Library Media Tech Talk

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...