Are We Underutilizing Librarians in the Extended Essay Process?
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I am really excited to announce that today I began a four-week training with a group of librarians from The Central & Eastern European Schools Association or CEESA. Over the next four weeks, we are going to break down all aspects of the Extended Essay process, from the Mark Scheme and Generic Guidance to the Subject-Specific Guidance and the broader systems schools use to support students through the Extended Essay. But more importantly, we are going to spend a lot of time thinking about the role librarians can play within that process. As I have been preparing for these sessions, I have found myself reconnecting with just how much librarians can contribute to the Extended Essay process. In fact, the new Extended Essay guide explicitly recognizes the important role librarians and library teams can play in supporting students, particularly when it comes to research and information literacy. So, I thought I would share three areas where I think librarians can make an enormous impact on the Extended Essay process. 1. Teaching Research and Information Literacy This may be the most obvious role, but I also think it may be the most important. One of the expectations of the Extended Essay is that students engage with existing research and make informed judgments about the relevance, reliability, and validity of secondary sources. This is difficult work. Students need to distinguish between strong and weak sources. They need to understand who published the information, who the author is, whether the source is credible, whether bias is present, and whether the information is actually relevant to the research question. And in the world students are working in today, this matters more than ever. The challenge is no longer simply finding information. There is information everywhere. The challenge is knowing which information deserves to become part of a serious academic investigation. This is where librarians can have an enormous impact. They can help students develop better search strategies, use academic databases more effectively, and make more informed decisions about the sources they find. These are learned skills. And they connect directly to one of the IB’s Approaches to Learning which clearly states the IB Students should develop research skills throughout their course of study. What better model than to have someone in the school whose expertise sits directly in this area? In most schools, that person is already sitting in the library. 2. Building Strong Research Habits and Protecting Academic Integrity Finding strong information is only part of the research process. Students also have to manage it. They need to keep track of what they have found, where it came from, what proved useful, and how their thinking changes as the investigation develops. This is another area where librarians can provide incredibly valuable support. The new guide specifically identifies the librarian as someone who can help students develop and use the Researcher’s Reflection Space, or RRS. I think there is a really interesting opportunity here. The RRS can become much more than a place where students occasionally write down what they are thinking. It can become a working record of the research process. Students can record which databases they searched, keywords they tried, useful and rejected sources, bibliographic information, emerging questions, and changes in research direction. In other words, librarians can uniformly help students develop good habits of research organization. They can also support students with consistent referencing, citation systems, bibliography management, and academic integrity. And again, these are not simply Extended Essay skills. They are academic skills students will carry with them long after the Extended Essay is finished. 3. Strengthening Research Support Across the Entire Extended Essay Program This third role may actually have the greatest impact. Imagine a school that has purposefully incorporated its librarian into the overall Extended Essay process and included that person as part of the team of adults supporting students through a 4,000-word independent research project. That team may include the IB Coordinator, the Extended Essay Coordinator, and the Supervisors. But once the librarian is included, they can become the research expert for both students and Supervisors. That might mean providing short workshops for the whole cohort (faculty included) at carefully selected points in the process. Not one long presentation about research at the beginning. But rather, create strategic, small, timely interventions along the way. Early in the process, students might work on developing better search terms and identifying useful databases, academic journals, and other appropriate sources of information. Later, the focus could shift toward source quality, authority, and bias. Once the research is underway, students might receive support with citation, research organization, and academic integrity. The librarian can support Supervisors too. Imagine an Extended Essay Research Toolkit with database guides, source-evaluation tools, citation resources, and a simple referral system for students who need additional research support. This is where the role becomes much bigger than simply helping an individual student locate a source. It becomes part of a more consistent and coherent Extended Essay system for everyone involved. Takeaways... The more I think about this, the more excited I get. The Extended Essay is one enormous research process, and it gives schools an opportunity to help students develop skills they will use long beyond high school. But there is one really important piece that has to sit underneath all of this: The librarian needs to be properly trained for the role. If we are going to ask librarians to become an important part of the Extended Essay process, then they also need to understand the process as a whole. That means being familiar with the mark scheme, the Subject-Specific Guidance, the Generic Guidance, the expectations around research and reflection, academic integrity, and the broader structure of the Extended Essay. Because when educators are fully informed, properly trained, and trusted to do their part, great things do happen. Librarians are an exceptionally talented group of professionals within our schools, and when they are strategically included in the Extended Essay process, they can help us build the kind of highly functioning adult systems that lead to excellent student outcomes. So thank you to the CEESA librarians for reaching out and for sparking in me this excitement to revisit and reimagine the role of the librarian in the new Extended Essay process. I’m really looking forward to working and learning with you over the next month! See you next week. What Else I’m Working On... The Cohort Model for the Extended Essay Teacher Workshop - October 3rd, 2026 - The Cohort Model is a customizable approach to managing the Extended Essay, designed to meet your school’s specific context. This workshop will guide you through each step of the process, from research and reflections to assessment, offering a structured, cohesive approach that ensures student success and smooth coordination across all subjects. Effectively Supervising the Extended Essay in Any Subject- November 7th, 2026 - Once again, this workshop is filling up early this year. It is focused and practical workshop is designed to help teachers confidently navigate the updated Extended Essay framework for the Class of 2027. Together, we’ll explore what’s changed, what’s stayed the same, and how to effectively guide students through both the Subject-Focused and Interdisciplinary pathways. In-Person Professional Workshops - If your school would like a tailored training on the updated Extended Essay guidelines, we’d love to help—onsite at your campus or live online—just send me an email at brad@bradcartwright.com and we’ll work together to make it happen. Brad Cartwright |