This is a great list I think, I probably stole it from someone, that is what librarians do, we adapt, change, meld, merge and mix to make our lives easier, to make our libraries greater and to make ourselves as kickarse as we can
Look – that’s me over there – on the edge – away from the other kids. I used to be dark haired before I became blond! I bet the class pictures of your kids are not as old school as this one.
Back in the day - school librarians were all gussied up and in a stamping, shelving, ordering and cataloguing frenzy. Yes, it is a stereotype, but there is often some truth in stereotypes. Days were filled with accession lists, designer bookmarks, and getting the covering just right on the books, but most of all standing guard on the resources of the library and making sure there was a suitable hushed silence and reverence for what was contained within the library walls. Well some of those things are still necessary, but librarians in schools today are much more than perfectly ordered libraries with perfectly covered books - hell some libraries don’t even cover their books anymore. They don’t cover the books because they have moved on to a different role. Yes, the title librarian still stands for many - I proudly embrace that title, but the title of librarian now embraces a world of technology, advocacy, connection with students and staff and embracing a library which hums with activity of various kinds, not just a silent space with books around the walls.
More than anything else technology has changed the way school librarians work. We are now using software which has changed how we do the most basic library tasks, particularly cataloguing books and resources for our students and staff. We can upload catalogue records in a flash using our library software. We have access to electronic ways of buying books, we can use the blogs and electronic feeds of our peers to select books for our readers knowing that we will have success in finding an audience for what we buy. We are looking increasingly into ebooks and ereaders, bring your own devices and indeed using these devices ourselves – just like you do. We have access to databases of display ideas to draw our readers in, help online for many of the issues which we have dealt with in isolation for many years. We have various communities which give us ideas and help, practical examples and which make the life of the library more exciting and more interesting for our users both students and staff.
Great example of using technology to connect with students. Springston school library blog. I could have shown you Cover to Cover from Kerikeri High School, The King’s High School library blog with is, frankly, amazing! I could have shown you Paua Eskett’s blog from Rickarton High. And several more.
Is your library on your moodle or intranet? These ways of connecting with our users are what we need to get onto. It isn’t difficult. It is even fun! And it means that the library is extending it’s services well beyond the doors of the building and into the homes of the students.
This is the Girvan Library blog at Wellington College. When you click on the book covers they give you a blurb. Awesome.
You can work for your different departments gathering and sharing interesting things. Proving that you are a) onto it and b) working for them and c) have an understanding of what they do.
A librarian with commitment is committed to the school, to the students and to raising the achievement levels of those students using the resources the school library is perfectly placed to provide. This commitment means that despite the fact that most school librarians are not paid a salary, are not paid during the school holidays, or at the weekends they are actually spending that time upskilling quietly by the light of a smoldering heat pump in the winter, just like the teachers they work with are doing. They are checking out the SLANZA Facebook page, (actually they know what facebook is for a start ,and they are connecting with it because it is what our students use and therfore they need to know).
They are browsing around on the interwebs for resources they can use in their libraries, adjusting them to their needs, be they kickarse bookmarks which promote the library online resources, or learning their way around the Epic Databases
Checking out Web2.0 tools which they will then share with you.
Passion is what you need to make a difference. Passion is the key to sharing the love of the library. You don’t want to have a dispassionate librarian, someone who is filling the job, someone who would rather do something else with their day than connect students with books, connect with staff in a valuable way, to entice students who are reluctant library users to see the value in spending their time there, and once they are there to entice them further to find that perfect book which begins a connection with text and a tentative exploration of books leading to a relationship with books.
A passionate librarian is what you need if you want your library to be used. It is the fire in the belly of your librarian which can really make the library work.
While it isn’t expected that the kick arse librarian lives and breathes the library 24/7 it can be that way.
The crux of any librarians job is to make a difference to the teaching and learning in the school. To provide support for it, to provide resources which support the curriculum and to provide a place which welcomes learners and embraces their new ways of learning.
And if you saw Campbell Live showing the new ways of learning on Monday last week and you were all "oh that will never work, those kids won't learn anything" it is time you went and had a look, and compared what you do to the new ways libraries can be part of the new learning environments.
Folks gotta keep up, the world is changing. Librarians gotta change too
To make a difference to the teaching and learning need access to PD. To provide support for learning, to provide resources which support the curriculum and to provide a place which welcomes learners and embraces their new ways of learning you need to be learning too.
Do online PD, go to courses, attend SLANZA events (thank you for coming) and get online and explore all the resources out there that pertain to school libraries.
Learning to use tools is part of the learning that school librarians have been up to. We can share with you where to find copyright free images which students can use in their work. Online tools for referencing. Online tools for recording reading. Tools for speechmaking. For language learning. And for staff from all school departments to use. Librarians all over are sharing their learning with their staff. Sending out links to websites you might need. Making Livebinders for staff. Showing that they are ahead of the game
You can learn Enthusiasm. You can learn it from your successes. For me BookTalks make me happy. I can maintain the enthusiasm for booktalking for about 4 periods in a row until I flagg a little. Booktalks are great for me, they give me a connection with the students and their reading, booktalks are great for the students, they give them a way to argue about a book with me. I adore reading and I think that everyone should, I’m a reading evangelist, all school librarians are reading evangelists, Enthusiasm is what you use to spread the word.
People you gotta have fun in your libraries. None of your dry dusty underused spaces any more. There are loads of things you can do to have fun in your libraries. Risk it for a biscuit, competitions of all kinds, get all the school depts involved. Have some music, have some art.
Get your library users as kick-arse as your librarian.