Why We (Should) Write

I’m always surprised when wonderful librarians who are so erudite and thoughtful speaking on some area of their practice recoil when I suggest they write an article. Lack of confidence (which I don’t understand because they have so much knowledge) or the reason lack of time (which I completely understand) usually predominate as excuses.

But as David McCullough says, “Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That’s why it’s so hard.” To sit down and write out what you do or your accumulated knowledge about a given topic or book means organizing your thoughts and making connections for others which compels you to be a stronger librarian and more intentional in your work. As school librarians, it’s important to place ourselves in the shoes of our students. Seeing my article bibliographies when I open Noodletools or discussing how I organize my notes for a paper lets students know that I use the tools I’m asking them to use in their research and writing process (although they are mystified that I do it voluntarily).

Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That’s why it’s so hard

David mccullough

Consider also the benefit to your relationship with teachers and administrators. When we complain that few of our colleagues and division administrators understand what we do, writing an article that demonstrates our pedagogical understanding of some aspect of our job draws the curtain back on what happens in the library and they are suitably dazzled. Getting the school’s name out in the form of your bio at the bottom of an article or in discussing what the school does well places librarians in a position of being seen as a positive advocate for the school, never a bad thing.

The connections I’ve made to other librarians through my writing have been invaluable. I’m a big believer that you get back what you put into the universe and writing is sharing a part of yourself. In everything I have written, someone has reached out to let me know how I helped them or sent an email that inspired an exchange that offered me more knowledge about my topic. Writing offers school librarians a chance to step out of our relative isolation and make contact with our compatriots outside of our school campus, an important aspect when we don’t always have a chance to mingle daily with someone who knows our job. 

What to Write About

School librarianship suffers from the fact that the majority of us spend our day putting out fires, ordering materials, navigating databases, and delivering amazing information literacy instruction in our library…and rarely mingle with other librarians. We assume everyone else does these activities like we do, and therefore don’t recognize when we are being innovative. I have never visited a single library (and pre-COVID I made a point of doing best practices visits to three to nine libraries a year) where I didn’t come away with a tip or practice idea that made me look like a goddess when I returned to my school.

While a little dated at this point, several chapters continue to have wonderful advice to offer new writers

Walt Crawford in his book, First Have Something to Say: Writing for the Library Profession, encourages writers to think of themselves as an expert rather than as an authority, a term which has a lot more baggage. An expert has attained some level of mastery (which we all have done) whereas an authority exudes a judgemental gravitas that the majority of school librarians thankfully don’t possess. You are an expert on a host of different topics relating to your work and people would benefit from reading about your perspective. If you’ve ever presented at a conference, write up your presentation into an article or blog post and share it with a wider audience. Publishing means your print article will be more findable in scholarly databases, or your blog article on an established website will be indexed more readily in search engines, so you would reach a wider audience than the 40 people in the ballroom of your conference session by also publishing an account of your work.

Think about what you love about being a librarian. Is it children’s or YA literature? Be a book reviewer or write articles about themes you’re seeing. Information literacy? Tons of magazines, both commercial and organization-specific publications, want to see writing on instruction. Professional development geared towards teachers? Now you’ve branched out from librarian-focused magazines and journals to broader educational organizations like ISTE and ASCD. Copyright and intellectual freedom are hot topics that affect our work and they are frustrating areas where people always need advice. And kudos to you if you have an area of “cross-pollination”; management, technology, engineering, higher education are all areas of expertise you might have from non-school librarian work you’ve done. Making connections between those areas and our work with school libraries could be of enormous help to the profession. 

Finding a Venue for Your Writing

Full disclosure, the vast majority of my writing opportunities came directly or indirectly from my volunteer work. My first writing opportunity was for the KQ Blog in 2004 after someone had heard me complain at an ALA conference (probably at the ISS Section table back when we would meet by section and committee at tables in a gigantic, cacophonous ballroom) that you couldn’t apply for National Board Certification without being state-certified. My momentary rant led to an offer to write the “anti” position for a pair of blog posts about whether state certification should be necessary for independent school librarians (Lewis 2004).

If you think that serving on a committee is out of your financial or time grasp, consider that many regional and state organizations (as well as ALA, AASL, and ISTE) now offer virtual committees rather than requiring that you shoulder the expense of travel to distant conferences. Offering to write for your membership organization’s blog or journal is a wonderful way to dip a toe into the writing waters and often gives a less intense introduction to the editing process than if you started with a more national journal or book chapter for an academic press. Remember that writing often comes from connections, but it also fosters connections. Considering that we have jobs dependent on fostering relationships and collaborating, seeing writing as an extension of that role should make this activity feel more natural.

Before you choose a potential publication, you need to decide which audience you’re aiming for. I separate this into “the choir” and “has no idea what we do.” “The choir” refers to the publications and blogs you read right now for your work which are squarely aimed at librarians. You can write assuming certain background knowledge and your content is usually more practice-focused. “The choir” also encompasses the weightier peer-reviewed journals where you might publish action research or ethnographic studies (I’m assuming you aren’t doing long-term statistical analysis as a practicing librarian but if I’m wrong, go, you! And write an article about that balance, please.)

