Aug     Sept     Oct     Nov/Dec     Jan     Feb     Mar     Apr     May

August 
     At the beginning of the year is when you want to make some decisions about your program.  When you review the previous year(s) you might want to think about ways to change what you have always done.  You may decide that your programming is good, but no one knows about it.  Perhaps the decision to make is what kind of Public Relations you might try that you have not tried before.  One thing you might want to consider is documentation.  It seems that with the shrinking budgets we are seeing major changes in staffing as well as the library budget itself.  So, we need to provide information to the administrators about how we make a difference.  Try using the Library Usage Summary that Media Services has provided for you.  It can be downloaded at http://itech.fcps.net/trt11/libtechserv/SchoolLibraryPublicRelations.htm
     

September
     The district recommended Curriculum Map has provided some consistency for elementary and middle schools that has not been in our district since the onset of KERA.  This is a great opportunity for the LMS to inform the teachers in the school of what materials are available for checkout that support the curriculum as it is lined out in the maps, determine the weaknesses in the collection relative to the map, and plan to purchase to fill those voids in the collection.   Go to http://teach.fcps.net/currmap/ to download the curriculum maps for elementary and middle schools.
     

October
     After AASL  developed Information Literacy Standards, KDE  developed Kentucky Information Literacy Benchmarks for those standards for grades 3, 5, 8, and 12. It is important that administrators and teachers are aware that we have standards to meet for information literacy.  In your lesson plans, note the standard(s) and benchmark(s) that are appropriate for the lesson. If you are working with a teacher on a unit make sure you include the IL standards and KDE benchmarks in your discussion as well as the paper work.  A printable Kentucky Benchmark document can be found on this website at http://teach.fcps.net/trt11/libtechserv/KDEBenchmarks.pdf 
   

November/December
     We are consistently seeing requests for lesson plans on the KYLMS listserv. One new source that is available not only to access for lesson plans but to also add them is the new site Curriculum Connections, designed by Barby Hardy, Nancy Strassner, Jackie White and Blenda Fields. This site was rolled out at the Summer Refresher and mentioned in district meetings and at some of the KSMA fall conference sessions.
     This is an opportunity for you, the professional school librarian, to not only access lessons, but also to share lessons you have already developed.  This will show how activities relate to the Kentucky Benchmarks for the Information Literacy Standards and the Kentucky Core Content as developed by the state. Please take the time to check out this site and then to add original lesson plans that fit your grade level of expertise.  A one hour PD session will be held on Thursday Nov. 6th - 3:45-4:45 at Lansdowne Library.  In order to submit you must use a password which is always the same password as KYVL.
     

Reactive programming is providing instruction and resources to the students and teachers upon request. Proactive programming is when you determine what the needs are and attempt to meet those needs by offering resources and instructional activities that will support what is being taught in the classroom. Being reactive is fine and there will be times when that is the only way you can provide support for some teachers. However, as a general rule the School Library Media Specialist (SLMS) should be proactive. To be proactive the SLMS must know the curriculum and then let teachers know about the resources (materials and services) in the library that support the curriculum.
Proactive programming:

There is great talk about having a "balanced literacy program" in schools today. While there are varying opinions about what a balanced literacy program is, there are also opinions about how the Library Media Programs can support balanced literacy.

Marlene Asselin (Teacher Librarian 27, Sept.'99, 69-70) says that the SLMS can support such a program in several ways:

1. "Be a leader by promoting student access and use of authentic texts.
2. Help educate teachers so they will realize that in a balanced literacy program, students must have access to a wide variety of texts including the Internet, informational texts, and software, and that students must develop the necessary skills to learn how to access these.
3. Be a leader in developing a curriculum-based approach to acquiring research skills.
4. Libraries should be a place to showcase student writings.

Assist parents in Internet awareness and helping them develop the necessary skills to evaluate Internet resources."
         
Other ways that the SLMS can support a balanced literacy program include:

1. Providing booktalks to students.
2. Providing clever displays and bulletin boards of books for different seasons, holiday, events, student interests.
3. Providing bibliographies on bookmarks for students.
4. Providing signage in the library promoting award winners and teacher's choices.
5. Using the school news show to promote specific titles, genres, etc.
6. Start book clubs for students.
7. Work with teachers to design collaborative units.
8. Survey teachers in an effort to purchase media that supports the curriculum.
9. Provide read-alouds to classes and serve as role models for how books are chosen and the thinking process that one goes through when selecting a book.
10. Provide booktalks for teachers to share newest book arrivals.
11. Send out newsletters to teachers sharing annotated bibliographies.
12. Allow teachers to check out many books to use as a classroom library.
              

When reading these two lists most will determine that they are already doing a lot to support literacy. It is not easy to keep a good balance in the classroom and the library media center. "It is an on-going process that will continually involve reflective thinking, research, professional reading, networking among other professionals, and collaboration among teachers and fellow library media specialists."

Excerpted from The Balanced Literacy Program and Library Media Centers: What it is and how library Media Centers can support it by Robyn M. Prince, School Library Media Activities Monthly, Volume XX, Number 4, December 2003, p.26-29.

