Library Redesign- Take II

Rethinking my previous thinking;)

http://pinterest.com/mzzcolby/media-center-redesign/

Week Eight Reading

Week 8 reading

AASL Definitions of advocacy, PR, and marketing

I’ve always thought of public relations as a two-way street. We are showing the customer what you can do and making them happy. We find out what makes them happy through their input and responses do what we do and say. Maybe I’ve been confusing that with marketing?

AASL School Library Health and Wellness Kit and AASL Crisis Toolkit

What a great resource! It’s good to know I don’t have to reinvent the wheel if I am ever put in this situation. Thoughts I’ve taken from it:

BE PREPARED!

The more effort you put into constantly maintaining your “health and wellness”, the better off you will be in a crisis.

1. Be irreplaceable

2. Be active

3. Have my advocates mobilized and ready to go

-identify stakeholders in advance

-know what our goals are

-determine how they will be informed

4. Figure out who the decision makers are

-know their timeline

-don’t piss them off

5. Remember you’re not trying to save “your job”, you’re trying to save a valuable resource for the students

-have data ready to prove this

-share this message through multiple means

6. Don’t be afraid to ask for help from multiple sources

-local: parents, PTO, union

-state and national organizations

You don’t have to defend the fort on your own, but you need to be ready to mobilize the troops if the need arises. Keep tabs of your library’s “health” at all times. “Constant vigilance”- to quote Mad-Eye Moody;)

Fontichiaro, K., & Mardis, M. (2009). How does a culture mean? Common beliefs in an elevator ride. Knowledge quest 37(5), May/June, 98-101

I feel my whole life is one elevator speech after another! How are you feeling? How are the kids? How’s school? I have this constant feeling that I am defending my life and my choices at every turn and I have developed not only an “elevator speech” for each topic, but an “elevator speech” for different types of people who might be asking me about a specific topic; friends, acquaintances, potential employers, etc. Because of this I believe we will (as school media specialists) need to prepare multiple speeches for the same topic depending on our audience; parents, teachers, administrators, etc. Then we need to have the different types of speeches ready to go on multiple different topics and tuck them into our health and wellness kit, so that we can pull them out as the different “injuries” present themselves. I better get myself to an elevator and start practicing.

Reflections on 2/17 class

The visit to Rachel's library at East Middle School in Plymouth was eye-opening. Yet, confirmed my previous experience at other school libraries- there really is no time to work on collection development. As we found with Rachel she is extremely committed to her students and gives her extra time to organize and work with student groups. I think this is unusual. She gives so much of her time to the school (student's especially) which is amazing and wonderful and a huge benefit for the school, but she seems to have very little time to take care of "library tasks". Now that she doesn't have a clerk this year- she must really feel like the collection is secondary to collaboration. This could be a trend for many libraries, less importance is placed on the physical books that are available at libraries as they become more obsolete. This makes me a little bit sad. Will the future be libraries without books? It might be easier to get rid of them then to properly maintain them, just because there is no time to do it. A poorly maintained collection results in an underutilized collection. Are collections not well maintained because they are underutilized? Are they underutilized because they are not well maintained? OR- are collections underutilized because students/schools/teachers are becoming more digital? What came first the chicken or the egg?

Week Seven Reading

Marcoux, B. (E.) L. (2007). Levels of collaboration: Where does your work fit in? School library media activities monthly 24:4.

Student achievement is 20% higher in schools where there is collaboration? Wow- that says a lot! Team teaching in content areas has been going on for years, why can’t this be easily expanded with the Media Specialist playing a collaborative role? I think this is because teachers don’t know what the Media Specialist can offer. Information, research, media- what do we provide? We need to define our content and make it clear to teachers how it can relate and improve their content lessons.

The clarification of the levels of collaboration continuum helped me to understand what types and how thorough collaboration can be. It is important to determine what lessons can benefit the most from collaboration. We should only collaborate on lessons where everyone benefits from the effort. But, who is this “library staff” she keeps referring to?

Moreillon, J. (2007). Collaborative teaching in the age of accountability. In Collaborative Strategies for Teaching Reading Comprehension: Maximizing Your Impact. Chicago: American Library Association.

My new mantra- “I am NOT support staff, I am NOT support staff, I am NOT support staff!”