“Has no idea what we do” probably triggers the faces of quite a few people you know; think about what roles they have. Independent School, the magazine of the National Association of Independent Schools, has been – along with their elusive and exclusive conference committee – the Holy Grail of librarians hoping to make our work more visible to the NAIS audience. Several years ago, an independent school librarian actually managed to co-author an article for Independent School that referred to the role of the independent school librarian and – I swear to you – it was the scene in Sorcerer’s Stone when Voldemort is “killed” by the infant Harry Potter, with ecstatic witches were setting off fireworks and shaking the hands of strange muggles because of their happiness. Independent school librarians sent congratulatory texts and “did you see??!!” emails across every known listserv as this glass ceiling shattered. ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) and ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) also have excellent periodicals that administrators frequently read and have even broader audiences. Getting the school librarian role in front of them and emphasizing how we increase student achievement is crucial work that can be accomplished through writing articles about our impact.

A fantastic anthology of short articles covering a broad spectrum of writing-related topics

So practically, where should you look for writing opportunities? First, I’d hit up your databases or walk into the nearest academic library which usually lets you do a search on-site using their resources. Take a look at what has been written about your topic and consider where there are gaps you could fill or if the information needs updating. Look at the length and tone of articles for individual publications to get a sense of their preferences. The below list links to the “writing for publication” page of each of the following venues where you can find their query and length requirements as well as formatting guidelines. Since many of them have themes for each issue and are looking for features or supporting articles on that theme, it pays to ask if your proposed idea could fit into a future issue if you’re not sure. Carol Smallwood’s anthology, Writing and Publishing: The Librarian’s Handbook is a treasure trove of infinitely readable short articles on a variety of topics related to writing for publication, including how to handle the query process.

On September 14, 2021, AISL hosted an informational webinar on writing for publication featuring Meg Featheringham, AASL’s editor of Knowledge Quest, the KQ Blog, and AASL’s e-newsletter, and Rebecca Morris, co-editor at School Library Connection. These knowledgeable editors had valuable information to offer to librarians considering writing, with great behind-the-scenes considerations they take into account when choosing manuscripts. Definitely check it out, not only for the great information but to see how lovely and not scary editors are.

Here is a list of potential markets for your articles, in absolutely no alphabetical order:

An Altruistic Approach

I’m assuming some readers might still feel reluctant about writing an article. Since librarians skew to an altruistic personality type, I’m going to take advantage of that tendency and connect writing to helping others. Has there been a librarian whose work meant a lot to you? Writing an article that demonstrates how you apply their work to your practice gets more people aware of them. You might have a wonderful teacher or librarian at your school who you want to help develop professionally and bring attention to their work; writing an article together helps you both. Finally, thinking about what articles would benefit someone new to the profession allows you to create work that helps your colleagues. 

Consider also that writing for publication can be a wonderful PD group to offer at your school. The power of faculty members coming together and being a little vulnerable speaking about what they do in the classroom and worries they have about writing can’t be overestimated. Your school librarian role helps you as a facilitator for this type of work, since you can help teachers brainstorm ideas, highlight your databases for searching for potential subject-specific publications they could target, and edit one another’s work (having a second set of eyes compare a manuscript to the publication guidelines is worth its weight in gold). Teachers will not forget your helping them promote themselves and the work they do while you strengthen relationships. You may help someone so well with their APA citation that they have you come in to teach their class the same skill!

Hopefully, you’ve found a few good reasons to consider writing, as well as an inspiration or two that gives you some idea of what you might want to share. Please consider the below list of committee members as your personal pep rally and don’t hesitate to reach out with questions. Librarians who write build community and a powerful practice, so make the library world a better place and share a piece of yourself. 

Want more help and advice? Please feel free to reach out to AISL’s Publications Committee members:

Debbie Abilock: dabilock@gmail.com 

Tasha Bergson-Michelson: tbergsonmichelson@castilleja.org 

Sarah Davis Sarah.Davis@viewpoint.org 

Christina Karvounis: KarvounisC@bolles.org 

Cathy Leverkus cathyl@thewillows.org 

Courtney Lewis cllewis@st.catherines.org 

Alyssa Mandel amandel@oda.edu 

References

Crawford, W. (2003). First Have Something to Say: Writing for the Library Profession. American Library Association.

Lewis, C. L. (2004), January/February). Independent School Library Media Specialists: State Certification Unnecessary. Knowledge Quest on the Web. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org.sapl.sat.lib.tx.us/ala/mgrps/ divs/aasl/aaslpubsandjournals/knowledgequest/kqwebarchives/kqwebarchives.cfm. (Totally not the link anymore – I have no idea if you can even find this outdated initial writing piece.)

Smallwood, C. (2010). Writing and Publishing: The Librarian’s Handbook (ALA guides for the busy librarian). American Library Association.

Checkout Policies — Yea or Nay?

As a child, my mom always set a limit on how many books my brothers and I were allowed to check out at a time — three. We would return every week and get three new books and I was content with that system.

Once I could start going to the library independently I still found myself setting the three book limit on myself. I never questioned it and was happy to return a week later or even sooner if I finished reading, which was often the case.

Fast forward to my first year as a librarian in a public library. Suddenly that three book limit went out the window. I was checking out any book that looked remotely interesting because well, I could! My nightstand started to resemble a Jenga game with books teetering out of every surface. I would often read at least a book or more a week, so I felt my ever-growing pile was justified.

