Alice in InfoLand

Turn strangers into friends.
Turn friends into customers.
And then… do the most important job:
Turn your customers into salespeople.”
—Seth Godin. “Flipping the Funnel” in Small Is the New Big, 2006.
(found via Marylaine Block’s http://marylaine.com/exlibris/xlib306.html )

IOW: you need to support them before they’ll support you.

Aha! This post at Webjunction led me to this post at NewlyMintedLibrarian which took me to the Boston Globe’s article on how blogging can help your career:

1. Blogging creates a network.
2. Blogging can get you a job.
3. Blogging is great training.
4. Blogging helps you move up quickly.
5. Blogging makes self-employment easier.
6. Blogging provides more opportunities.
7. Blogging could be your big break.
8. Blogging makes the world a better place.

Read the entire article for expanded explanations.
Of course, they did leave out my favorite: Blogging (on professional topics, rather than just personal blatherings) forces you to keep current on the important issues in your field!
Addendum: found via Libraryola, Walt Crawford’s excellent article on blog vs book writing.

Technorati Tags: biblioblogosphere, blogging, self-promotion

A sad reality is that — too often — classroom teachers just don’t know how to effectively utilize the skills of a school librarian.  Here’s the text of a flyer I gave out to teachers every year:

The mission of our School Library program is to:

• develop information-literate students
• create lifelong learners
• help teachers teach

I CAN HELP YOU BY:

• working with you to develop authentic research activities for your classes.
• coordinating information and research skills strategies with classroom curriculum.
• recommending additional resources to extend your classroom materials.
• presenting booktalks about new/relevant books for your classes.
• preparing Project Pathfinders to guide your students to the best resources for your assignments.
  
• brainstorming project ideas, lesson strategies, and topics with you.
• providing guidance relating to the ethical use of information.
• notifying the public library of any class assignments.
  

 YOU CAN HELP ME BY:

• notifying me as soon as possible of any planned resource-based class projects or assignments.
• meeting with me to develop/plan effective resource-based activities.
• reserving class time in the library as far in advance as possible, and notifying me as soon as possible of any schedule changes.
• understanding both the extent and limitations of the School Library’s resources and schedule.
• remaining with your students and supervising their behavior while they are in the library.
• sending no more than two students at a time to the library on a pass, unless prior arrangements have been made.

and the tag line on every notice I sent out:

Having these guidelines clearly defined made connections/cooperation/collaboration by teacher and librarian so much easier for everyone concerned!
 

Judith Siess is the One Person Library (aka OPL) guru.

Her latest blog post addresses the Not Enough Time to Blog comments I hear too often from school librarians.  Here are some of her compelling reasons why you should have a library blog:

Even if you do have some ‘help,’ you’ll find Judith Siess’ books, newsletter, and blog worthwhile reading.

Transparency in education should be the goal of every teacher, administrator, board of ed member. 
But how do you accomplish that?

Take a look at Mabry Middle School’s website for a wonderful example of how to publish up-to-date info about school activities !   While the principal’s blog sets the tone and addresses the Big Issues, it’s the individual teachers’ blogs — with homework assignments, test reminders, classroom notes, etc. — that open up those classroom doors to the community.

The Media Center’s blog exemplifies the kind of info every school library’s web-presence should include: book recommendations, resource/research guidelines, class projects, library schedule, etc., all in a warm and welcoming atmosphere.

Many schools/districts tell their teachers to "get on the web," but then merely provide minimal guidance,  a basic webpage template, and almost no follow-up… which is why so many teacher pages never get updated.   Mabry’s site uses blogging software (WordPress, I suspect) that offers many options, without requiring complex HTML-coding knowledge. 

Kudos to Dr. Tyson, Mabry’s principal, for this exemplary use of information technology to push learning to the world beyond the school building’s walls.

Definitely worth exploring (if only for the giggle factor):
The Educational Jargon Generator
Play with it and discover all kinds of wonderful new possibilities! Really, who could possibly turn down a grant that proposes a pilot project to “extend technology-enhanced models through the use of developmentally appropriate scaffolding, while integrating performance-based staff development” ?

—Doug Johnson’s great acronym for happy, productive, library-using kids, aka the best evidence that effective school library programs are an integral part of the educational experience.



On his new Blue Skunk blog, Doug praises the PR-savvy school librarians in his district who use digital photography

- to illustrate presentations to the school board, PTOs, and community groups with pictures of happy, productive, library-using
kids (HPLUKs)

- to illustrate their parent newsletters with pictures of HPLUKs

- to promote reading by creating personalized “READ” posters of both
kids and the role model adults in the buildings hold favorite reads

Meanwhile, Marylaine Block asks What’s on your website? in her article about how to create an inviting and useful online presence for your library.


I’m always surprised at how many school library websites show empty rooms;
nice furniture may look good, but it’s no indicator of how the space is
actually used!  Show your library the way you want it to be
perceived — as an active, user-friendly place where students are busy
learning.



Years ago I had a district administrator who complained that the
library never looked “neat — you know, with all the shelves all
straightened up, the chairs pushed in, and nothing lying around on the
tables.”  In other words, unused. 

