http://www.rcsd.k12.in.us/
Sherry works daily in the middle school/high school library and supervises an assistant who runs the elementary library. She also teaches sixth and eighth grade language arts enrichment and peer tutoring/cadet teaching. She would be pleased to share with you ideas and insights as well as other issues and activities related to her school library and the work of school librarians in general.
Sherry is married to a teacher and coach. They are parents of two children. She is an avid reader and a runner.
Learn more about Sherry at
http://eduscapes.com/sms/overview/gick.html.
http://eduscapes.com/sms/overview/gick.html.
This year's startup question to all of our blog-guests is: "Can you provide a few examples or ideas of what makes your library program successful?"
What makes my library program successful? How have I made the library a place both students and staff want to visit? First, I preach the doctrine of choice. I took a divided collection where middle school students were restricted as to what they could check out and combined the entire collection for 6th-12th graders. Yes, that's a wide range of readers but I would rather raise and teach how to make good choices than to restrict access to readers merely based on age. (Banned Books week is a great time to talk about this topic!) I also strongly believe that there is a book for every reader...even dormant ones (as my friend Donalyn Miller, the Book Whisperer calls them) who have yet to discover it. My job is to help find that book and facilitate the joy of reading. Second, I've worked very hard to make the library a welcoming place. The short answer of how to do that is to welcome every student and staff member with a smile and "how can I help you today?" It's their library not mine -- I want everyone to feel that way. I also want my students and staff to know that if they need help, I am a great resource for them about books and technology. I'm also willing to jump right in and try new things. While that may scare many staff members, students and some teachers embrace that philosophy. It's okay to fail because in the failure comes great learning. I have a few programs I started at my school to encourage reading: two utilize our yearly nominated books for state awards: Young Hoosiers and Rosies; the other is Battle of the Books for both middle and high school students. These programs are a very important part of my library for students and super fun for everyone involved.
ReplyDeleteWelcome, and thank you for this Q & A session! First, I want to tell you how much I enjoy your library website; the level of technology integration there goes far beyond most school library websites I've seen lately. Second, do you face much resistance at this point from other staff members when approaching them about integrating technology into their own projects, or do you find that most of them already realize it is something they need to do to increase the effectiveness of their teaching? Or do you focus more on information resources tailored to each class/project and the technology naturally becomes a part of that?
ReplyDeleteThank you! I try to update the school website links, but don't use it for discussion forums any longer now that we have My Big Campus. I usually don't approach other staff members about integrating technology into their projects. Instead, I send out weekly technology tips to the staff. I talk to individual staff members about what they're teaching and ask if they'd be interested my help in using technology to enhance their lessons. Our level of technology integration across the corporation varies. I know many teachers still don't want to be bothered with it, but I try to approach and work with new educators to immediately recruit them! I always offer to find both information and/or technology to enhance what they're currently teaching. Unfortunately, many teachers never take me up on this offer.
DeleteHi Sherry! I was wondering if you could please share a little bit about how you are handling nonfiction collection development these days. Are you still buying a lot of print books, or are you relying more on databases and subscription services? Or is it a mixture of both depending on the subject matter?
ReplyDelete5 years in my library and I still haven't removed all the moldy, oldy books in my non-fiction section. Although I've weeded thousands of books, there are still more to go. I try to buy narrative non-fiction (readable!) and non-fiction that relates to what is being studied. We use the databases offered free through INSPIRE but don't really have the budget to afford purchasing dabase subscriptions.
DeleteThis is Andrea Brinkley. I thought that my full name would show up with my last post, but it didn't. You were in my library last August when I was weeding mountains of moldy, oldy books. I still have more to go, too. Thanks for your input. The suggestion to go with narrative nonfiction is a good one. It seems like that genre has had a lot of good stuff lately. I've tried to focus my nonfiction purchasing on curricular areas, but it's discouraging when teachers never check out the books that I purchase, even if I show them the books when they arrive. Do you have creative ways to connect teachers with the books that they can use in the classroom? Has the advent of Common Core increased the number of trips that teachers make to the library for informational texts?
DeleteHi Andrea! Weeding is so time consuming...I still struggle with the fact that I could pretty much get rid of 95% of my non-fiction books because of being outdated and old. I struggle with the same things you struggle with. Despite the changes with Common Core, my teachers aren't interested in informational texts. My library is used...a lot...but the books checked out continue to be for recreational reading. My middle school teachers require reading across the genres, so the narrative non-fiction texts help. I try to order any books teachers request and as soon as I get something that connects to their curriculum, I check it out and hand deliver it to them or put it in their mailbox with a note. I wish there was a magic wand to wave, but even if I order books that connect to their curriculum, they still have to be interested in using them and teaching in a different way.