In my current role as a solo elementary school librarian I find myself waxing and waning — Should there be a check out limit?

The logical, librarian side of me thinks…

Of course! I don’t want to be shelving all day because every third grader checked out 10 books each.

I wouldn’t have anything left on the shelves if students could check out as much as they wanted!

They will just lose those books!

Whereas, the book-lover side of me thinks…

Why yes! You may check out the entire Harry Potter series to read over winter break because that sounds like a delightful plan!

It’s an awful feeling when you finish a book and have nothing to read after it. I can’t put a kid through that!

How can I say ‘no’ to a student who wants to read?!

The logical, librarian side of me won and I do in fact have checkout policies in place. When students come to the library with their class they know how many books they are allowed to check out and they are content. It makes for a smooth check out and students know what to expect. However, I still find myself wanting to say to some of my students — You’ll be done with these two books by Saturday afternoon. Go ahead, check out two more.

What are your checkout policies? Do you listen to the logical librarian half of your brain or do you tend to side more with your book-loving side?

Who’s Behind the Curtain?

Okay. I’m just going to lay it right out there. It’s a secret I’ve kept from you since we first met. At first I thought I’d tell you, but then I didn’t. And the more we became friends, the more I feared sharing the truth. And the longer I waited, the harder it became to tell you. I don’t know how many times I tried to find the courage to tell you, but when the moment came I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I was embarrassed and ashamed. I was afraid that if I told you, you’d scoff at me or roll your virtual eyes, ostracize me from this community I’ve grown to love. But the thing is, you not knowing has been eating at me for years. I have dreams about it. I wake up in a cold sweat, nearly hyperventilating. My wife, accustomed to these frequent night terrors, strokes my  forehead and calms me to sleep. This is it, though. I can go no further without you knowing the truth. So darn the consequences. Here goes: I….I….I do not…<gulp> have a degree in library science. [record scratch], [crickets], [gasps] from across the AISL frontiers].

I won’t blame you if you disown me, throw me out of the library club, remand me to the usurious hands of full price booksellers. I’ve misrepresented myself. I’m a fake, a charlatan, impersonating a librarian for all these years. And I didn’t even sleep at a Holiday Inn Express!

I mean, do you even know me at all? The foundation of our relationship has been built on a lie. I wouldn’t blame you if you reported me to the librarian police and sent me away to library prison for life. But before you condemn me to books previously annotated by a sophomore who uses hearts to dot i’s, hear me out. I never set out to deceive you. It just happened.

I’ll spare you the entire career history, but a few highlights are needed for you to understand how a nice boy like me ends up in the rough and tumble world of librarianship. I was a college English major (a revelation that, at the time, nearly caused my mother to choke on her Tab cola).  After a couple of years of stereotypical mid-1990s, post college Boston living, I decided to go to graduate school. I’ll be honest (finally, I know!), I didn’t even think about an MSL. Heck, I am pretty sure if someone mentioned it I would have assumed they were talking about Major League Soccer! I went for an M.Ed. with a certification to teach secondary English. But the joke in my family is that I went to graduate school for two years only to teach for one. That’s right, after a year of teaching ninth grade English on Cape Cod, I left academia all together. I had a penchant for some wanderlust – and wander I did – back to Boston in 1997 then Amsterdam, Toronto, Zurich, New York, Los Angeles, until I returned to Massachusetts in 2004. I married, had kids, and relatively soon thereafter chose to move back to my home state of Connecticut. With my praxis test taken and my Connecticut secondary English teaching certificate in hand, I returned to the Nutmeg State somewhat resigned to, after a decade and a half away from academia, a return to teaching. At first I landed a temporary job at my old high school. (Yes, it was as uncomfortable as you might imagine!), but I was keeping an eye out for something better.

It was at this time, with a bit of free time on my hands, I did what all great job seekers do: auditioned for community theater. During my second show (The Crucible – ironic life parallel?) the director and I got to talking. She asked me a bit of my career back story and what it was I was hoping to do. It was toward the end of that conversation that she said, with some conspiratorial undertones, “Have you ever thought about working in a library?” I said, earnestly, “No. Tell me more about that.” And with those six words uttered in reply, my life – my family’s life – was irrevocably changed. This woman, who directed plays on the side, had been at my current school for nearly 30 years. She’d been the library director for close to a generation. With her retirement not long beyond the horizon, she was looking to groom her replacement. She ushered me into the school as her assistant. It helped that I 1) had a master’s degree, 2) had technical/computer experience, and 3) for the benefit of the boarding school life, was a runner and a former college rower.

It’s not exactly the right analogy, but it also isn’t that far off: she was my Mrs. Miyagi and I her karate kid. I began as all young apprentices do: in the stacks. I refreshed my knowledge of the Dewey system, shelved books, neatened stacks, and helped pull books for weeding, scraping off barcodes and stamping discard on them. My desk was right near Mrs. Miyagi’s and she announced her every library activity. What she was doing, what she was buying, why this book was being discarded but another wasn’t. I checked new books to make sure there weren’t missing pages, wondering why bother (but of course, we found some!). She taught me how to catalog, I learned how to read the Sears subject headings, and what in Sam Hill name a Cutter Sanborn table is and how to use it! Eventually I was permitted to go beyond cataloging fiction, learning the nuances of subject headings for non-fiction, learning how to sometimes disregard the suggested Dewey number to put a book where it would be better found in our library. Suffice it to say that in the course of three years working under my library director, I worked my way up from the proverbial mailroom to know, intimately, each and every inch of shelving and every aspect of our library’s operations.

