Using the nine essentials to expand school–university partnerships to include school library media specialists and academic librarians

Developed in 2008 and revised in 2021, the Nine Essentials define the core principles and practices of a PDS. They are not intended for the evaluation of existing PDSs, but rather to serve as a guiding framework for all those working in these partnerships to explain what it means to be a PDS and how to improve the work of teacher preparation and professional learning. Because of the helpful structure they provide, we use the Essentials to explain the way we are including libraries in our SUP.

Expanding SUPS to include P-12 and university libraries helps to meet the goals of equity, antiracism and social justice that are central to the PDS mission. When schools, libraries and universities join together in an SUP model, they can develop a common mission that is greater than the work of any one institution. Intentional collaboration among P-12 teachers, P-12 librarians, university faculty and university academic librarians offers important opportunities to ensure equitable access to databases, print material and internet resources. For example, in Buffalo, New York, access to public libraries is influenced by socioeconomic characteristics (see Figure 1). This map overlays nine branches of the Buffalo & Erie County Library in the city of Buffalo with a color-coded map of average annual income according to the American Community Survey. While the county library system does employ mobile services to reach all areas of the city, there are no guarantees that areas will have specific availability for students in immediate need of reading material. An SUP that includes schools, libraries and universities helps to fill a gap and meet an important community need.

Challenges exist in the P-12 setting, too. Over a 10-year period from 2009 to 2019, the number of school librarians has fallen by 20% and the student to school librarian ratio has increased 27.7% and “nine out of 10 charter districts reported no school librarians” (Lance and Kachel, 2021, p. 87). Additionally, only 88% of public schools feature a library or library media center; this includes almost 48% of charter schools (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2022).

As students move from elementary to secondary and onto college, the lack of access to libraries and librarians influences students' academic success. Students have reported using the high school library less than they used the library in elementary school (Moreillon, 2008). There is less emphasis on modern database research in high school and less access to the databases students will need to navigate in college (Valenza et al., 2022). Many first-year students who have little to no experience with librarian instruction in high school report having a shortage of the research skills that are needed to complete college and university assignments (Boyer and Dziedzic-Elliott, 2023; Valenza et al., 2022). Additionally, college faculty typically expects students to possess these skills before experiencing any college-level instruction (Huddleston, Bond, Chenoweth, & Hull, 2019). Teacher candidates' knowledge of information literacy is correlated to academic success and higher grades (Godbey, 2018; Jones & Mastrorilli, 2022). Research reveals that equity is an additional issue with information literacy. LeMire, Xu, and Hahn (2025) concluded that first-generation students were less research ready than others upon entering college.

These problems of access at all levels of learners' experiences point to the need for robust school library services with a credentialed librarian. Through targeted SUP collaboration, teacher candidates can learn to increase access for students and become greater advocates for libraries in all sectors. Many academic libraries feature information literacy workshops that are designed to remedy some of the research challenges that incoming college students exhibit. These workshops, often called “one-shots”, instruct students on the use of college library resources, evaluation of information, understanding of scholarly resources and other strategies that assist students with collegiate research. Studies show that teacher candidates that attend these workshops show a higher use of peer-reviewed publications and lower use of open websites (Floyd, Colvin, & Bodur, 2008). Teacher candidates have also reported positive responses to these workshops and displayed higher efficacy in understanding research databases (Consalvo, Doepker, Dubre, & Neel, 2022). College programs often measure success through retention; teacher candidates that attend library information literacy workshops are retained at a higher level than those who did not receive the benefit of direct library instruction on research skills (Rowe, Leuzinger, Hargis, & Harker, 2021; Wright, 2021).

Collaborations between teachers and librarians may reveal the usefulness of an academic librarian beyond stereotypes. Kammer, King, Donahay, and Koeberl (2021) reports that elementary teachers shared that they realized a school librarian does more than check out books. This enhanced understanding through collaboration “led to reduced barriers related to students' accessing library resources” (p. 13). In addition, an important aspect of teaching in P-12 schools is the skill of selecting appropriate and engaging children's literature and picture books. Tichenor, Piechura, and Heins (2021) commented that “reading children's books to teacher candidates exposes them to various types of literature and models how books can connect various source content and segue into more serious concepts and topics” (p. 2). Cooper, Rogers, Purdum-Cassidy, and Nesmith (2020) concluded that teacher candidates often rely on Google searches to select children's literature, rather than a librarian or university library database. Picture books that were published in the past can contain inappropriate/outdated images and language regarding multicultural themes (Iwai, 2024), further enhancing the importance of using a trusted vetting process when discovering children's literature. By utilizing a careful selection process to locate picture books, teacher candidates can understand the importance of diversity in children's literature and evolve their pedagogy into a more inclusive structure (Consalvo et al., 2022).