The big question is, ‘Will teachers let us teach their students?”. We do need to be more than recreational reading motivators- we need to be essential to the learning process by communicating our talents with teachers to let them know we can be of help. Just showing a teacher the examples of different co-teaching approaches would be an initial, positive step in communicating with teachers the abilities and level of contribution we can offer.

Preddy, L. (2008). Collaboration: The Motown method. School library media activities monthly 25:3.

Playing on one’s strengths, depending on the task, is the best method of achieving success in collaboration. That being said, collaboration takes time- time that is separate from sitting at home on your couch in front of the TV planning your next lesson. That’s part of the hesitation I would imagine most teachers and media specialists have with collaboration, who has time to do it? Effective use of time in the collaboration process demands that clear goals be set to make sure that the effort is worthwhile. If a collaborative lesson fails, it will be difficult to convince all stakeholders that it is worth the effort to reflect on and revise the plan. Working as a team is never easy, everyone has to have the same goal in my mind, or else you are just working against each other.

Can I be Diana Ross first?

Todd, R. (2008). “Collaboration: From myth to reality: Let’s get down to business. Just do it!” School library media activities monthly 24:7.

Collaboration does seem like a myth and successful collaborations are few and far between. Most teachers do not know what the Media Specialist can do for them and the Media Specialist needs to do a better job marketing themselves. I think this increase in advertising needs to start with the principal. A Media Specialist should have an excellent relationship with their principal, helping them to understand everything the Media Specialist can do for the school. Hopefully, if the situation is conducive and the staff respects the principal’s opinion, the principal can then be the Media Specialist’s greatest advocate

As Todd states, to start being an effective collaborator, we have to:

-Be mindful of available opportunities

-Believe that it can happen

-Never give up

-Think of the big picture

-Make sure collaborators are on the same page

-Make sure intent is clear

-Review past collaborations and improve on them

Sounds simple.

Media Center Redesign

Yep- I like lots of color. Maybe in real life I'd tone it down a little bit;)

Pinboard

http://pinterest.com/mzzcolby/media-center-redesign/

Reflections on 2/9/12 class

I'd be freakin' out if I had to design a media center for real!

..or maybe not

Friday's discussion made me think about the real possibility of this happening during my career. I thought Emily's "adorable" comment was apt. Really, how many of us will ever have the opportunity to help in the creation of the a new school library space "given" to us? It is possible, but I think unlikely.

If this situation ever presented itself to me I think I would do the following:

-Scream "Woooo-hooo" silently in my head

-Tell my administrator that I need to be on the design team

-Contact the building's previous media specialists to pick their brains about their experiences working in the existing library space

-Talk to my teachers about their desired use for a future library space

-Ask my students what they would like to see in a new library (that could be interesting)

-Call Peg

-Use my personal media outlets and listserves to ask for suggestions

-Spend a lot of time researching the internet for ideas and inspiration

-Take a deep breath and enjoy the process while focusing on the work at hand

Looking forward to visiting the East Middle School media center this week!

Week Six Reading

Week Six Reading

Baule, S. (2005) Planning considerations for library media center facilities. Library media connection 24(3), 14-15.

"What this means for library media centers is the need to have flexible spaces and utilize space more efficiently than in the past. Any new facility or renovation project must also be friendly to the two technology imperatives of ubiquitousness and mobility."

Baule statements about flexibility of space are interesting. The future use of libraries is rather unknown and will be different from school to school. Designing a library that allows for multiple ways to access to different types of media is important to consider.

I'm intrigued by the concept of providing an outside entrance to the school library. In some smaller communities it would make a lot of sense to have the school library play the role of a community library. Problems with this would be roles, staffing, funding and access, but what a service to the community this would be.

Ahh, technology. We will never know what the future holds, but we should be flexible in our efforts to promote and obtain new technologies, while still considering what will add true value to our program versus what will just take up space and eat away at limited budgets.

Lighting can be a problem in some library spaces, but I don't perceive that it is a major issue that can't be addressed by just turning off the lights. Ahh, but many existing libraries have large windows and skylights:(

Lines of sight are extremely important. The library space is so different from the classroom space, classrooms have full lines of sight, while most libraries have views of sight blocked by shelving. No matter what the age, students know were they can go in a library to not be seen and to "mess around".

I agree that we cannot "future proof" the library space, but we can make it so it is flexible and can adjust to the different and changes needs of its school.

Hart, T.L. (2005). Library media center facilities access: Do you really want your library media center used? Library media connection 24(3), 16-19.

