Archive for the ‘School Library’ Category

Christopher Harris writes for American Libraries about Ebooks and School Libraries. This informative article takes a look at the unique challenges which school libraries face when implementing an e-books program.

“In their efforts to implement ebooks, school libraries face a set of challenges that differ from those confronting their public and academic counterparts. In addition to the struggle they share with other types of libraries to offer current bestselling fiction ebooks, school libraries are also working to secure backlist fiction, curriculum-focused nonfiction, and multiple copies of books for group use. At the same time, however, they are fortunate to have a strong working relationship with many different publishers and vendors that work within the K–12 market.”

Kristin Fontichiaro and Buffy Hamilton have edited a free e-book titled
School Libraries: What’s Now, What’s Next, What’s Yet to Come. This wonderful contribution to the field consists of a crowdsourced collection of over 100 essays from around the world about trends in school libraries written by librarians, teachers, publishers, and library vendors. It includes a foreword by R. David Lankes and photographs by Diane Cordell.

Jennifer Laboon writes about How Will We Save Our Profession? Reflections from a Texas Librarian for the American Association of School Librarians blog. This is a thought-provoking piece which offers an encouraging list of four strengths that librarians possess which continues to make our contributions valuable today.

“How will we save our profession? This is the question that I’ve been struggling with more than usual lately, as I plan for two days of Professional Development with the librarians in my district. I feel obligated to provide them with tools and inspiration to preserve their jobs and, more importantly, the invaluable contribution we make to our students (my own seven year old among the 80,000 kids in our city’s school system).”

via Martha Hickson

Dave Saltman writes for the latest issue of the Harvard Education Letter about Eight Tech Trends for Librarians (and Teachers too!). The article stresses the need for school libraries, and librarians to “reboot” and become more tech-savvy in order to remain relevant. Here are the 8 trends discussed:

1. Digital Catalogues
2. Virtual Libraries
3. Online Research Guides
4. E-Books
5. Online Alternatives to Books
6. Note-taking Tools
7. Dashboards
8. Oral Reports

Joyce Valenza comes up with the Top School Library Things to Think About in 2008 in her latest post for SLJ’s NeverEndingSearch blog. She advises school librarians and educators to consider this thought-provoking list:

• Communication options and AUDIENCE, global audience.
• Knowledge/authority arguments.
• Copyright/copyleft/fair use.
• Open source and free Web-based applications.
• Intellectual freedom and filtering.
• Articulating our new roles and being able to do them.
• New strategies for information seeking and gathering.

“They aren’t merely no-nonsense book providers anymore. In the digital age, they are multitasking information managers— part teacher, part technologist.”

The August issue of T.H.E. Journal has a great article by Neal Starkman titled “The New Librarians” which talks about today’s librarians as information brokers. Check out all six pages here.

I’ve got to agree with Justin Ashworth’s thoughts on The School Library Journal:

Have you been to School Library Journal’s newly designed site? If you haven’t, I suggest you check it out. SLJ online has undergone a major facelift, and I can honestly say that the site is more useful for those in the field. I’ve gone from never checking their site at all to visiting it on a daily basis.

They’ve moved content around, overhauled the navigation and layout, and have added a couple of new features that have me addicted. Take for example their new blogs/talkback/podcasts feature. Four bloggers (Chris Harris, Diane Chen, Amy Bowlann & Brian Kenney) regularly make posts that connect teacher librarians to new ideas and new tools that help with instruction and keep you on the bleeding edge.

So if you’re trying to wade through the Internet sludge and determine which resources and web tools are valuable enough to grab a few seconds of your time, put School Library Journal’s website high on your list.

A very impressive Web 2.0 presence from Seattle Public Schools who have clearly got a good lead on integration of social networking into their learning frameworks!

Know as L3RN – Learning equals creating, learning and broadcasting, A visit to their fantastic portal is a must. School libraries have their own area for News, tips, resources, and help from Seattle Schools’ libraries.

The portal has browse, video, audio, docs and channels in its suite. Fantastic!

[From: Awapuni ‘links for you’]

You can often find great examples of libraries who have already redesigned and reformulated themselves for the digital world. However there is not always a lot written about the processes involved in undertaking this change.

An excellent Australian paper A Prototype 21st Century University Library: a case study of change at the University of New South Wales focuses on the organizational change involved in a library involved in constructing a new future for itself. It has added relevance for our [school] libraries as it focuses on an academic library that needs to support teaching and learning activities much in the same way that we need to.

[From: Bibliosphere News]

Collaboration between public libraries and school libraries is becoming an important area in countries where there are already strong and well equipped services as seperate entities. On the other hand, countries that are still evolving school libraries, or who do not have school libraries, are also exploring how to facilitate information and learning services through collaborative ventures.

Through my work in the International Association of School Librarianship, most recently as Vice President (Association Relations), I was on the award committe in 2005 for the Annual IASL/Soflink Award sponsored through the generosity of Softlink International which recognises significant contributions to school librarianship by school library specialists, educators, and/or researchers.

The award in 2005 was given to Australia’s Mackay West State School and Mackay City Council Library Service who developed an enduring strategic alliance between the school and public library service which has resulted in the development of a program: Productive Partnerships — Lifelong Learning. The program’s four elements involve a work shadowing scheme which forges closer links between the school and public library staff, a library monitor program recognising student library leadership in the school, a program of visits “Grade One students At the Library” (GOAL) and a website that, among other things, improves communication between the school and the public library in supporting students’ curriculum activities. I can vouch for the tremendous success of the program.

Jump to 2007: If you are exploring possibilities, you should visit the excellent presentation available at Slideshare on Public and School Library Partnership: How the Twain Shall Meet.