As noted above, learning to use the library is an important aspect of teacher preparation. Additionally, intentional interactions with school librarians can be built into clinical experiences. As universities expand teacher–librarian collaboration, teacher candidates learn successful strategies to locate, evaluate and utilize high-impact resources. As teacher candidates from high schools with a strong school library are more apt to perform college-level research (Valenza et al., 2022), teachers from education programs with strong collaborations with academic libraries may become more successful in strengthening school librarian partnerships. Often, teachers can confuse information literacy with basic technology skills, overlooking the importance of understanding information sources (Stockham & Collins, 2012). School librarians can provide excellent training on contemporary technology and software that improves the information and digital literacy of P-12 students (Jeffcoat & Tang, 2025). Conversely, school librarians can attain curricular knowledge and pedagogical skills from the teachers they collaborate with they may not have previously encountered (Kammer et al., 2021).

School librarians can assist teachers with the search process using modern research databases and advanced metadata search tools. This increases the need for collaboration between education programs and academic librarians. Through these relationships, graduating teacher candidates can continue to seek these collaborations with their school librarian colleagues and become advocates for the growth of library collections and library media specialists.

Eve (first author, teacher candidate and librarian candidate) was first introduced to a P-12 librarian in an English Education field experience class in the Fall of 2023. During this experience, she was exposed to the role of a librarian at the secondary level. She learned exactly what library media specialists can provide to students. This gave her an entirely new perspective of what librarian–educator partnerships can offer, not only to students, but also to education professionals. This librarian shared examples of how she assisted educators in planning lessons and even collaborated on creating and planning entire co-taught units. These collaborations can help provide a new perspective on competencies such as research and technology that P-12 teachers can then incorporate into their own instructional practices.

During her student teaching experience, Eve was able to witness the impact of the school librarian. At Eve's middle school placement, the hard work the librarian was pouring into the school community was apparent. She ran morning announcements, started book clubs and hung flyers encouraging teachers to connect with her for planning and resources. Moreover, Eve was impressed by how many students in her study hall would ask to visit the library and stay for the period. This meant that the library was an inviting space, and that the librarian had successfully created an environment where students were comfortable to do work, hang out or participate in the initiatives started by the librarian.

The unit that Eve taught at this school was a critical inquiry unit that utilized many supplemental resources, and she realized after the fact that the opportunity to collaborate with the librarian could have assisted her with identifying relevant and appropriate resources.

Eve was able to locate and utilize many supplemental books, videos and shorter texts with some success. However, a collaboration would surely have enriched this unit through the acquisition of resources by someone with a specialized knowledge of young adult literature. With this school library, Eve was able to see the potential of teacher–librarian and student–librarian partnerships. The librarian understood the many ways she could support educators in the building and open the library to students so they could see this space as their own.

Several years ago, the PDP Department at Buffalo State University began to partner with E. H. Butler Library to promote the professional learning of teacher candidates. This partnership supported the development of research strategies to enhance their professional work throughout their education and careers. Examples of collaboration include one-shot instruction sessions, updates from a librarian at department meetings and opportunities to engage students and faculty in research and professional conference presentations.

PDS faculty and academic librarians plan and deliver the one-shot instruction sessions. Typically, these sessions include skill-building workshops that familiarize students with finding scholarly, peer-reviewed articles using E. H. Butler Library's discovery system called ALL-Search. This system aggregates over 93,000 periodical titles, 500,000 print book records and 600,000 eBooks into one single search. Librarians include lessons teaching students about the impact of peer-reviewed published research on education and policy within educational institutions. Using research-based practices in teacher candidate programs bolsters confidence in the research process and inspires the use of evidence-based analysis to construct informed pedagogical practices (Briscoe, 2025).

One of the many skills discussed in these collaborative workshops is locating high-impact journals and trade publications. For instance, the Social Studies Education Department provides lists of journals that are highly cited, or high impact, for librarians to add to the subscription resources. These journals can be discovered using ALL-Search. As a result, usage of several journals has improved as students become more aware of these resources available to them. In another example, the peer-reviewed trade journal The Reading Teacher has been accessed over 5,800 times over the previous five years, making it the second-highest used electronic periodical at Buffalo State University. Exposing future teachers to high-impact trade journals benefits both new teachers and their future students.

