The Future for Teaching and Learning What does the future hold for librarians’ participation in teaching and learning in colleges and universities? Many are already taking advantage of the opportunities provided by the emergence of new technologies and faculty interest in giving students assignments that will engage them in their learning. I believe that the greatest opportunities for librarians lie in deeper connections to the curriculum, adapting to new modes of pedagogy, linking technology-rich and collaborative spaces in libraries to learning, and ensuring that individuals who enrich the library’s role in teaching and learning are on staff. Overall, the trajectory is for the increasing integration of librarians and libraries into the teaching and learning program of the college or university. Librarians, Pedagogy, and Curriculum Departments, colleges, or individual faculty might deliberately add the development of technology and information skills within the discipline as new objectives in the curriculum.
School Culture and the Library In preparation for tomorrow's edweb.net/emergingtech webinar, Pitching the Library: How to Explain What School Librarians Do, I wanted to share a project one of our New Canaan High School seniors created for his documentary filmmaking class last year. His assignment was to make a video that addressed school culture. He emailed me the day before he came down to capture most of the footage. I am currently taking a Documentary Film class and our assignment is to create a film on a school "climate" Our group decided to choose the library media center as a focus for the film because when most if not all students think of the library, ... the library as enjoyable as it is. We were hoping to interview you about the library media center and factors about it. Hope to hear back from you, Andrew On the day of the interview, I was presented with 3 questions right before the filming. About three weeks later, he sent me a link to this: My response follows: OMG!!!
The School Librarian as Learning Alchemist The landscape of learning is changing. Children and young adults learn not only in school but fluidly across home, school, peer culture, and community. This transformation in learning and the school environment has prompted educators to ask challenging questions about how to develop learning spaces to meet these needs within the sometimes competing economic, social, and political realities. At the same time, school librarians continue to serve their communities by linking children, young adults, and teachers with both the information they need and the skills to use it. We’ve identified three trends that we see as most affecting the role of the school librarian in the near future. Information on demand In the near future, there will be a significant reduction in physical library space and collections. Even as some schools move to virtual collections, the opportunities for school librarians to influence learning will actually increase. Connected learning The school librarian of the future
10 things classroom teachers need to know about modern school librarians | Trust me, I'm a librarian 1) We hate quiet. Oh, sure, the typical view of a librarian is an older woman, in a cardigan and cat-eye glasses, with a tight bun, shushing everyone who dares to make a sound. That may have been the case a long time ago, and may still be the case with some dinosaur librarians (they still exist, sorry!) This isn’t to say we don’t appreciate students working alone or a student reading alone, but the library is a common place where everyone can work together and communicate. 2) We love collaboration. We love to see students collaborating, but we also love to collaborate with you, our classroom teachers! 3) We are technology people at heart. The printed page may die at some point (most of us hope it won’t). If you have a new Web 2.0 tool that you want to try, ask us. 4) We don’t read all day. We wish we did. 5) We don’t know everything. Sadly true. 6) We’re all passionate about something. 7) We network like crazy. We don’t just network with people, but we network with libraries too. Like this:
The Future of MLS We’ve all seen various reports and discussions around the future of libraries. From Pew (“The Future of Libraries: 7 Questions Librarians Need to Answer”) and the Aspen Institute (“Rising to the Challenge: Re-Envisioning Public Libraries”) to forums (ALA Summit on the Future of Libraries) to articles (Slate’s “What Will Become of the Library?”), and our own white paper (“Re-Envisioning the MLS”), there is no shortage of data or discussion on the topic. State and local government workforces have faced significant reductions since 2009. Given these challenges, there is need to engage in a parallel discussion regarding the future of librarians. To seed this discussion, the iSchool at the University of Maryland launched its three-year Re-Envisioning the MLS initiative. Our first year is focused on engagement, with years two and three focused on redesign and implementation. What have we learned to date? Adaptable. Lindsay Sarin is MLS program coordinator at University of Maryland’s iSchool.
Marketing for Libraries In this section, we'll examine the design of communications and explore the stories that bring library products alive. Key Questions Each of the following questions will be addressed on this page. For quick access, click on the question of interest. What's the message? Each library and service has a story to tell. The photo below is courtesy of the Utah State Library (Flickr). Example: The Lafayette College Library was looking for a way to increase use of their Personalized Research Assistance (PRA) service. According to Rebecca Metzger, "PRA cards get the faces of reference librarians out to students in a comedic format that shakes up the stereotype of librarians as stodgy and serious, hopefully making us more approachable. Each semester all students are mailed the current postcards that feature reference librarians superimposed on movie or TV skills that reflect pop culture (an example is shown blow). Accessibility - Can people easily navigate the library building and website? Timely.
