Robin Tanis is the Head Librarian at St. Pius X Catholic High School in Atlanta, GA. At St. Pius, Robin has worked to establish a collaborative partnership with teachers. She was an early pioneer in technology integration bringing computers, automation, and the Internet into the library and then the rest of the school. Robin was the original Webmaster for the school and is still responsible for keeping the Flannery O’Connor Library Website up to date.Encouraging pleasure reading is a professional interest of Robin’s. Robin is also known for ASPIRE! - - a Summer Reading Enrichment program. She has presented her program at state and national conferences. ASPIRE! was featured in both Knowledge Quest (Sep/Oct 2003, Access to PDF document requires login) and School Library Journal (Jan. 2004). She has established a Teen Library Council to give interested students leadership opportunities. She also moderates the Anime Club.
Learn more about Robin at http://eduscapes.com/sms/overview/tanis.html.
Hello Ms. Tanis- Thanks for blogging with our class and answering some questions. I would like to start with a practical question. How hard, in your estimation, will it be for us to find employment as media specialists. Since we are spending all this money for grad school one hopes it will pay off. What was your experience like finding a job? Did you have to relocate? Thank you, Steve Skirvin
ReplyDeleteHello Ms. Tanis,
ReplyDeleteI am interested in how you promote pleasure reading to your students. Could you tell me more about your ASPIRE program? How do you promote reading during the school year?
~Jenny C-J
Ms. Tanis,
ReplyDeleteI love your summer reading program! Do you run it by yourself or have coworkers or volunteers help out? Do all of the sponsors help out financially? I noticed a Spanish language book in the 2008 list - La casa de los espiritus. I read that book in college for a Spanish class and was wondering if that book was on the list to support Spanish classes at your school. Thanks for blogging with us!
Ms. Tanis,
ReplyDeleteThank you for blogging with us. I am a K-12 media specialist in a rural school.
In exploring your library website, I wondered about the pathfinders. Are these created by the teacher? from collaboration? Do they submit information to you and you add a page to the site?
Amber H.
Hello Ms. Tanis- just a quick question before I go and I will ask some more later. At your school do you practice 'flexible scheduling' where students can come and go to the library as they want to, or do they only come to the library during scheduled times? Thank you, Steve Skirvin
ReplyDeleteHello Robin,
ReplyDeleteYour bio briefly mentioned that you moderate the Anime Club. Could you tell me more about this? This is my first year as a teacher-librarian and I am adding graphic novels to our collection. I started with the classics (Shakespeare) but am expanding out to other popular series based on student requests and online reviews. One student told me today that the only type of book he reads is manga. Is your anime club a book club or does it include movies as well?
I'm also curious (like Amber) about your extensive list of pathfinders. I especially like the way they incorporate your database subscriptions. My teachers are new to pathfinders, but are quickly appreciating the ones I've developed so far!
Thank you!
Sherry Gick
Rossville Middle/High School
Thank you!
Hi Steve, I'm probably the wrong person to ask that question. I've been at my school for twenty years and I sort of slid into my current postition. I started as an assistant, got my Masters, and was lucky to be hired as a third MS after completing that degree. One of the three of us was three years away from retirement so when she retired I took her place as librarian and then we hired two assistants. Common sense tells me that since there are only one or two LMS's in a building, it will be more difficult to find a job than a classroom teacher. It also depends on where you live. My county (Gwinnett) can't build schools fast enough. I remember my classmates who were graduating in 2003 (about 12) all found jobs. I have had to hire 3 different librarians in the last 3 years and a new assistant. I think I'm pretty easy to get along with, but maybe not :^D
ReplyDeleteAfter 7 years our ASPIRE program has retired. Last year I did an informal survey and found that only 50% of our students were reading the book. The program lost it's original appeal and after so many iterations became just another summer read. English Dept. now requires all their summer reads to be annotated (ugh!) and now there is summer math. So it is hard to compete. Aspire books got put off because there was no assessment for them. I am working on reading promotion on a smaller scale, perhaps an author visit. I do a lot of displays. My informal observations tell me that Freshmen do a lot of pleasure reading on their own, then it drops off. Students are just so busy with sports, homework, after school activity, it really is hard to find time to read.
