, Sonoji Sakai Intermediate School, Bainbridge Island, Wash.• Harold M. Forbes, curator, West Virginia and Regional History Center, West Virginia University Libraries, Morgantown, W.V.• Caroline “Xiaofang” Han, senior librarian, Cleveland (Ohio) Public Library• Jennifer J. Jamison, school library media specialist, Atlantic City (N.J.) High School• Julie Kane, director of digital teaching and learning/digital pedagogies, Sweet Briar (Va.) College• Molly Ledermann, reference librarian, Missoula (Mont.) Public Library• Charlotte Carr Vlasis, librarian, Chattanooga (Tenn.) School for the Liberal ArtsSource: I Love My Librarian contest
When Charlotte Carr Vlasis became a school librarian 35 years ago, research was done the old-fashioned way. Students looked up topics in hardback volumes from a set of encyclopedia, scoured articles until they found the information needed, then copied that down to transfer into a school report.
Today’s tech-savvy students research a topic online in a matter of seconds just by Googling a couple of keywords followed by the click of their mouse.
Along with changing technology, the role of librarian has evolved in order to keep these depositories of information relevant in the learning process, says Vlasis. She has served as librarian at Chattanooga School for the Liberal Arts, a Hamilton County magnet school for grades K-8, for the last 18 years. For her service to her school and community, Vlasis is one of 10 librarians nationwide to be honored with an “I Love My Librarian Award,” presented by the Carnegie Corp. of New York and the New York Times.
“I want students to see the library is not just the room to house books,” she explains. “Now it’s about teaching students to find information and evaluate whether it’s the information they need, how reliable it is – you can’t believe everything you find on the Internet – and how to use it in their research.