I did, briefly, because we thought I might eventually require an actual MLS (or MILS, if you’re getting all fancy and modern), take online courses at Southern Connecticut State University and at San Jose State University. I took Foundations of Librarianship and Information Communities and Information Analysis and Organization among a few others. And, to degrees, it was helpful, but they didn’t specifically prepare me for the unique environment in which we ply our trade. So when it came time for Mrs. Miyagi to retire, it was because she knew that I had graduated from her MLS program. It was longer than a typical program, and the practical component was intense. I don’t have a degree on my wall from Mrs. Miyagi’s Library School, but I have the education to rival any accredited institution’s. (And the best part was that I got paid to enrol!)

As we all know, though we may have been educated to assume our professional responsibilities, we are never done with our education. And this is how, among several other opportunities, AISL plays such an important role. Whether we call it professional development or continuing education, our active involvement in the AISL listserv, attending the summer or annual conference and workshops – certainly for me, and I know for many of you – is the impetus for so much of the positive changes and initiatives we take at our school. The collective AISL brain has helped me not only fill in some gaps in my library education (hey – we all have them, right?). It’s helped me greatly make up for my lack-of-MSL inferiority complex (not sure what DSM code that is.)

This lack of librarian self-esteem is, to some extent, your fault! You’re all so gosh darn smart, and with each question, suggestion, blog, or “helpful” link, I am only made more aware of my shortcomings. But that’s okay, because it makes me not only want to be a better librarian, but somehow prove my worth in spite of my lack of a library degree. So, yeah, I might have a chip on my shoulder, but it serves me – and our library – because it motivates me to do the best we can with our small but important sphere of influence. 

Mrs. Miyagi still lives in our area. She comes in to check out books and chat. The library looks different from when she was here. Gone is our reference section, in favor of a more contemporary seating and work areas. And there are other changes, too, in the nature of the services we provide, the demeanor we exude. Many of the changes we’ve adopted were influenced by you! Mrs. Miyagi may not approve of everything we have done, but she knows that when she retired, that I would, like a constitutional oath – not dissimilar to the ALA Bill of Rights (which I also learned!), solemnly swear to faithfully execute the position of library director, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the mission of our library, which is, essentially: to support the curriculum and mission of the School by developing critical information literacy skills and by instilling an appreciation and understanding of the value of reading to promote lifelong learning.

Okay, so now you know. The truth is finally out there I’m sorry I kept it from you for too long. That was wrong. I understand if you need some time to process. I, for one, feel relieved and unburdened. Whatever the consequences, I hope that you can understand my initial reticence to disclose the truth. I am so enamored and in awe of all of you. I just wanted you to like me, to feel like a peer. Instead I felt, for a time, an imposter. Now, however, after all my years of both my direct and practical training and the ongoing education I’ve absorbed, feel as confident as ever in my credentials and abilities as a library director, librarian, information literacy educator, advisor for readers, and a role model for students that it was high time I came clean. And if I can pave the way for just one more librarian to reveal their true path to this noble profession, then, well, this whole confession will have been more than worth it. So, that’s it. It’s time to move on. I’ve got reviews to read, books to process, and students and faculty to serve. Simply stated: it’s time to go back to work.

Affective Labor is Real: A Librarian’s Guide to Navigating #NeverAgain

Guest Post by Elaine Levia

Emma Gonzalez with mosaic of slogans (art by Serena May Illescas) uploaded by Flickr user Vince Reinhart, shared under a CC-BY 2.0 license.

Here we are.

It is hard for me to write that only the most recent events at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida have inspired this post. We’ve been inundated with stories of  gun violence in and out of schools far longer than we care to admit.  I was in elementary school when the Columbine massacre took place. Even in relative safety, I grew up learning to regard gun violence in schools not as incidents isolated by time and space, but as looming threats that would eventually happen to me or someone I knew.

Now, as a school librarian, I feel favorably positioned to approach the work of compiling resources for general and practical support in the current unfolding of violent events. We sit in a favorable seat because of our roles, adjacent to students as teachers are, but also as de facto counselors, confidants, advisors, and affective laborers of all stripes. Affective labor is the critical feminist term for work in the service or care of others, either emotionally or physically. It came about as a response to the invisibility of immaterial labor, and has even been explored in the context of academic libraries. You might be wondering, as I have wondered recently, how to broach the interconnected pieces of school shootings with students in a clear-cut way. How might we balance responsible reactions to unthinkable trauma within our training level and expertise? How might we support students in a time of anger, sadness, political fervor, and need?