ReplyDeleteHi Emily, ASPIRE is a great program. It worked really well for us for several years. Many schools have adopted it. I pretty much ran it on my own, in terms or administering it. It occupied much of my time from February through discussion day. The most time consuming thing was getting teachers to select a book. Some knew right away, others wanted suggestions, still others would just drag their feet. Teachers helped with the sign up process which we did over a couple of days. Everyone is expected to purchase or loan their own book.
ReplyDeleteHi Amber,
ReplyDeletePathfinders are created by the librarians in collaboration with the teachers involved.
Hi Steve, High Schools by nature are flexible scheduling. Students may come on their own during a free period or lunch, and we also schedule classes as needed. Classes need to be scheduled as we can only accomodate two at a time.
ReplyDeleteHi Sherry,
ReplyDeleteThe anime club is a small group of mostly boys. They watch Anime after school once a week and that is about it. They give me reccs for Manga and they circulate a lot!!
I have a question for you all -- For those of you who are currently in a school, what sorts of WEB 2.0 applications are you seeing in your environment? Are they working well? I have yet to see anything that really gets me excited. I have tried Facebook to communicate with groups of students -- they don't participate. I have tried Library Thing -- they don't participate. I have tried a book blog -- very few contribute. Seems like unless they are required to do something for a grade it doesn't get done.
ReplyDeleteHi Robin,
ReplyDeleteCould you give us more details about your Teen Library Council? What do they do? How often do they meet? How do they get on the council?
~Jenny
Hi Jenny -- I am pssting my response to the same question from last year. With an update at the end.
ReplyDeleteHi Cindy, TLC is now in its second year. Last year they became the core group for our Aspire student sponsors. Mostly they like to talk about books. It is mostly girls, all seniors so far, so I have got to get new members to sustain the group. Initially I started the group to the Teen view on the library in hopes to make it more friendly for the students. We did schedule some book related events and I got them to do some themed displays. I also just completed a library renovation, so I got their input on the choices I was making for the new furniture. Mostly they just like to talk about new books. I have decided to "let go" of the control this year and we elected three Co-Presidents to make the meetings agenda. We meet during the 3 lunch periods every other Wednesday (exhausting!). The problem with our school schedule is that is never time to meet. So they like the lunch periods. Each group has it's own personality so I'm just letting it "become". I want the students to take the leadership. The membership is open to all and purely voluntary.
The Teen Council is also retired do to lack of leadership. It is very difficult to find time to meet. I started a group on Facebook but very little participation.
Hi Robin - I was in a school yesterday and the LMS is thinking about getting her MLS. She is wondering if you might know who the leaders are in the field in the area of collection development. I have no idea.Thanks!
ReplyDeleteRobin I do not know any LMS from Catholic schools. Do you think there are any differences? Perhaps in the Christian fiction area or creationism books? I have no idea really if there are differences and hope my question will be taken in a positive spirit if it is inappropriate. It is meant in a positive way.;-))
ReplyDeleteYour LMS is "thinking" about getting an MLS?!!!
ReplyDeleteCollection development expertise is something that develops over time. You become the expert by knowing your collection, your teachers, and your curriculum.
Judy, No offense taken. Yes we do have a large collection of religion books because it is part of our curriculum. Christian fiction I don't pay much attention to. I know which authors are appropriate for young adults and are popular. I am fortunate to have a great deal of freedom in what I order. No one looks over my shoulder. With that freedom also comes a lot of responsibility as well. We follow the same selection policy that ALA reccommends. We have never had a book challenge. We have all viewpoints not just Catholic ones. I don't know how to compare to a public school because I have not worked in one.
ReplyDeleteI noticed on your background information that you used to manage the school web site but now manage the library site. I currently have a pretty basic site using GoogleDocs (http://sites.google.com/site/castonlibrary/). I am working on developing sites for our media center divided into elementary and junior-senior high. What advice do you have for those of us wanting to develop web sites? Is there anything that we should avoid? Anything we should definitely include?
ReplyDeleteAmber
Ms. Tanis thanks for answering our questions- I hope you are getting paid for this. I am the guy that asked you about finding a job when we graduate. Since you said you do some hiring- I think you would like me because I'm Catholic, love the Atlanta Braves, and boiled peanuts! Anyway, I was wondering if you use the CREW weeding method we learned about? If not, what are your weeding practices?
ReplyDeleteThank you- and my resume is in the mail!
Steve Skirvin
Robin thank you for answering my comment - I have found this to be true that parochial schools are some of the most persistent when it comes to showing all sides of issues. I think public libraries may own Christian fiction but I am not sure of school libraries - anyone know? Much of it is excellent reading.
ReplyDeleteI also am interested in the web site question. I have been examining LMC websites and there are a lot of dead links and old information on some of these. I think the challenge must be not in creating the website but in maintaining it. Is that why you were glad to give it up?
ReplyDeleteYour LMS is "thinking" about getting an MLS?!!!
ReplyDeleteYes - she has a Library Media Specialist certification but not the ALA accredited Masters in Library Science. So she is limited jobwise. I think she even has a Masters in Education with a concentration in Library Media, but that too is not the same. I think she is interested in online programs with faculty strong in collection development, or maybe she just wants to find out more about it.
Steve,
ReplyDeleteLOL! You may send your resume, but my colleague plans on being around long enough to plan my retirement party.
Amber,
ReplyDeleteMy advice on Web sites is the KISS principal. I consider mine to be pretty bare bones. If you start creating links to too many outside sites it becomes a maintenance nightmare. A younger more Web 2.0 savvy librarian would probably say, "make a Wiki and let everyone have a hand in it" but I'm too "old school" I don't like "messy". I still want to control what is on my site.
We use Adobe Contribute at out school. Very easy to create pages and maintain. I actually want to create a Facebook entity for the library. Just not quite sure what I want to do with it yet.
Judy, I would be surprised to hear of any "leaders in collection development". I would not consider that to be a "cutting edge" topic in our field. We are in an era where our physical collections are shrinking and our virtual ones are expanding. We are no longer the Gatekeepers of knowledge; our job is to enable students to develop infomation literacy
ReplyDeleteSteve,
ReplyDeleteWell I had to google CREW method. After skimming the manual, yes, this is basically what I do. I have a collection that was started in 1958 and I do have books that are part of that original purchase because they are still valid. My collection is around 20,000 titles most of which have a 1990 or later publication date. I weed constantly, a little at a time. The biggest criteria is outdated material. I get about $20,000.00 annually to spend on books. Very generous and it keeps me busy. I don't want my collection to get any larger because I am out of space. So I probably weed about 1000 titles a year. Follett's site Titlwave is excellent for collection development and weeding. It gives a highly detailed report on possible titles that should be weeded among other things.
Robin,
ReplyDeleteAs far as new technologies being used, our superintendent and band director use podcasts periodically. Our band director used to use Facebook (kids really appreciated the event notices, reminders, etc.), but I believe he now uses Twitter for events and reminders.
Beyond the above instances, I don't know of any other technologies being used. I am planning on having some teen tech sessions to introduce students to the many features of Google Docs. If Delicious (social bookmarking) is not blocked by our internet filter, I'd like to try it out as well. I would like to see how blogging, Facebook, or Twitter would be received at our school. Knowing the band students were very receptive to the use of Facebook gives me hope. I would need to do some publicity work to make it known, now matter what I try.
One problem I face right now is the link to my website is buried in the elementary page rather than on the main page (I was the elementary librarian last year). I hope to see this remedied soon.
Thank you for taking the time to share your expertise and advice with us.
Amber
Hello, Robin,
ReplyDeleteI am very interested in knowing more about the process you went through to get computers and the internet into your school. Was it exciting? Tiresome? Fought over? Were there any fellow faculty members who were against bringing in computers but eventually accepted and utilized them? Or did they retire without bothering to learn new technology? I hope it was a good experience for you.
Thank you!
Erin Webster