The TL Toolkit for Student Success Home Think you don’t? Yes you do! Teacher-librarians can and do make a difference. There is a considerable body of documented evidence that proves that schools having a good school library and program have a positive impact on student achievement. Although the data is mounting globally it is also clear that school administrators need to have evidence at the local school level when planning for school improvement and making tough financial decisions. Evidence-Based Practice is not complicated. Some Benefits of Evidence-Based Practice: Improving and demonstrating student achievement Becoming learning central Empowering the learner and the professional Highlighting the school library’s role in school improvement Providing accountability: funding, staffing, scheduling Planning more effectively Increasing your job satisfaction Reflecting on your practice Moving beyond advocacy
The EBSM Methodology Your school library budget This guide provides advice on what to include in your library budget, and on planning and tracking the expenditure. Contents Responsibility for your budgetDeciding on a budgeting methodLibrary budget contentBudget allocationBudget management and reviewAdditional sources of fundingBudget Proposal template Responsibility for your budget Responsibility for managing your library budget depends on the composition of your library team. It's important to include the budget processes followed in your library, in the following documents: All school budgets are GST-exclusive. Deciding on a budgeting method The two approaches most commonly used by schools are ‘needs-based’ and ‘lump sum’ budget allocation. Needs-based budget We recommend needs-based budgeting. Once you have assessed your collection and gathered information about your community you'll be able to prioritise and collate your needs into a collection requirements plan. Lump sum allocation Library budget content Budget allocation
Get Started - Tutorials - Proposal Writing Short Course Introduction The subject of this short course is proposal writing. But the proposal does not stand alone. It must be part of a process of planning and of research on, outreach to, and cultivation of potential foundation and corporate donors. This process is grounded in the conviction that a partnership should develop between the nonprofit and the donor. This truly is an ideal partnership. You need to follow a step-by-step process in the search for private dollars. Raising funds is an investment in the future. The recommended process is not a formula to be rigidly adhered to. the bridge-builder’s hat | 500 Hats No man is an island, Entire of itself, Every man is a piece of the continent, A part of the main.John Donne Yet, within the school setting, the library is often seen as an island, apart from the main rather than a part of it. The physical isolation imposed by the nature of the space, and the professional isolation of usually being the only TL within the school and not part of a particular team or faculty can mean that, at the very least, a moat separates the facility from the school mainstream. In the past, some TLs have been guilty of not only building the moat but also pulling up the drawbridge and it is this perception of exclusiveness and remoteness that is often only a childhod memory, that drives the modern-day perception and stereotype – a bit like that of a library being a quiet space where people are continually told to shoosh. The moat must go and it is the TL who is in the best position to remove it. Building bridges builds influence Or this? Let’s look through the people lens …
Ten Things Your Administrator Needs to Know as the School Year Begins 10. That you are a teacher who teaches not content but process. You teach children to be information literate, digitally literate, media literate, and visually literate. The skills that you teach, the dispositions that you help children to develop, the responsibilities that you foster, and the self-assessment strategies that you instill will serve children not only in school but also in life. You are, first and foremost, a teacher! 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. If your administrator already knows these things, wonderful! Author: Audrey Church, Leadership Development Committee Chair and 2017-2018 AASL Past President Like this: Like Loading... Categories: Advocacy/Leadership, Blog Topics, Community, Presidential Musings
Strategic Plan SME means “subject matter expert”, and SME in ‘Community’ means someone on the library staff who is a subject matter expert about your community. Borrowing primarily from the field of training, SMEs are those individuals who have expert working knowledge in a particular topic. From our vast resources at Wikipedia; In general, the term is used when developing materials (a book, an examination, a manual, etc.) about a topic, and expertise on the topic is needed by the personnel developing the material. OK. Ergo – NOTHING is more important than having a SME in Community on your library staff. If you think you can accomplish a traditional ‘community needs assessment’ adequately every few years when it’s time for a new Strategic Plan – you could not be more wrong. This is not your SLIS professor’s ‘Community Needs Assessment 101′ – that will not work in this 21st Century environment. You’ll recall that one of the new 21st Century Librarianship skills is Customer Targeting. Like this:
Discovery Services: Basics and Resources – Library Technology Launchpad Why learn about discovery services? Most libraries use discovery services in addition to, or as a replacement for, their OPAC. Whether you are a technical services librarian whose job it is to administer them or a reference librarian who uses them as a major research tool, it is helpful to know how discovery services work. You need to know their features and their limitations. The Basics For this article, we will use Summon (with Serials Solutions) as an example. Summon is a discovery service developed by ProQuest and now managed and supported by Ex Libris (since their merger). In my library, Summon works in conjunction with Serials Solutions 360 Link using a Summon Unified Index to provide links to ebooks (and chapters), journal articles, audio, videos, library catalog records, institutional repositories, LibGuides, and more. The Summon index contains citation metadata, subject terms, abstracts, full text, and direct links (when available). Summon Indexing Relevancy Ranking and Filters