A few years ago, librarians began teaching workshops that included advanced searching for demographics information from the United States Census and American Community Survey for the Social Studies Education program. By using demographic data, students can reveal socioeconomic inequities by geographical areas and districts. As a result, many projects in the upper division Social Studies Education program focus on addressing equality and equity issues within education and society.

Other workshops include strategies for searching our Curriculum Lab of children's and young adult books. E. H. Butler Library utilizes a database of 3.1 million records of children's books called children's literature comprehensive database (CLCD). This tool makes it possible for students to search the curriculum lab for books by subject, reading metrics, age level, grade and other criteria. Teacher candidates can filter by books that have free curricular tools available, or books that have won an award or honor. This allows for a far more granular search than is typically possible. For example, students can search for a book about conflict resolution that is award winning and designed for second to fourth graders. Based on surveys collected after past-librarian instruction, access to these library resources for teacher candidates has the following impact:

1. Increases awareness and utilization of scholarly material by teacher candidates.

2. Enhances searching methods to locate high-quality children's literature for classroom instruction.

3. Fosters appreciation for libraries, librarianship, and literacy.

4. Endears trust for future partnerships between teachers and school library media specialists.

5. Advances efforts to prioritize literacy in school classrooms.

Moreover, librarians collaborating with the PDP consortium can learn pedagogical tools from the teaching faculty they can apply to their daily routines and instruction plans. This partnership benefits students, faculty and librarians.

As resources have become more limited in our partner schools and at our university due to budget and staffing cuts, we have considered how PDS structures might be used to think beyond the usual boundaries of our teacher education program. As noted at the start of this article, the Buffalo State PDS changed its name to the PDP as a result of reflection on past successes, the current challenges and possible innovative ways forward. Since financial funding was decreasing, we looked to other valuable resources an expanded partnership might access. These include human resources, expertise, empathy/compassion, creativity, time, space and technology. At the same time, we were concerned about the many challenges facing libraries and librarians and wanted to find ways to leverage PDS to support these institutions that are so crucial to a democratic society. When we reached out to include P-12 and university librarians, they were interested in a collaboration to help with the specific needs of teacher preparation and to promote the many services they offer.

The Buffalo State PDS supports research to improve and sustain the work of the consortium. SUP liaison teams are encouraged to conduct action research projects to present at an annual consortium-level conference attended by over 150 stakeholders. For example, the project described in this paper was first presented at the 2025 conference. The Buffalo State PDS also maintains long-standing membership within NASUP to present at the annual conference and submit for publication in SUP journals such as PDS Partners. With all research projects, students are invited to participate to provide their important perspective. Teacher candidates participate in local SUP projects as well as comparative research projects through the international professional development partnerships (IPDP). IPDP is a program of short term, faculty-led educational experiences for teacher candidates who engage with teachers and P-12 learners in educational settings and conduct research abroad in schools and other learning environments.

Eve's experience provides an example of this kind of student research. For her project, Eve looked at the prevalence of libraries in German schools and assessed what the needs are for these institutions to exist in the first place to learn more about the role of school libraries, Eve discovered the IFLA/UNESCO School Library Manifesto. The IFLA/UNESCO School Library Manifesto states that the purpose of a school library and its staff is “providing equitable access for learning experiences and resources, through accessible, welcoming, inclusive learning spaces that enable all members of the school community to become engaged critical thinkers, effective readers and responsible users, evaluators and creators of information in multiple formats.” (UNESCO and International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions [IFLA], 2025). Add this to the fact that students in P-12 schools that employ a full-time, credentialed librarian record higher graduation rates and success (Coker, 2015). This shows the benefits of employing full-time librarians.

Eve's research located gaps between the prevalence of school libraries compared to the general need of school libraries in Germany, specifically in the Stuttgart Metropolitan Area. Fewer than 20% of German schools are equipped with libraries (Lammers-Harlander, 2017). Of the schools that Eve visited that featured libraries, all of them lacked full-time library staff. The exception to this was a private international school with a significant enrollment fee.

Eve interviewed students and asked them if they felt as though they were missing out on the library as a resource. Many of these students revealed that they utilized their local public libraries for their schoolwork, to meet with friends or obtain books. Though this does account for some of the needs being met, it is inequitable. Students in a metropolitan area are at a much greater advantage to access a public library compared to students in a rural area.