I am reassured by the old refrain, shared often as comfort with me by my own mother, who also happens to be a librarian. We don’t need to have all the answers. We just need to be the connection. Today I want to share some thoughts and resources that have helped me figure out my personal role in the sea change, and I will ask for your help with one small action: consider this the crystallization, the reification of all the emotional, seemingly invisible duties of a school librarian. We’re already tasked with doing more with less, but I hope that the following few tips and resources provide a wide variety of inclusive practices for the toolkit. Moreover, I hope that a dedicated space for support and discussion within our community proves fruitful and restorative. The care of minds and bodies of others, particularly our students, is a borderless, ever-expanding pursuit. We can only do it so well when we’re able to lean on our community for support.

Additionally, I’m interested in your resources. I’ve started a public document, which you may notice at the time of posting is still in its nascent phase. Please feel free to contribute books, podcasts, training resources, tech tools, or timely articles.

Read on for some ideas about the connections we can make between the prevalence of gun violence, mental health, activism, and diversity & inclusion work.

Continue reading

What does AISL mean to you? Please share widely!

Happy New Year from the AISL board! After mapping our membership last year, we wanted to share our new year’s resolution with you and ask for your assistance in helping us meet it. If you’re reading this as a subscriber or as a link from AISL media channels, you’re already a member of the Association of Independent School Librarians. You know our value; we thank you for your membership.

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NAIS currently has 1541 member schools. We have 641 members from 390 schools. There are many professional organizations for librarians, but we are the only one that’s entirely focused on k12 independent school education. We would like to spread the word and grow our membership; we are stronger as a profession if we learn from and advocate for each other. As you can see from the map, we have strong representation across the East Coast, with membership extending as far west as Hawaii.

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While this blog and our social media channels are available to all, there are many member benefits. The primary benefit is the listserv, with virtual help available 24 hours a day. We have a burgeoning webinar series with presentations from experts and vendors.  There is an Annual Conference hosted by a team of school librarians each spring, and a Summer Institute, with in-depth study of a topic each June. We are constantly responding to members and offering services members request. In fact, our KARLS (kick ass retired librarians) formed 3 years ago because some retired librarians still wanted to be involved on a personal level even after retiring from the profession. How often do you hear that from other librarians? One founding KARL said:

“AISL is an organization that has members who are extraordinary librarians, dedicated to their students, creative, innovative, and passionate about sharing the joy of learning.  If I could recommend one professional development opportunity to independent school librarians, it would be to join AISL and take advantage of the opportunity to network with these extraordinary librarians. I was delighted when I retired and the opportunity came to help plan a retirement track for those of us who wanted to remain connected to AISL.  I am so happy that I am able to keep looking forward to the annual spring AISL conference to keep learning and see dear friends.”

AISL is run entirely run by a volunteer board. Membership fees are kept low so cost is not a factor inhibiting people from joining. The yearly membership fee is $30, and all memberships renew at the start of the school year in September.  Other common questions:

What if I am currently a library student?

We offer a discounted $15 membership for students earning library degrees. Many jobs are advertised on the site in the spring.

Why should I join this if I’m already part of a regional library group?

Library trends and challenges transcend local geographic boundaries. With AISL, your reach is all across North America, and AISL members are quick to respond to requests for information and advice.

Are your conferences popular?

The conferences are very popular and sell out quickly. Librarians love the tours of independent school libraries and the distinctive character of each conference based on the hosting city. We are working to increase registration slots at future conferences so more members can attend.

Is there a digest option for the listserv?

           There is. You can either receive emails throughout the day or one daily digest.

OTHER QUESTIONS???

Please share this post widely, personalizing with your own AISL experiences. The board is happy to answer questions about membership. We’re looking forward to broadening our community. Let’s do more together!  

With warm wishes for a healthy, happy 2018.

Your AISL Board

When will I finally…

I don’t know about all of you, but I do not feel I have fully mastered the whole getting-it-all-done-and-with-flair-too thing. With every new school year, I feel that sense of excitement and promise and opportunity, and then, “How is it already Banned Books Week!?!”

As much as I am fascinated by time management strategies and tools (really, in spite of myself, I am), it’s still something I feel that I struggle with. I don’t think I’m alone considering all of the time management webinars, apps, conference presentations, articles, and books I’ve come across geared specifically toward librarians, even school librarians. Peter Bregman, author of 18 Minutes: Find Your Focus, Master Distraction, and Get the Right Things Done (Business Plus, 2011) spoke at AASL four years ago. All of this is reassuring and disheartening at the same time. Has anyone figured this out? If they haven’t, how will I? Or, if they haven’t, can I stop worrying and just get on with it?

In searching my tags and folders for the many resources I’ve collected and bookmarked on this topic, I found two things, one of which I remembered writing, the other I did not. About three years ago, I was feeling that I had multiple competing priorities at school and, except for those tasks that called for my immediate attention, I was feeling overwhelmed and unsure of where to start.  I sketched out a general plan for figuring out what to work on when, and it still helps if I’m feeling a little adrift during the day in between students’ questions. (I would REALLY like to know how all of you out there have handled this.)

Well, here it is:

  • Monday: Curriculum, lesson planning
  • Tuesday: LibGuides/curation
  • Wednesday: Professional development
  • Thursday: Collection management, book reviews
  • Friday: catch-up, yearbook, peer tutoring, Cum Laude Society, etc.

