Darryl presented (Re)Discovering Inquiry In and Through the School Library: the FOSIL Model at the virtual IFLA Mid-year Conference – The Evolving Concept of ‘School Library’ and Its Profession – in Rome on 2 April 2020.

The Virtual International Seminal Meeting on “The Evolving Concept of ‘School Library’ and Its Profession”, was organized by Roma Tre University and the IFLA School Libraries Section in collaboration with AIB, Biblioteche di Roma, Forum del Libro, IASL e IBBY Italia. The Meeting was initially intended to be held on April 2, 2020: because of COVID-19, it was turned into a virtual one, through this blog.

The PPT that accompanied the paper is available to download as a PDF in English or Italian from the Conference website here, or as a PPT from the FOSIL Group website here, and the paper is due for imminent publication as part of the Conference Proceedings.

Abstract  (EN)

School librarianship in the UK faces a number of pressing challenges that combine to leave individual school librarians in the dwindling number of schools that have libraries at the mercy of school-level administrators, most of whom have neither theoretical nor experiential understanding of the value that a properly staffed and funded school library programme adds to the education of our children. And then there is COVID-19, which transforms this pressing and complex challenge into a very real existential threat. Against this backdrop, the author’s attempts to make his school library integral to learning and teaching, rather than peripheral (or unnecessary), resulted in FOSIL, or Framework Of Skills for Inquiry Learning. FOSIL, which remains an unfolding inquiry, is heavily indebted to the work of Barbara Stripling, culminating in the ESIFC, or  Empire State Information Fluency Continuum, and Carol Kuhlthau, culminating in the GID, or Guided Inquiry Design.

This paper is an introduction to and overview of FOSIL, and concludes with some thoughts on the potential contribution of FOSIL to school librarianship in the UK.