This research helped Eve to conclude that there is a definite need for school libraries that is not currently being met in the Stuttgart area of Germany. As a result, many students are missing out on the benefits outlined in the IFLA/UNESCO document, as well as the rest of this paper. As indicated above, this is not limited to Germany; the United States of America also struggles to achieve equitable library services in P-12 schools.

The Buffalo State PDS maintains formal agreements with the schools that partner with the university. These signed documents depend on the length of time and level of involvement of a particular school. These are signed by the principal/head of school, the faculty liaison and the university administration. The faculty liaison is expected to call regular meetings with school leadership to place teacher candidates, plan collaborative activities, troubleshoot problems and encourage school members to participate in professional learning offered by Buffalo State. Some faculty liaisons informally connect with the school librarian. We have experimented at several schools to make this a more formal process so that the librarian is invited to the liaison meetings, and the agreements specify partnership activities that include the P-12 library. In these pilot settings, the librarian has participated in professional learning events on our campus.

Similar to formalizing the role of librarians through articulated agreements, we seek to modify governance structures to include librarians. The Buffalo State PDS is led by a director who reports to the head of the teacher education unit representing all teacher preparation programs at the university. Additionally, an advisory group called teacher education unit professional advisory committee (TEUPAC) meets three times per year to discuss common issues of concern among schools and the university and how PDS might leverage resources to respond. We would like to recommend that a representative school librarian and university librarian be invited to participate in these meetings to bring their important perspective.

Essential 8 offers the opportunity to incorporate librarians as colleagues in the teacher preparation endeavor. At Buffalo State University, academic librarians are active in classroom instruction through credit-bearing course sections and “one-shot” information literacy workshops that instruct students on resource discovery, evaluation of information and proper search strategies. E. H. Butler Library conducts over 150 information literacy “one-shot” instruction sessions annually to all majors. Academic librarians host individual workshops that instruct students on best practices and strategies to conduct research using academic library databases and scholarly research. Many of these workshops focus on assisting students who are completing specific projects and research for specific courses. Additionally, these workshops introduce students to librarians and library collections. This familiarity provides students with an added layer of comfort while utilizing librarians and library resources. These types of activities and exposure of students to academic librarians diminish the effects of library anxiety (Muszkiewicz, 2017) and instill teacher candidates with an appreciation for school library media specialists. We believe that teacher candidates with an understanding of a librarians' expertise will have an increased chance of being advocates for school librarians later in their career.

Many of these sessions are included in a direct partnership with the Buffalo State University's Education Department and Buffalo State PDS. There are 12 courses in the Education and English Departments that receive direct instruction from faculty librarians at Buffalo State (see Table 1). During these sessions with education majors, librarians address and demonstrate several skills that are useful to their research. While teacher candidates can benefit from direct librarian instruction, faculty can also learn better ways to search and discover research tools they may have not been aware existed (Huddleston et al., 2019). These skills empower students to locate high-impact scholarly journal articles, discover appropriate children's literature for building pedagogies and uncover other information that enrich their research.

Libraries and librarians are incredibly important resources and including them in teacher preparation programs adds tremendous value. E. H. Butler Library at Buffalo State University is a comprehensive academic library centrally located on campus. With print volume holdings over 500,000 and access to several academic library databases, Butler Library is three floors and over 200,000 square feet. Annual door counts total around 300,000 people per year. A main feature of E. H. Butler Library is the collection of over 43,000 children's books and young adult literature. This collection is heavily used by the education department as teacher candidates utilize these titles for teaching assignments. Known as the Curriculum Lab, this collection is one of the highest circulating physical collections in Butler Library.

Butler Library also serves as an important meeting place for students to discuss course assignments, work on group projects and engage in professional activities, including a campus-wide fundraiser for student scholarships, research poster presentations and art displays from student artists. Additionally, the library has become the home base for the teacher education student club, Bengals Passionate about Education (BPE), which is a student government-funded organization that provides professional growth opportunities for teacher candidates. The student leadership of BPE learned of E. H. Butler Library as a potential meeting space through one of the instruction sessions delivered to an education course by a librarian. Butler Library welcomes and encourages students to use the space as a social and recreational space as well as research. Students often report feeling more comfortable using the library, more acquainted with navigating library resources and more likely to approach or contact a librarian following one of the library's instruction sessions in education courses.

