The Librarians of AISL

Welcome to The Librarians of AISL: the Interviews

It’s a new school year.

There are new AISL members to meet.

There are new (Independent) Ideas to pursue.

Why not learn from the experts?  Us.  That’s right.

With this blog post we are launching a series of interviews in which we hear from you, the members of AISL.  Those who participate in the interview series will answer four questions and record their answers by video, audio, or in writing.  The interviews will be shared on our blog, Independent Ideas.  And we’d love for you to participate.  Really!

Are you wondering about the four questions?  I thought so!

1.     Tell us about you and your school.

2.     What is something you are working on right now that you are excited about?

3.     What is a challenge you are facing right now?

4.     Do you have any advice for a new Independent School Librarian?

That’s it.  Easy, right?  The answer is yes.  It is.  The best part is that whether we’ve been working in Independent School Libraries for decades, years, months, or even just a few weeks, we all have things to share.  Sharing our knowledge and getting to know one another better is what this is all about.

Last night I dove into this project full speed ahead.  The video was filmed in my backyard by my husband.  I felt a little bit nervous and awkward.  There have been some technical glitches along the way.  But it’s a work in progress and we will all learn from my mistakes.  🙂

Claire Hazzard has been incredibly helpful in getting this going.  Thanks, Claire!

Here it goes.  The interview.

Librarians of AISL, Allison from Colorado

If you are interested in participating in The Librarians of AISL: the Interviews please contact Allison at allison.peters@coloradoacademy.org

We are still working out the best way for members to submit 4-6 minute interviews.  I used an iPad camera on the video setting and uploaded to youtube.  Nothing fancy.  Perhaps you have done something like this before and have suggestions?

Hoping to hear a lot of pings from my inbox.

 

 

 

 

8 thoughts on “The Librarians of AISL

  1. Allison — What a great kickoff to this new series! Love the simplicity of the video and the great info shared. Your enthusiasm is infection, even to those of us in higher grades without flannel boards! Thanks so much — have a great year.

  2. Dear Allison Peters Jensen,

    You are so brave and smart and your backyard is beautiful. I’m sorry that we did not get to meet your chickens, however. I echo Sandy’s thanks for kicking this series off so beautifully. I can only respond for my upper school kids, but they are ready to leave the screen when it’s time to read for pleasure. We have consortium access to Overdrive and I typically get 3-10 circs a month–most definitely not worth the price we would be paying without the consortium privilege.
    I’m not a new independent school librarian, but I’m going to take your advice and run with it! I’m teaching my first semester-long class this year and I need to find a mentor to discuss big picture things–like strategy and format and blended learning opportunities…and also practical things like posting grades to Schoology, pacing, and such. Thank you for that and again, for being the pioneer videographer. This is such a fun idea.

  3. Thanks for the comments. It’s reassuring to know that other students currently prefer print over e-books. Makes me feel like we are doing okay here with a print collection and some e-book access for middle and upper school students. Although, as soon as I post this message students will probably come into the library demanding e-books! 🙂

    We were going to film the video in front of the chicken coop but the hens were being loud and squawky. In a future post I will share some pictures of the chickens.

    I can’t wait to see other AISL interviews. hint hint (two volunteers so far!)

  4. You could use FlipGrid to record everyone’s videos. It’s an easy way to get people to record videos of themselves and to display them online.

  5. Great video, Allison! I’m in a lower school library and we recently added ebooks through Overdrive (in partnership with adding them in our Middle and Upper School libraries). I definitely felt the push to add them – students were asking for them, as well as parents (both of current students and prospective parents visiting on school tours). We added them at the start of the summer so this school year we will spend a lot of time promoting them and looking at circulation stats to see how the program does.

  6. Allison, thank you for this engaging way to get to know other librarians and share great ideas as well as concerns. I particularly enjoyed hearing your sage advice about the importance of mentors. Looking forward to upcoming posted video interviews.

Leave a Reply to Sandy Gray Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *