Here’s a story about how it pays to be “game” for just about anything when it comes to faculty collaboration. If your school is like mine, it is easiest and most obvious to forge collaborations with the History/Social Studies, English, and Science departments. It is valuable, important, satisfying, time consuming, and sometimes challenging enough to make those relationships work effectively and consistently. So, when we get an opportunity to make a library connection with a new department or office — yay, bonus!

Our school started a new initiative this year to promote and highlight girls’ sports. Called PerkGSports, athletes and coaches use social media, morning announcements, and other school communications to celebrate our female athletes. It’s been a source of positivity and community building on campus this year, that I have happily followed and “liked” through the library’s social media accounts. So, I was thrilled when the faculty member who leads this initiative called me to see if we could organize a book discussion to help celebrate National Girls & Women in Sports Day!

We decided it would be a good idea to let the interested students choose, so I created a Google form and sent it to the other faculty member to distribute.

With Girls Can’t Hit by T.S. Easton as the favorite by one vote, we decided to offer the choice of either that novel or Let Me Play: the Story of Title IX, the Law that Changed the Future of Girls in America by Karen Blumenthal to broaden appeal and participation.

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A student announced the books at Morning Meeting on February 6, as part of their larger presentation about NGWSD. I purchased a couple more copies of both titles. Following the so-far-so-good-model of our Windows & Mirrors book club meetings, we’ll offer food during both lunch periods along with casual book discussion. (Note to self – should we meet in the Athletic Center instead of the library?) I can’t wait to hear what conversation comes out of these selections, and how attendance and participation may vary from our other book discussions.

So far it’s a “W” for the library, girls’ sports, and collaboration!