Eve's experience with Butler Library serves as an important example of how academic libraries play a crucial part in the success of college students, as both a physical and virtual space. When Eve began her college career at Buffalo State, she had to deal with a strenuous commute. Butler Library served as a place for her to spend time between classes, meet up with classmates and complete her new workload within the student spaces that the library offers. The library was then, and continues to be, a student-centered space.

Beyond her first semester, Butler Library equipped Eve with the ability to conduct collegiate level research. Through acquisition and maintenance of dozens of literature databases, the librarians at Buffalo State make information highly accessible. In addition to individual access to these resources, the library website also has an ALL-search function that enables students to search from all accessible databases in one place. This tool is invaluable in a setting where students are learning how to research and may not necessarily know where to look for information.

Once Eve finished her foundation classes and began focusing on education courses in her major, she was introduced to an entirely new set of tools that Butler Library has to offer. Through a librarian–educator collaboration between Chris (second author and academic librarian) and Pixita (third author and teacher education faculty), Eve learned about a highly useful educational resource called the Curriculum Materials Lab. As noted above, this Lab is a collection of thousands of educational materials for the use of teacher candidates and professionals on campus. It includes instructional materials, and both children's and young adult literature. This collection includes popular young adult titles like the Harry Potter series as well as children's books that promote diversity like the often challenged And Tango Makes Three and All Boys Aren't Blue.

The Curriculum Materials Lab is also linked to the children's literature comprehensive database (CLCD). As mentioned above, this database is a tool that allows the user to heavily filter searches of children's literature through many different areas of interest such as keywords, genre, awards and reading level. This tool has many uses, though Eve found it best functions with planning for classroom differentiation scenarios. CLCD includes searching for both genre and reading metrics, and it assists in making specific topics accessible for all students.

With the exploration and observation of librarian–educator partnerships in the academic setting, Eve has made the choice to pursue a master's degree in library science. She believes that her background in education will be beneficial in the field of librarianship and will allow her to provide unique support to educators.

There are several ways that educators can promote library collaboration in their own communities. First and foremost, teacher educators, teachers and teacher candidates need to see librarians at the P-20 levels as potential partners and libraries as significant community resources. The next step is to build relationships, identify needs and brainstorm the resources that might be leveraged to address those needs. Teachers, faculty and administrators should visit academic libraries whether they are inside or outside of their institutions. By exploring the digital areas and electronic assets of the library, along with the physical spaces, educators can gain insight and ideas as to how librarians can assist their programs. This knowledge can help facilitate conversations between classroom educators and librarians. Similarly, these partnership activities help librarians connect with students in new ways and also build the pedagogical knowledge and skills of librarians.

Another suggestion is for teachers and faculty to consider ways to introduce their newest students to the library and encourage a sustained relationship with the library. This can be done through scheduling instruction sessions with the librarians early in the program. Co-planning and co-teaching with the librarian to develop assignments and activities is also beneficial. Additionally, PDS leadership can seek librarian input in school-level and consortium/SUP level discussions by including librarians in articulation agreements and advisory groups and inviting librarians to collaborate on scholarly projects to bring their important perspective and expertise.

Teachers and faculty should feel encouraged to leverage libraries as an important social space that provides students with opportunities for individual reading and reflection, as well as offering a location for group study and academic support. Libraries can also act as important sites for student organizations to meet and other events to be hosted. Finally, all members of the SUP should advocate for libraries and librarians through voting and citizen action by promoting libraries in conversations with P-12 students and teacher candidates and encouraging them to get a public library card and visit their local library.

At Buffalo State University, teachers, faculty and librarians are learning valuable lessons from SUP collaboration. Primarily, participants of this SUP are breaking down siloes and learning the intricacies of each other's goals and commitments to create a mission larger than any one entity. Through these partnerships, students are learning the usefulness of relationships with librarians that continuously enhance their educational experience. Teacher candidates are also learning about librarianship as a career path while teacher education faculty are discovering how academic libraries support their pedagogy and individual scholarship. Librarians are gaining an understanding of new ways to conduct outreach and increasing their pedagogical knowledge, thereby improving their own approaches to teaching.

At a time when P-12 school, universities and libraries are facing resource challenges, it is time to work together. We believe the SUP model provides important structures for building relationships, identifying needs and working collaboratively to benefit multiple stakeholders. By expanding our SUPs to include libraries and librarians, we will provide important opportunities and access across P-12, university and library domains.