In the January newsletter we learned about reactive and proactive programming. So, taking proactive programming a bit farther we find that such programming can often provide advocacy for your Library Media Program. According to Gary Hartzell "your library needs a voice but that voice doesn't necessarily have to be your own. ... In fact, you may be way ahead if you can get others to step up front in supporting you and your library." [Building Influence for the School Librarian by Gary Hartzell]

So, what do you do. First of all, you offer assistance to a teacher who is in "professional transition" in a non-threatening way so the teacher knows you have the students interest first in your mind. In order to do this you must know who is teaching what and what changes are coming for teachers in their responsibilities. You will have to do more than say "call me if you need help". You might approach them with "I see you have a new assignment and I was thinking about the things that we have in the library that you might be interested in." This approach allows for a sharing situation. If you are able to provide something that helps them in their new situation they will more than likely support you when others throw stones and/or they will tell other teachers how you were able to assist them. You may have to make a lot of offers to many teachers in order to get a few who will become vocal advocates for you.

So, who would you consider a teacher in "professional transition" who could in turn become a strong advocate for the the Library Media Program:

     1. a brand new teacher
     2. a veteran teacher new to your school
     3. a teacher assigned outside the area of certification or university preparation
     4. a teacher whose assignment has been radically changed
     5. a teacher taking part in a school-wide change.

"Building an indirect advocacy system spares you the unpleasantness of engaging in organizational politics, lobbying, pleading, and making impassioned public statements before large and sometimes hostile groups." However, there is some trade off for this advocacy: vigilance, serving on committees where you will know about long-range plans and scheduling changes and interacting with teachers regularly in order to find out what is happening.

      Excerpted from Building Influence for the School Librarian, 2nd edition, by Gary Hartzell, c2003, Linworth Publishing, Inc.
     

1. Make arrangements with the librarian(s) or teachers at the feeder school(s) for students to be able to use your school's library.
2. Be part of the team that makes presentations about your school to incoming students, and their parents, while they are still in the feeder school.
3. Get on the new student orientation programs at the opening of school in the fall semester and try to get to any class (grade level, freshman, sophomore, junior, or senior) meetings.
4. Develop a "tape tour" of your library for use in a portable tape or DVD player with earphones and use it to orient students who enter the school after the start of the year.
5. Learn as many names as you can.
6. Survey the students about how they see the library and what they would like to see in the library?
7. Develop a program of cross-age student tutoring in library skills.
8. Develop a course that provides class credit for working as a library assistant.
9. Request that a small number of at-risk student be assigned to the library as aides.
10. Develop a system whereby students can work off fines or the cost of lost or damaged books or materials instead of paying cash.
11. Consider adapting the "adopt-a-highway" idea to an "adopt-a-shelf" or "adopt-a-section" format involving clubs or teams in the school that could see to the care of the section and to the raising of funds for adding to its collection.
12. If you're in a secondary school, offer sessions on how to take tests as semester finals times approaches.
13. Get the student council to create a library liaison office.
14. Develop a materials selection committee composed of students.
15. Think about establishing a student behavior advisory committee for the library.
16. Develop a program that emphasizes skills for the non-college bound.
17. In secondary schools, work with the coaches to develop a study support plan for athletes.
18. If you are a member of the Rotary, Lions, Kiwanis, Soroptimists, Optimists, Chamber of Commerce or some other civic group, take one or more students with you to meetings on a regular basis.
19. Go out and teach a class lesson on a subject you love other than library science or research skills.

     Excerpted from Building Influence for the School Librarian, 2nd edition, c2003, by Gary Hartzell
     

This is the time of year that we want to begin to reflect on our year and what we have or have not accomplished in our programming. One method for reflection is to provide surveys for the staff. This survey could be given to all certified and classified staff and should be anonymous in order for them to be really honest. The survey should not only cover our role and program offerings but also questions to determine the teachers' understanding of their role and their awareness of the services provided. Once the surveys are returned, we should analyze the results of the specific questions and determine if we need to make any modifications to our program or how we make the staff aware of our program. We often think we present a certain image only to find out that another's perspective does not match ours and doing surveys is one way to discover the discrepancy.

Still, one more method to evaluate our program is to survey the students in our school. The student evaluation should indicate the extent to which the student has access to the library media center, the variety of purposes for which they access the library media center, the various-sized groups in which they attend, the tools they use and in general how they feel about the library and it's role in their education/life.

Last, but certainly not least, we should do a library media program self-evaluation. This allows us to reflect on the management, goals, services, organization, usage, resources, automated systems and communication with staff and administration, etc. and determine if each is effective, adequate or needs improvement.

The old saying is "if you keep doing what you are doing, you will get what you always got". So, it is good to look at where we are, where we have been and where we want to go in order to improve.

Via the courier we are sending a sample form of a student evaluation, a sample form of self-evaluation and several sample forms of staff evaluations. These may be adapted to your needs. If you want them in electronic form, Nancy will send them to you.

Contact bhardy@fayette.k12.ky.us at Media Services with comments/questions regarding this site.
Contents of this web site are intended to be used for the enhancement of instruction only.

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