The other thing I found was a draft of a blog post (for a now defunct blog) I wrote on this topic — five years ago! And guess what; the guilt and frustration and specific items that I feel are so important but get brushed aside by daily business – they were all the same. I can’t tick off the little “done!” box on any of them. That didn’t help the old imposter syndrome too much. However, it also served as a real eye-opener, and, in a weird way, reassured me. My professional values and philosophy have not changed a whit, and that makes me feel that re-centering my focus on these is true to my practice.

I returned to this 1.5 year-old blog post from one of our heroes, Joyce Valenza, to help me get over myself: http://blogs.slj.com/neverendingsearch/2016/03/26/a-belated-confession/, and this one, which you’ll remember from our own David Wee: https://aislnews.org/?p=4219. Both still make me feel grateful as well as empowered to choose a focus, and to see that achieving balance and mastery of the different hats we all wear in terms of a year, or even a whole career, rather than a day, week, or month is the ultimate goal. Really, the ultimate daily and career-wide goal is to serve and teach the students as best we can, and that happens in large and small ways.

So, here it is – this year I will focus on redesigning and improving our LibGuides and further embedding the library in our LMP. Maybe I won’t do more book-talking, or design/choose the perfect research framework for my school, but I can make some progress in those areas while really getting one part of our house in the order our students need it to be in. Luckily, I can do it with a little help from my friends; namely, all of you!

Origin story

This is loosely an origin story, though I’ll branch off from there. You’ll note in a minute or less that my origin story couldn’t be more straightforward. Two years after college graduation, I was working in Admissions at the same school I had entered as a freshman ten years prior. I was in the process of figuring out what I wanted to do with my life with the earnestness only possible of someone in their early 20s. I knew I wanted to stay in education, and the school librarian seemed to be the best position in the school. You get to work with pretty much everyone, your days are always different, and the library is often one of the prettiest rooms in the building

When I told people I was going to earn my MLIS, I usually got one of two reactions.

  1. “That makes sense. You’ve always loved to read.” Family remembered me with every series book available to children of the 1980s and 90s: Bobbsey Twins, Tillerman cycle, Encyclopedia Brown, Sleepover Friends, Saddle Club, every iteration of Sweet Valley Kids/Twins/High and The Babysitters’ Club, Narnia, Cleary and Blume by the dozens, Fear Street…I could keep going. I recall a particular affinity for the stories of Barthe Declements and Paula Danziger. Remember Me to Harold Square and The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler inspired many a New York scavenger hunt on my part.

OR

  1. “Huh? I didn’t realize they still had libraries. They’ll be obsolete soon.” Much has been written about library naysayers and why they are incorrect, so I’ll just say that libraries are as relevant today as they’ve ever been even if their form looks a bit different. To the first group, please tell me where I can find a job where I get paid to read all day. I’m in!

Fast forward ten years, and we are caught up to the present where I’ve learned that school librarian is pretty much my perfect profession.

Except “librarian” isn’t a profession I can drop off at the end of the day; it’s just my personality. Alyssa has taken the title of Thrifty Grocery Ninja, and I’d like to henceforth be known as an Organizational Wizard.

Some examples from the past week since we are visiting my husband’s family in Washington State where the summer weather is ideal.

  1. I have part of a dresser in the Washington house, and a few years ago I realized that I’d overpack because I didn’t remember what I kept here. 5 minutes making a list on Google Drive solved that issue. I’ve never had to worry about over- (or under-, though that’s seldom my problem) packing since.
  2. I went berry picking this morning with plans of canning this afternoon. For the past three years I’ve kept notes on the process and on who receives the jams afterwards. As with the previous example, it seems so simple and yet I bet I would have let the fruit-pectin mixture boil over if I hadn’t seen, “Fruit-pectin boils FAST and FROTHS. Stir and DON’T leave the pot.” (Sheepishly, I might remember a sticky strawberry stove from last July.)

    236 Bop's News Folders

    organizing day one

  3. Last Friday, my husband’s grandmother brought out a cardboard box of family notes, newspaper clippings, and awards that went from 1923 to 2005. There were some file folders but not a lot of order. And a lot of news clippings! The family has lived in one town for generations and has been prominent in local business, politics, education, and charities. Know what I find super fun? Solving the date mystery by using clues in the article (or the article on the reverse), photos, similar stories in different papers, etc. What year was February 25 on a Thursday roughly in the 1950s? So much of local history still hasn’t been digitized, so while the Internet is a help, you can’t just type in text from articles. There was a visceral YES when I’d find a full paper that was a repeat of a clipping and the year matched my guess. An added benefit is that the materials are dated and sheet protected and organized in a three-inch three-ring binder. Now future generations can easily peruse while seeing the context in which something was written. And the grandmother think I’m an organizational wizard, so I have my first fan!

    235 Bop's News Folders

    organizing day two (not the finished product)

I realize it might just be me and an obsessive attention to detail but I’m hoping there are others. Are there times when your “library skills” have led to a smoother and more productive life outside the library? Happy midsummer!

237 Computers and Libraries 1990s

Plus you come across cool things like this college brochure talking about libraries with the latest technology!

Top 10 List of Conference Takeaways

The Tampa Crew did such a great job with this year’s AISL conference that I am overwhelmed by all that I have learned and have acquired “Option Anxiety”. The only way I can move forward is to break the dazzling array of new information into small digestible bits.

