Core Values in School Librarianship: Responding with Commitment and Courage edited by Judi Moreillon
Additional Resources
Related SLC Resources
When we live our core values, we also develop an authentic identity. We take actions based on our beliefs. We are true to our calling and to ourselves. And, when we combine our core values with authenticity, we have the opportunity to serve as effective and respected leaders in our learning communities.
Peter Langella, Suzanne Sannwald, and Kristin Fraga Sierra share how they have integrated social justice practices into their school librarian core values. Join this lively conversation moderated by Judi Moreillon.
Developing collections and offering programming that prioritizes issues of social justice and diversity are equally important to the future as they were in the past. This is a heavy responsibility that school librarians bear, but one that I fully believe we can be entrusted with.
As the protectors of students' access to information, librarians assume a leadership role in providing students with the right to seek and receive information representing various viewpoints without restriction. In this course, you'll learn the ethical and legal underpinnings of students' intellectual freedom and privacy and how these shape your library's policies and procedures.
Intellectual freedom and privacy have been core values of librarians for decades. Although the principles remain strong, challenges to intellectual freedom and privacy in schools continue to evolve. Fortunately, there are resources to combat the threats to the right to read, view, and listen as well as to protect the privacy of library users.
Creating inclusive collections was a logical priority for our libraries in Charleston County School District (CCSD). With over 50,000 students, our district is racially, geographically, and economically diverse. Our teacher librarian demographics don't match this diversity, so it was even more important to focus on intentionally building and sustaining inclusive collections to ensure we could meet all our students' needs.
The foundation of any strong, integrated school library program rests on the school librarian implementing, with colleagues, complex and demanding innovations like collaborative program planning and teaching and inquiry-based learning.
Librarians who are effective leaders think about how to do better and plan for improvement. The ingredients for success in effecting change are found in establishing strong, positive relationships, and cultivating savvy communication skills.
School administrators do need some background knowledge about the role of the school library in student learning and this knowledge doesn't happen by osmosis.
We sought to investigate practical ways that the school librarian and classroom teacher can collaborate at deeper levels to improve student learning and create equitable and meaningful learning experiences, within the constraints of systems that naturally impede collaboration. What follows are some tools, tips and resources for developing a culture of collaboration between classroom teachers and school librarians.
By identifying and understanding the natural leadership role of the school librarian, principals will be able to utilize the school librarian and library programs to help their schools flourish and be successful.
Everyone needs an ally who can help them be successful. For a school librarian, that person should be the principal. What a principal thinks about you and the school library program will shape the perception for the entire school community.
For us, some of our strongest collaborations during the past year have really been as co-participants in larger school-wide and district-wide initiatives that focus on how our wider community can best come together to support students. Having a seat at the table of these conversations has been a valuable and essential form of collaboration.
Have you noticed that the authors you share, the titles you display, the books you read to classes are often the ones that get checked out the most? Our populations are diverse and we need to be purposeful about the books we share (or "bless") so that they reflect our audience.
The business of enabling readers is a thread that ties together the numerous tasks and roles of the school librarian, from selecting books to teaching inquiry lessons to setting up a display. More than ever, it seems school librarians recognize that this work must reflect inclusivity and diversity of students, families, and community.
Now that the school year has begun and students have settled down to the business of learning, it is time to evaluate and rejuvenate your advocacy plan for the year. How will you engage your stakeholders and what will be the message you craft to garner support for your library program?
Elizabeth A. Burns finds the definition of advocacy fractured, and in a survey of 815 practicing, state-certified librarians, there is no consistent understanding of what advocacy means for librarians, their programs, and for school libraries. Burns reports on the AASL definition and how librarians can best develop advocacy through leadership and action.
In this article, I share how our advocacy team built support with the district's superintendent, school board members, and the community at-large in order to move this advocacy appeal forward. Through strategic planning and action as well as serendipity, the lessons learned from the TUSD School Librarian Restoration Project offer field-tested guidelines that can be applied in your school library advocacy appeal.
Related Books
Written by a well-known intellectual freedom advocate, this book is a one-stop source for school librarians on intellectual freedom and privacy issues that blends principles with best practices.
Completely revised with even more contributions added by practicing school librarians, this book further examines the responsibility to lead in many areas and identifies the real-world, day-to-day application of established theory and best practices.
This volume of collected articles from the archives of School Library Connection provides school librarians and LIS professors with a one-stop source of information for supporting the core library principle of intellectual freedom.
Appropriate for experienced elementary librarians as well as students in school library preparation programs, this powerful book explains the advantages of utilizing a flexible schedule with collaboration as compared to a fixed schedule without collaboration.
School librarians are prepared to be leaders and can use their strengths to advocate for policy that benefits school libraries. This book will teach you how to engage elected officials to effect change that extends to your library.
This guide helps librarians to identify tech-nots—technologically disadvantaged teens—in a community or school and to reach out and build information literacy in underserved teen populations. Farmer goes beyond recommending computers for every teen, and demonstrates how to overcome teen misperceptions and disinterest in computers.
Today's increasingly interconnected and globalized world demands that students be taught to appreciate human diversity and recognize universally held values and beliefs. Authentic, culturally based folktales can lay the foundation for this cultural understanding.
The authors of this helpful text define transformative social-emotional learning and its impact on students and schools. They present current brain research to support social-emotional programming in a whole school program with collaborative lesson ideas adaptable to all age levels for the use of counselors, librarians, administrators, classroom teachers, and all special area teachers. All lessons provide lists of extended student and faculty readings.
This book provides practical strategies and step-by-step plans for developing advocacy initiatives for school libraries.
The first in the IASL-Libraries Unlimited partnership series, this book features contributions written by authors from around the world about their effective collaboration experiences.
Published in partnership with the International Association of School Librarianship, this work gathers together the latest and most important research on the topics of social justice and cultural competency in school libraries.
Combining information about outreach to diverse populations, selection of culturally diverse children's print and digital media, and library programming, this book is the tool librarians need to promote cultural understanding through engaging children's programs designed for today's culturally diverse youth.
All librarians and library and information science scholars can benefit from learning more about intellectual freedom. This book relies on research and practical real-world scenarios to conceptualize and contextualize it.
Including real-world scenarios and best practices, this text presents the important topics of patents, trademarks, and copyrights in relation to intellectual property creators and consumers.
This practical and research-based volume focuses on how libraries can meet the needs of underserved patrons in college and university libraries, with an emphasis on those facing trauma, abuse, and discrimination.
This newly updated and expanded second edition of Collaborating for Inquiry-Based Learning explains effective IBL scaffolding and the school librarian's role as the lead in the collaborative process of inquiry-based teaching.
Custom PD Options
Judi Moreillon is available to present a fee-based custom session with interested libraries/districts, such as leading a Skype discussion or presenting a webinar for a library/district. Contact us at webinarSLC@abc-clio.com for more information.
MLA Citation
"Additional Resources." School Library Connection, December 2021, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/BookStudy/2272653?childId=2272656.
https://schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/BookStudy/2272653?childId=2272656
Entry ID: 2272656