Category Archives: Services

School Media Specialist, Services, Training

New eCourse: Being Indispensable: A School Librarian’s Guide to Proving Your Value and Keeping Your Job

Being Indispensable: A School Librarian’s Guide to Proving Your Value and Keeping Your Job eCourse
Contact:
Colton Ursiny
Administrative Assistant
ALA Publishing
cursiny@ala.org

Chicago—ALA Editions announces a new iteration of our popular eCourse, Being Indispensable: A School Librarian’s Guide to Proving Your Value and Keeping Your Job. Hilda K. Weisburg will serve as the instructor for a 6-week facilitated eCourse starting on July 10, 2017.

Estimated Hours of Learning: 30
Certificate of Completion available upon request.

School librarians are worried about their jobs, and with good reason. Budget cuts have taken many jobs, and those who have retained their jobs find their resources stretched thin. In this eCourse, respected authority Weisburg gives school librarians concrete strategies for demonstrating and proving their worth through clear, focused leadership.

Showing you how to focus and strengthen your programs and articulate those strategies in ways that build support for yourself and your library within your institution, she leaves no stone unturned. This eCourse teaches you how to lead; how to identify the people you need to influence; and how to influence them on paper, in person, and during meetings.

Learning outcomes

  • Making the case for the vital role school librarians play in learning
  • Identifying your mission/vision in order to focus your program and be able to prioritize efficiently
  • Building a solid base of support among stakeholders who hold the power over your future
  • Creating and preparing to carry out plans targeted to strengthen your programs

eCourse outline

Part 1: Positioning Yourself

  • Qualities of a leader (your strengths and weaknesses)
  • Mission and vision statements
  • Core values and tag lines

Part 2: Reaching the Power Stakeholders

  • Connecting with administrators (superintendent, principals, BOE, and the central office)
  • Connecting with the community (parents, business owners, the public library, and others)

Part 3: Reaching Priority Stakeholders

Advocacy, Programs, Services

Intellectual Freedom News 5/12/17

This is our issue! This is what we, as library people, do for our communities – and the need to protect the intellectual freedom of our communities is very strong right now.

We are passing on this newsletter; and the information on subscribing is at the end.

“Intellectual Freedom Highlights

  • Banned books and (nearly) murdered authors | OZY: “When the Nazis first started burning books, Sigmund Freud saw it as a positive thing — even though, as a Jewish author, his books were systematically thrown atop the pyre. The famed psychoanalyst knew, after all, that things could have been a lot worse. His reasoning? ‘Look, we’re becoming more civilized: We’re burning books, not people,’ says James LaRue, director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. But Freud would soon be disillusioned, when, shortly thereafter, ‘the Nazis started burning people too,’ LaRue adds.”
  • Censorship or Hate Crime? | Intellectual Freedom Blog; “Book burning, tearing pages, destroying books in disrespectful and obscene ways are all methods of censorship. If the books are representative of a specific group of people like the Qur’an is of Muslims, is the censorship also a hate crime?”
  • Apply for a Freedom to Read Foundation Grant for Banned Books Week events! Deadline today, May 12! 

Continue reading Intellectual Freedom News 5/12/17 →

Books, Children's services, School Media Specialist, Services, Tech

The Four Basic Ebook Models for K-12 Libraries

EBook between paper books
(From No Shelf Required, by )

“This is the second article in a three-part series on ebook business models in K-12 libraries. In the first article, we looked at what a business model is and at the four main kinds of ebook business models that K-12 librarians need to know about. In this article, we will look at each of the four basic models in more depth and glance at some examples of them. We will not attempt to compare product offerings in depth, but I will mention an example or two of each model. Because ebook technology is still in its early stages, the platforms and feature sets of each offering change rapidly, so any comparison is bound to be a snapshot at best. Continue reading The Four Basic Ebook Models for K-12 Libraries →

Advocacy, Communication, Services

Librarians in the 21st Century: It Is Becoming Impossible to Remain Neutral

Interior view of Stockholm Public Library
This article is from lithub.com. I highly suggest you click here to read the entire thing, after looking at the excerpt we posted below.

I will add that the author is one of my former students in library school, and she was absolutely great there! I was fortunate to have her in classes, and valued both her contributions to class and the time I was able to spend with her. So I’m not neutral at all on the value she brings to the library profession!

Stacie Williams on
How to Confront Microaggressions in the Library

“Library neutrality sounds innocuous, but it’s not, if you’re a librarian. Although neutrality has long been regarded and taught as an important ethic of the profession, a growing number of librarians have begun questioning whether it is preferable—or even possible—for libraries to be neutral. In this essay, Stacie Williams makes the case that it is neither.

–Stephanie Anderson

I love working the reference desk. Like most people, it was my first introduction to librarians as a little kid: the smiling person behind a desk, asking me if I needed help finding anything. In my last semester of graduate school, I took a job working the access services desk at a medical library, where I could meet new people and help them the way that I had been helped in libraries throughout my life. Even as I gained more experience in archives, I continued to look for opportunities to assist at a reference or access point of service.

Working in such a visible position, over the years, I have been constantly reminded that my interactions with patrons are a reflection of my body: my black, female-presenting body. In ways small and large, I have been reminded that nothing about libraries is neutral. Not the desks or furniture that are sometimes built by incarcerated individuals who can’t protest their labor. Not the buildings, some of which lack physical access for individuals who can’t climb stairs or walk over uneven stones and bricks. Not the collections development theories, not the leadership opportunities, not the vacation and break schedules, or the computer use policies. Not our co-workers, our funding models, and certainly not the patrons we serve. Neutrality as we use it in libraries leaves people standing at the margins, demanding to be acknowledged as capable and professional, as human, as having histories and lived experiences reflective of the bodies we inhabit. Our bodies, like the bodies of knowledge we provide access to, are not and never were neutral. Continue reading Librarians in the 21st Century: It Is Becoming Impossible to Remain Neutral →

Services, Training

Beyond the Welcome Sign: Tailoring Immigrant Services for Success

May 11, 2017 live, and available as a recording later

“In this webinar, learn strategies from two LJ Movers & Shakers who help new immigrants feel welcomed by library and community.

There is much more to supporting immigrants and refugees than hanging out a “welcome” sign at your library. Successful programs and services are specifically tailored to meet the needs of the range of populations who may come through your doors. Hear from Movers & Shakers who work with communities to empower vulnerable and often underserved populations with a sense of belonging and self-reliance. Learn innovative approaches to identifying and celebrating immigrant leaders; how to foster networking between native-born and newcomer populations and between immigrant groups of varying national origins; how to highlight immigrant-positive narratives; and more. You’ll be sure to find practical ideas among the multi-pronged strategies that these librarians have used to ensure that new immigrants really do feel welcomed by the library and the community.

This webinar is part of a series highlighting the work of recent LJ Movers & Shakers and is hosted in collaboration with Library Journal.

Continue reading Beyond the Welcome Sign: Tailoring Immigrant Services for Success →