To that end, Blogger Shelagh Straughan and I have created a  Top Ten list of tips from the conference. I will start with 10 and work down to 6, and Shelagh will pick up where I left off.  Here we go!

 Top 10 Tip:  The Library as Incubator Project: Allow students to connect to assignments in different ways.  Art as part of the toolbox. Modeling this in library space is the best way to encourage creative thinking at your school. As Erinn Paige said, we can “Sneak rigor into your students’ lives through art”. Also check out the Book to Art Club.

Top 9 Tip: Here’s a quick low-tech survey as a pre-test before a presentation: at the start of a presentation, survey your attendees’ level of experience by using the ‘finger survey’. Ask your attendees to hold one finger up if they are a total novice at the topic to be discussed, two fingers if they’re somewhat experienced, and three if they are very familiar with the topic. Call for everyone to hold fingers up all at once. This will help you to gauge levels of experience and help you to shift content a bit if necessary. Thanks to Dotty Smay!
Top 8 Tip:  Makerspace startup: It’s not the machine, it’s the program.
Chaos is standard. Become comfortable with the role of “Guide on Side.” Go to art teachers and tech teachers for guidance. The tool that is most important is the questioning tool. The process is primary. In most of our schools there is no time for the thinking, trying, exploratory processes in classes. We can give a space for that in our libraries. Consider it a “Blended Model”.  In our more conventional library role we work to create independent readers, but we also work with teachers on set curriculum. Same thing with projects. Sometimes work with teachers, but sometimes work with students individually, as we do when helping them find just what they want to read.
 makerspace 1

Top 7 Tip:  Two apps (out of many) from App-Smashing workshop

Prompterous is a teleprompter app available from the App Store in iTunes. Has a timer, great for filming and speeches. For kids and faculty, good for any oral presentations.  Lindsay Brennan provided the link for the Padlet from the App Smashing Session.  For those who couldn’t attend, there are some cool resources here.

Notability is able to manipulate notes in all kinds of ways. You can sign docs (opens a PDF, allows to write with a stylus, and send back). Possible in iPad, available through the App Store.

Top 6 Tip:  Always carry talcum powder with you when you go to the beach. A powdering on your feet will absorb any water and the sand will brush right off. Of course, sand in Tampa Bay is extra super fine, so it’s a lot like baby powder itself, but the talcum tip is  a great one. Thanks to Diane Neary for that little treasure.DSCN5591 (2)
Here’s Shelagh Straughan continuing the countdown: 

Top 5 Tip: Impulsivity and the teenage brain (Saint Stephen’s Episcopal School) on how, with the prefrontal cortex developing throughout adolescence, teenagers can have difficulty assessing risk, setting priorities, thinking ahead and planning over time. I loved the suggestion that rather than just facing this fact, we embrace the opportunity for learning, and let this environment shape our teaching. Helpful too, to stretch from this place and consider how it impacts plagiarism – for instance, that a growth (rather than fixed) mindset recognizes that citation demonstrates credibility.
photo1 

Top 4 Tip: What college freshmen need to know (Ringling College of Art & Design) was a timely and relevant presentation by a panel of 3 academic librarians. I wasn’t alone in feeling reassured about some of the items we’re already covering, and appreciated the recommendations about additional specific skills which will help our students succeed at the post-secondary level. These included but weren’t limited to using a variety of databases, recognizing the difference between popular magazines and scholarly journals, and perhaps the most important – encouraging them to ask for help!

Top 3 Tip: The power of student library proctors was more than evident at Berkeley Preparatory! Their group of 23 proctors (including co-heads) meet and work weekly to shelve books, develop book trailers & promotional videos, design displays and organize programs that celebrate reading. This year’s initiatives have included pumpkin-decorating contests, a St Patrick’s day book promotion and the current display of “Which is better – the book or the movie?’photo3photo2 

Top 2 Tip: The value of taking time to stop, rest and reflect. The beautiful library at Academy of the Holy Names has recently unveiled its new iLab, an innovative, multi-purpose space. Upper School librarians were fortunate to have 90 minutes of time to gather in this creative environment to “reflect, recap and record” what we’d learned over the past 3 days. This time was invaluable, allowing some to discuss current issues and others to plan action items.

Number One Conference Tip: Be inspired, not intimidated. I am fortunate to have attended 5 AISL conferences to date, and once again, I was amazed not only by the beautiful libraries we visited and impressive programs we saw in action, but by the wonderful work we heard about while chatting with colleagues. I’m learning to focus on being motivated rather than overwhelmed. It’s enough that we do our best with what we have, and focus on the potential within our own schools. Having the opportunity to see what’s happening out there helps me to expand my vision for my own library program.photo4 (2)

Thanks again to all the Tampa Bay librarians, and be sure to note your own top tips from the conference in the comments below!

Independent School Librarians and Common Core: What Are We Doing?

Common Core State Standards

Common Core State Standard Banner (from government source)

Common Core State Standard Banner (from government source)

Happy Holidays!  I don’t imagine anyone will look at this today,  but perhaps sometime this week…I decided to take a look at Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for today’s post and see how it was being used in the independent school library.

