School Libraries

Follett and the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) have announced that applications are being accepted for the 2014 National School Library Program of the Year (NSLPY) Award. The competition is open to K–12 programs that are fully integrated into the school’s curriculum and meet the needs of the changing library environment. The deadline to submit an application is January 1, 2014.

When I wrote about it a couple of weeks ago, the resources were not yet available online.   They are now.  So please spread the message widely.  Have everyone you know who believes in equity, who believes that every child has a right to a strong library program, sign Barb Stripling’s Declaration. Host a face-to-face signing or [...]

School librarian leaders from across the country made their way to the Austin, TX, aka the “Live Music Capital of the World,” on September 28–29 to attend SLJ’s annual Leadership Summit, where they discussed the future of libraries and how partnership is a necessary ingredient for stakeholder success. Throughout the weekend, participants—speakers, sponsors, panelists, and attendees—honed their conversations around the transformative power of collaboration.

At the Trump Soho hotel in Manhattan on October 1, Harlequin Teen and bestselling author Julie Kagawa unveiled her new dragon-focused series, "Talon." The first book in the series will be published on October 28, 2014. School librarians and Bammy Award nominees Deven Black, Jennifer Lagarde, Shannon Miller, Joyce Valenza, and Matthew C. Winner walked the red carpet on September 21.

Late last spring, our district distributed the Danielson Framework for Teaching rubric listing the components of instruction–divided into 22 components and 76 smaller elements, and clustered into four domains. Danielson’s Framework, is designed to serve as the the foundation of a school or district’s mentoring, coaching, professional development, and teacher evaluation processes, thus linking all those activities together [...]

Know a deserving school librarian, media specialist, or teacher-librarian? AASL has many opportunities for recognizing their smarts, bravery, and innovative style through its 2014 Awards program. And the online awards database promises to make the nomination process easier than ever.

I’ve had these in my files for a couple of years doing nobody no good. So, I thought it was time to crowd-source, update and improve a series of checklists I’ve planning to work on and share. The checklists are meant to be a handy list of things to plan, do, and celebrate month-by-month in the life [...]

September is a great time get your network on. On Monday September 9 at 8 pm ET, it's the very special third annual Back to School Special, featuring an idea share led by Tiffany Whitehead (Mighty Little Librarian), Jennifer LaGarde (Library Girl), and the daring Gwyneth Jones. Visit the TLCafé homepage for instructions on how to join the event using Blackboard Collaborate.

I’ve come to the conclusion that there are probably a thousand different ways to do library great. Sure there are handbooks on how to put together a traditional library program–how to create a budget, weed a collection, host an author event, collaborate with teachers. But no textbook shows you what it looks like when the [...]