I told him that he should be delighted that the library looked “messy”
so often; it meant that the district was getting an effective ROI for
the funds they’d allocated for library materials.  “See that chaos
over in there, in the 900’s? That’s because the 8th graders are getting
ready for their Renaissance Faire.  And that ‘mess’ over in the
600’s?  That’s the health classes, researching communicable
diseases.  When all the shelves are neat and tidy for too long, it
means the library isn’t being used enough.”

He finally understood, but I know that he still begged the custodians
to “do something” whenever the Board of Ed was scheduled to meet in the (heavily-used) library.

an idea, concept, or belief that a person considers important — as per Bruce S. Gordon, in his interview with Deborah Solomon:  “Civil rights C. E. O.; Questions for Bruce S. Gordon.” New York Times Magazine 10 July 2005: 15.

I’d like to find something that we as an organization care about that he, too, cares about so that he can take the Bush tenacity and direct it at that care-about.
Care-about? Is that a noun?
Yes, and please attribute it to me when you use it in the future.

Definitely a word to use in Advocacy efforts:  e.g.:

Imagine what might be accomplished if some corporate entity would sponsor and convene a
Libraries and Learners in the 21st Century conference
that brings together an equal and representative sampling of both practitioners and pundits
from the overlapping circles of K-12:

• school and public libraries
• educational technology
• curriculum development
• supervision and adminstration, and
• local Boards of Education

No pompous panels of presenters who pontificate but don’t participate here:
At this gathering our actively-engaged education advocates would have already analyzed a core set of readings and are now prepared to put their combined brain-power to work developing the following documents:

1. a glossary of information literacy terms with definitions that all stakeholders can agree on.
2. a comparison of the respective responsibilities of the classroom teacher /school librarian /technology specialist /curriculum supervisor in developing information literacy skills in grades K-4 / 5-8 / 9-12.
3. a matrix identifying how/where to integrate grade-level appropriate information literacy skills instruction within each of the major content areas.
4. benchmarks for developing effective professional collaborations across all areas of the curriculum,
5. an explanation of the teaching function of the library program in the K-4/5-8/9-12 school settings.
6. talking points to use with community groups, local news media, etc., to show  how effective school library programs increase student achievement.

After the conference is over, attendees and other interested parties would use the ‘read/write web’ to continue the initial work through:
— online forums for ongoing discussions to refine the working documents for publication, and
— a wiki to provide a holding place for all relevant links and readings.

And finally, within a year of the original conference:

• publication and free dissemination of the final documents to all attendees, teacher-training institutions, and state and federal departments of education, AND
  
  
• approval /adoption of these guidelines by AASL, AECT, ASCD, NEA, AFT, NSBA, NCTE, NCSS, NSTA, etc.

A girl can dream, no?

Janis M. Houston, a media specialist at West Middle School in Aurora CO describes the impact that standardized testing can have on students, in the March 18, 2005  Rocky Mountain News

I am angry. Madly, passionately, blindly angry.

For the past two weeks I’ve sat with a group of eighth-grade special education students, struggling to take the Colorado Student Assessment Program tests. By definition, these students are classified special education because they do not have the capabilities of other students. Their reading levels are second, third, and fourth grade, but they must by law take the eighth-grade CSAP tests. You can see the despair in their faces.

They can’t answer the questions because they don’t understand them. Their teacher encourages them to do their best, and they understand it won’t be good enough. Being so young, they only blame themselves.
 
I am not their teacher, I’m the media specialist. Their teacher works all year trying to get these students ready for this test because it counts big. The scores these students make will be averaged in with the scores of all the other students in our school. Once again our school will be considered, at best, partially proficient. Once again, our teachers will be subjected to endless in-servicing, as though it is their fault that the students cannot pass this test.

Read the full article, which I found via a link on The Endless Faculty Meeting blog.

Michael McGrorty is talking here about public libraries (specifically, Salinas CA and Washington DC) being forced to close or drastically restrict services for lack of funds, but his premise is equally valid for school libraries:

More than anything, we need to settle on a equation which reflects the most important value of the library in the community. To have meaning, that figure must be a ratio of providers to those served.
The reasons for this are as follows:
1. The library is a service entity whose medium and conduit is the librarian.
2. The nature of service or materials can and will change, but the unchanging constant is the service provider.
3. Counting books or computers will only assist those who consider the library primarily a place of books or computers, and lends credibility to the argument that the place is merely the sum of its materials.
4. Librarians are the champions of the library as well as its custodians; patrons are the object of the library as well as its owners. There is no more practical measure of service than the relationship between these two parties.

That closest functional analog is the relationship is that between teachers and their students, which is why the enactment of class-size standards has been both effective and welcomed by both teachers and parents. We need to do something to match this. The sooner we establish the library/patron relationship and a ratio, the easier it will be to defend the library. If we do not, what remains for many libraries is the bake-sale scenario, a mendicant approach which does none of us any good at all.

                        
Isn’t it ironic that school sports teams — which certainly do not benefit ALL the students in a school — are rarely hard up for funds, yet school libraries so often are?  Ross Todd recommends using evidence-based practice as a way of demonstrating the value of school libraries.  How can we tie these two ideas together?