DeleteYou mentioned My Big Campus in your reply to Hayley. I've had a little bit of training on it, and my school's fourth-tweltth grade teachers are going to be expected to use it as we transition to 1:1 over the next few months. Fourth grade gets their iPads in a couple weeks and fifth grade gets theirs in January. How do you use MBC in your library program? I would like to use this great tool, but I don't have a plan yet.
DeleteI'm so excited (& jealous) of your 1:1 initiative with iPads! I am currently not using MBC in my library program at all. We're only using MBC in a couple of grade levels (our 8th graders are 1:1 laptops this year) right now. I don't want to spend time promoting library resources on a platform the entire school isn't familiar with right now. I think you could use it fto advertise library services or forums and book discussions, but there are definitely other options for this that I've used and actually like better such as Edmodo and even the closed discussion feature on our School Fusion website. I've found MBC is a bit quirky on ipads...and maybe a bit quirky overall depending on the amount of users accessing it at one time. Good luck!
DeleteI agree about MBC being quirky on the iPad. When I had training on it a few months ago, I really liked the web-based platform but found the app to be hard to navigate. I know that they've changed the interface a lot since then, so I need to get back in there and play around. I like your ideas to use it for forums and book discussions. I had been thinking that it might be a good way to send out overdue notices in an effort to go paperless. However, I want students to see a positive library presence on MBC instead of just nagging. :)
DeleteI know your time blogging with us is about up. Just wanted to say thanks for sharing your expertise with us this week!
Andrea
Hi! I see from your description that you're in charge of a library assistant at your district's elementary. I'm the Director of Library Services for my school district, so I'm in charge of 8 buildings and each have an assistant. Because I am not in every building every day, I sometimes struggle with implementing programs and ideas I have across the different buildings. What advice do you have on helping your vision be consistent across the district?
ReplyDelete--Lucy Gellert
Wow. 8 buildings and 8 assistants is CRAZY! I would definitely want consistency across the district in your programs. Communication would be the key for me. Even though you can't be in each building, you're still the one constant for them. Emails, wikis, virtual meet ups...any way you could implement technology to get everyone on the same page and working together would be a plus in my book. I definitely admire what you're doing. I'm lucky that my school district is my building. Our 3 schools (& 2 libraries) are all under 1 roof. Communication is as easy as a phone call & in desperate times, we show up at each others' doors.
DeleteHi Sherry,
ReplyDeleteMy name is Lana Reeser. I am interested in your combined collection for grades 6-12 and how you try to teach students to make good choices. Do you have many book challenges and how do you handle that?
thanks!!
I definitely preach the doctrine of CHOICE and making good decisions. I begin this on the very first day my 6th graders enter the library. They come to the library weekly so I have the opportunity to continue talking about the idea of how books are like clothes...they don't all fit...and they don't fit everyone the same. I talk to them about keeping their parents involved in what they're reading and following their "gut" when reading a book. I try to be involved while they're checking out books, or circulate to see what students are reading and selecting. I tell them more about the book if I see it's a mature choice, but I never take the book away from them. Many times after talking, students decide to choose another book and others decide to give it a try. It's really not up to me to judge where they are emotionally as a reader, so I always tell them a book can be returned and exchanged anytime and it's always free of charge! I am very fortunate to have never had an official challenge in my four years in the library. I have a formal challenge policy in place, approved by my school board, as well as an extensive collection development plan (also board approved) to support the decisions I make as a librarian in choosing books.
DeleteThank you so much for your thoughts on this, Sherry. I am in a 7-8th grade center, and struggle sometimes with age-appropriateness. Last year, my first year, I had a parent complain about a graphic novel that was labeled "older teen" that had some graphic sex scenes in it. the parent didn't make a huge deal, but I did agree that it was not appropriate for middle school. I just read Eleanor and Park, which I loved, but kind of feel like it is more appropriate for hs (language, mature content, and sexually explicit scenes, if you haven't read it). I agree that it's not my place to judge whether a student is emotionally ready for a book, and I must say that my students are probably more mature that other's their age. I did notice on my Twitter feed that the book was pulled from a school...can't remember where.
ReplyDeleteThanks again,
Lana
E&P is probably my favorite YA of 2013. I have it in my library but it seems to be passing from one high schooler's hands to the next. I probably wouldn't purchase it just for a middle grades library.
ReplyDelete