Advocating
Library Services to Staff
What we have to advocate
Knowledge of the whole curriculum
Teaching of literacies for all media
Intellectual property / fair use guidance
Effective pedagogical strategies
Intellectual freedom: assuring access to information
Technology integration
Reviews / suggestions of software and print resources for content areas
Literature in all formats
Check out the rest of this powerpoint for language and points to hit when advocating.
Why we advocate
AASL, CCRR, Kansas Library Standards, District Standards
How we prove advocacy works
Pre and post test scores
Advocacy v Awareness
Awareness can be a precursor to advocacy
But cookies and punch sets up librarian as a host, teachers as the guest
Dickinson, Gail K. "Heart Healthy Advocacy." Library Media Connection 32.2 (2013): 6. Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts. Web. 11 Apr. 2014.
Ideas
Elevator Speech
Classroom Teachers and Other Specialists- from AASL
I am your partner in promoting reading and teaching literacy skills. There are many ways in which we can work together to positively impact students’ engagement with texts and improve their reading proficiency. We can collaborate to gear the monthly literacy events/school-wide literacy initiatives sponsored through the library program to the interests and needs of students and your classroom curriculum. When we plan for instruction, I will contribute ideas related to the wide variety of texts available in our library and beyond. Together, we can determine which reading comprehension strategies can help students improve their skills. We can coteach lessons in which we model strategies and jointly monitor students’ guided practice. We can give students more individualized attention. We can integrate strategy lessons into inquiry-based units so that students can practice strategic reading while engaging in authentic learning experiences. What concept will you be teaching next? When can we get together to do some planning?
Current Event service
List all titles of current magazines
Teachers highlight titles they would like to have the table of contents for each month. They can request copies of articles they circle on the table of contents.
Dear Teacher Letter
Social Studies
Science
Health
Music
Delivered to mailboxes at the beginning of the year
Sections include: introductory paragraph, print references, subscription databases. online resources, videos
New Teacher Training
Meet with student teachers each semester
New Books Emails
Break it down by genre, reading level, whatever you feel like highlighting
Include "if you'd like to collaborate on a lesson using one of these books or can have suggestions for new books to add to the collection, speak to your librarian"
Quarterly course requests
Asks teachers to identify units of study so that we can
- purchase materials
- place materials on reserve
- teach an information literacy skill
- prepare bibliographies and pathfinders
Monthly Newsletter
Top 10 titles circulated
Cool idea from T. Richards at Isfeld Secondary School
Weeding- Save Me!
Asks teachers to consider an "oldie but goodie" before we discard them
Invite whole department to look over their Dewey section for dated material. Let them pull the copies for you.
Captive Audience opportunities
Rotating, thoughtful signs in the staff bathrooms.
- New professional reading, stats on information literacy, typical Google searches done by students, etc.
Promos placed on lunch tables in staff lounge once a month.
- Recipes from current issue of Good Housekeeping, etc.
General Habits to increase teacher collaboration
- Eat lunch with staff- don't stay in the library. Build relationships.
- Attend different staff development with different departments, if able. Learn what they are learning and incorporate it into your promos.
- Be a part of committees- character education, advisory, curriculum, staff development, etc. to make information literacy a part of a student's day
- Say yes when asked to present and work hard to do it well. Try presenting in other forms besides powerpoint to highlight Web 2.0 alternatives- like this one!
In development...
"Instead of a video, why not book a librarian?"
A stand alone lesson on some interesting aspect- not necessarily related to research
- Edward Snowden- traitor or hero? Discuss information ethics
- Dragnet Nation- is it right for the government and companies to track us the way they do?
- Copyright- foundations for it. What does the future hold?
- Information path- who creates it, disseminates it, etc?
- Banned books
- Is the internet making us smarter or dumber?
High interest lessons that we never have time to teach them but require critical thinking.
Branding-
need to learn some graphic design
use ALA's yearly theme "get creative @ your library" on all promotions
Ideas from You!
Further Resources
Lots of resources including AASL's advocacy toolkit