Library Media Tech Talk

I'm always looking for ways to share our library statistics. I have used an annual report as a means of doing this for many years. I fear that an annual report may not be enough. During the summer months, administrators and library stakeholders may not have time to look over the report as they are preparing for a new school year. This year, I'm experimenting with posting our monthly statistic snapshots on social media. I've already posted for the months of August and September. I'm using the same format each month so it is very easy to read. I decided to share our library circulations (including textbooks), our classroom technology support contacts since troubleshooting is a large responsibility for us in the library, collaboration programs, and reservations. We are reporting the statistics for the month and for the cumulative for the fiscal year (see the example to the left). The monthly posts I make on Facebook and Instagram have several photos in addition to ...

How Do We Share New Materials? One of the challenges in our high school library is how to share new materials with our users. Displays are usually an effective way to show off new titles that are ready to circulate. Some of our student patrons don't always   have time to stop and look at our new book displays. Last year, we started brainstorming some other ways of outreach. One Solution: A Newsletter We discussed the possibility of using a monthly newsletter to feature some of the new titles. You may remember from my previous article that we had also started putting all new arrivals on a Google Doc to share with students. We thought a newsletter could be an eye-catching addition. Many of our avid readers were already in our library Google Classroom, and the newsletter was an easy way to share a brief monthly digital document with them. An example of Peggy's work Powerpoint to the Rescue Peggy, one of our paraprofessional assistants, had previously experimented w...

It seems there is no end to the list of new books that are released by publishers each month. On top of being a literacy specialist, teacher librarians also must manage the facility and student visitors, collaborate, create programming, market library services, serve as school technology support, and many other duties. If you have found it a challenge to keep up with new books as a result of these numerous job tasks, I want to share a simple way that changed our practice in the school library last year. The Struggle I find it difficult to read as a result of the many daily tasks I experience as a teacher librarian. This is a fact I have worried about for several years. I've been working hard over the summer to read more, and I'm very proud to say that this will be a continuing priority for the new school year. The simple fact is that it is impossible to "sell" students on book titles if we can't speak about them with knowledge and passion! There is something...

I have written about our journey with annual library reports many times in the past. If you have never shared an annual report with your library stakeholders, please, consider creating one this year. Library annual reports can convey a lot of information as an advocacy piece for your program, and it can help change the perspective of what you do each day. Reports can also speak to administrators using data and statistics. It is important to provide a return on their investments in library resources and staff. Changes for the 2017-2018 Report We chose to streamline our report to contain both library and textbook circulation statistics, teacher collaborations, and tech work orders. (We serve as technology support in our building.) Photos of new collaborations and linked blog article reflections of those events are also included. Hopefully, this will help some of our stakeholders find our two library blogs and read more reflections from our school library adventures. Things We Wil...

This has been one of the most active years for me professionally. I'm nearing the end of a third master's degree program with an ALA accredited MLIS. There have been several opportunities to publish over the past year. All these activities have made it difficult to write blog articles as frequently as I would like. I simply had to make time to write a reflection about my first time to attend an American Library Association Annual Conference! I am very grateful to the Lakeside School District for sending me, and I want to share some of my big takeaways from the event. I will also share what I hope to bring back to campus this year as a result of the experience. Michelle Obama It was very exciting to hear Michelle Obama speak in the opening session of the ALA conference! She spoke primarily about her new book, Becoming , a memoir about her life.  I recall that she talked about the importance of the library in her life when she was growing up. She reflected about reading t...

One evening in January 2018, I began receiving several teacher librarian followers on Twitter from Beijing, China. After interacting with a few of them on Twitter, I discovered that Joyce Valenza was presenting at a conference there and had mentioned our library program at Lakeside High School. I was am so grateful she did this because it led to something special for our learners. It didn't take long to start conversing with Kristen Billings, a teacher librarian in Beijing. We started discussing the possibilities of an international collaboration. I returned to school the next day and talked to Mr. Keith Todd, one of our 9th-grade Civics and Geography teachers at Lakeside, about some type of international connection for his students. He had witnessed our recent 8th-grade maker collaboration with social studies classes,  and he had the desire to have his students create some type of product to share with our new friends in Beijing. I introduced Kristen and Keith to Flipgrid, and...

Over the past few years, some of the most exciting activities we have held in the library have been Skype connections. From Mystery Skype to virtual tours of national parks , our teachers and learners never seem to get tired of connecting to distant places. One of the most recent connections was with a young author in another state! How We Connected I remember running across teen author, Ashley Royer (@RTFbook), on an Internet search last year as we were looking for potential connections for our students. After reading about her, I discovered she had accumulated lots of fans on Wattpad and later became a published author. Her book, Remember to Forget , has been in publication since 2016. I decided to connect with Ashley via Twitter during the spring of 2017 to get more information about her book. She actually signed the copies we purchased. Since the end of the school year was quickly approaching, we were never able to connect her with our students. This...