Independent Schools and CCSS

There are several librarians like Marianna McKim, Head Librarian at Kimball Union Academy, who said, “We are not officially using common core, but I am incorporating some of the ideas into our curriculum planning.”  And that seems to be a common theme in the independent school milieu in general: look at what’s going on, evaluate it, and then take what is good and use just what you need.  There is an abhorrence in the independence school world for being forced into a particular lock-step program. Hence the name independent!

Flowcharts and Brochures and CCSS

Joan Tukey, librarian at Notre Dame Academy, recently updated school brochures to reflect where Common Core skills were being used. You can see her work at the following link: Joan Tukey’s work on Common Core in her school

Webinars and CCSS

Margaret P. Simmons, Library Media Specialist at the June Shelton School, offered the advice to independent school librarians who are seeking to know more about Common Core that they listen to the Common Core and Text Types: What Should Students Be Reading? Webinar edWeb.net.

“I just listened to this webinar. It is so powerful! ” Simmons said in an email.

Libguides and CCSS

Joan Lange, librarian at Pope John Paul II High School, has done quite a bit of work on Common Core State Standards.  She has created some very good libguides, complete with powerpoints and links to other materials of note and is now working on another related project.  Her first libguide is general dealing with the standards in an overview way. You can find the libguide here: LibGuide:  Common Core State Standards (General Resources).  This libguide also includes a powerpoint by Lange’s  Science Dept. Chair illustrating how Common Core relates to Next Generation Science Standards. Her second libguide is history related and deals with teaching primary sources: LibGuide: Teaching with Primary Sources (History).  This libguide includes a powerpoint that she created illustrating the research process with primary sources as the starting point.  It is brilliant! I highly recommend that you take a look at it.

Lange’s next project is creating a Common Core bookcase of literary nonfiction works, across all disciplines.  This bookcase will be in her Professional Development and Audiovisual area.  She is hoping that prominent display will encourage conversations with teachers on how some of these short excerpts can be incorporated in their curriculum and connect with CCSS.

Technology,  Apps and CCSS

At the Berkeley Preparatory School we have started looking at CCSS in our Lower Division, where they are currently going grade by grade and looking at the Common Core skills and then comparing them to our Berkeley Identified Skills (BIS).  In the library in particular, we are looking at the American Association of School Librarians Learning Standards and Common Core Crosswalk and then adding our BIS skills in a third column.  Kathleen Edwards, our lower division librarian, is leading the charge on this effort.  We have taken the crosswalk and eliminated all the other skills except for the library related ones, making it a little easier to use.  We’ve broken the files down by grade level (k-12).  I will be posting those files in the AISL wiki.  If you are an AISL member, please go to AISL WIKI.  If you aren’t a member and are an independent school librarian, membership is only $25/year.  Or if you are a librarian who would just like the files,  comment below and if I receive enough requests, I will post all the documents here! (You could also link to us, as we would love to continue the conversation with you! 😎

Last year, Christina Arcuri, our collection development and upper/middle librarian, went to a YALSA conference where she learned about an app called Subtext. We talked about it and how cool it was, as it could allow a whole class to annotate a book together and share those annotations with each other.  And, it does much more than that:

  • You can create documents and convert them to an ePub format and then review them all together as a class for peer editing and review.
  • You can leave your own notes in the class text for students.
  • You have access to books and articles in Google play (free and pay), over 3 million and they do volume discounting.

However, at the time she saw it, our school was not doing iPads and I promptly forgot it.  But now, we have implemented iPads, albeit in a slow manner. Since one of the core items about CCSS is its inclusion of technology, this app seems like the perfect tool for how librarians can help faculty include instructional technology into the classroom.

This holiday break, Christina and I will be testing it out with a group of English faculty to see if we can use it even though we do not have a classroom set of iPads for upper division.  We are hoping that the browser version they are beta testing is robust enough. There is not a mobile app at this time. We might be able to borrow the middle division iPad classroom set in a pinch!  Or request a set of iPads for upper next year. If you are considering CCSS, I recommend that you check out Subtext, especially as they are exploring a browser version. Go to web.subtext.com if you want to try it.

Conclusion

This is just a taste of what is going on in the independent school library with CCSSs. Please follow the blog and comment if you want to be a part of the conversation.  Let us know what you are doing and what you have found to be successful.  If you have found a great app, please share it.

If you want to get started, here are some articles I found useful.  Paige’s article had some great links. And I hope everyone has a wonderful and relaxing holiday break!

  1. Cravey, Nancy. “Finding Inspiration in the Common Core.” Knowledge Quest. 42.1 2013 18-22 Advanced Placement Source. http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/90230622/finding-inspiration-common-core
  2. Jaeger, Paige. “We Don’t Live in  a Multiple-Choice World: Inquiry and the Common Core.” Library Media Connection. Jan/Feb 2012 10-12. http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ960050 [Note: Paige has some really good resources!]
  3. Fontichiaro, Kristin. “When Research Is Part of the Test.” School Library Monthly. 30.3 2013  53.
  4. Morris, Rebecca. “Find Where You Fit in the Common Core, or the Time I Forgot about Librarians and Reading.” Teacher Librarian. 39.5 2012 Advanced Placement Source. http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/77053481/find-where-you-fit-common-core-time-forgot-about-librarians-reading