University of South Carolina (University of South Carolina, School of Library and Information Science)

In this Early Career Research Development project, Dr. Jenna Spiering at the University of South Carolina will investigate mentorship programs for new school librarians in the early years of their career in school librarianship. This project will explore how a formal and structured mentoring network that provides individualized support in a nonevaluative capacity would support early career school librarians as they endeavor to meet professional goals and would provide them with support from trained mentors when challenges arise in their first years of school librarianship. The multi-phase project includes a national survey about the challenges recent library and information science graduates face in their early years of school librarianship; the use of survey data to collaboratively design, implement, and qualitatively evaluate the impact of a formal mentoring network in South Carolina and Iowa; and research dissemination.