Hart’s comparison of the school media center to Barnes and Noble is timely after my SI 620 group’s meeting with Mike Chmura, Media Specialist at Forsythe Middle School. She stressed again and again the need for weeding her existing collection to make it not only relevant, but visually more appealing to students and her efforts were quite visible. Sections that had been effectively weeded were more enticing with features such as face-outs “advertising” the section, bright spine titles of newer books, using only 2/3 of the shelf, not using the bottom shelf if possible and prominently displaying books with stands on top of the bookshelves. She mentioned that the sections that had been weeded tended to have more circulation than those that she had not weeded yet. Now they only need a coffee bar.

Sullivan, M. (2011). Divine Design: How to Create the School Library of Your Dreams. School Library Journal. April 1. Retrieved January 4, 2012, fromhttp://www.slj.com/slj/home/889642-312/ divine_design_how_to_create.html.csp.

Specific design ideas I gained from this article based on the five design considerations expressed:

1. Make sure your space is flexible- allow for different technology use with varying group sizes- think mobility and modularity
2. Remember, you're not running a book warehouse- think about product placement- what do you want students to be drawn to?
3. Insist on a strong infrastructure- outlets, outlets, outlets!
4. Don't sacrifice livability for beauty- is the space just inviting- or does it invite collaborative learning?
5. And finally, whatever happened to the great outdoors?- this can be achieved in indoor spaces too with color, lighting and texture

Todd, R.J. (2009). There is knowledge to be gained. School library media activities monthly 25:10.

Focusing on the Standards for the 21st-Century Learner in regards to planning or redesigning a media center makes a lot of sense. The challenge, again, is to make sure that facilities are not designed to a specific set of standards, but have the ability to be flexible and adaptive to new directions and technologies in education as they arise.

In using the framework of Standards for the 21st-Century Learner “Kuhlthau, Maniotes, and Caspari state that at the heart of preparing students for a global information environment, the focus is on inquiry, where students can ‘draw on the knowledge and wisdom of the past while using the technology of the present to advance new discoveries for the future’ (2007). I like that statement, but how can we use it to design a learning space that achieves this?

We need to consider how we allow for students to access knowledge versus information. How can they engage with the information they are retrieving to gain knowledge from it. A good example of this is incorporating web-based search services with the library’s catalog so that students can find relevant print resources or e-resources as they learn about concepts and ideas online.

I’d like to see some direct relationships to library design based on the four fundamental principles for quality teaching and learning: Intellectual Quality, Relevance, Supportive Environment, and Recognition of Difference, to understand better how physical aspects of a library can promote these concepts.

Woolls, Chapter 6

Do we get to pull out the graph paper now?

Week Five Reading

Ugh- too sick and tired to do it:(

Many Hats of the School Librarian

Reflections on 2/2/12 class

Ugh- REALLY wish I hadn't missed our first field trip:(

I am not taking anymore bactrim- ever again!

Reflections on 1/27/12 class

In my haze I seem to recall that I signed some sort of national petition either to recall the python ban or to insure that every child in America has access to an effective school library program. The second petition rings more true to my heart- so I'm guessing that's the one. I see that it garnered enough signatures to be delivered to President Obama's desk, but will it accomplish anything. The wording of the petition is pretty vague as a result of a previous petition that asked for the school media specialists to be required in every building in the reauthorization of ESEA. So, this petition focuses more on kids, eh?

"Every child in America deserves access to an effective school library program. We ask that the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) provide dedicated funding to help support effective school library programs. Such action will ensure more students have access to the resources and tools that constitute a 21st century learning environment. Reductions in school library programs are creating an ‘access gap’ between schools in wealthier communities versus those where there are high levels of poverty. All students should have an equal opportunity to acquire the skills necessary to learn, to participate, and to compete in today’s world."

https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petition/ensure-every-child-america-has-access-effective-school-library-program/tmlbRqfF

I find it interesting that the word "programs" is consistently used. It is true that the library needs to be more than a "space", but I wonder if the word "programs" encompasses the the media center as a necessary resource in the school. For that matter, will it be for much longer? With the trend toward towards ebooks and online learning and resources, will there be a need for a room called the "Media Center" in the school? With the idea of the Media Specialist as collaborator maybe the job will only require a laptop computer cart. I'm not sure if a physical space will be needed for media centers of the future. I'm all for the Media Center being the heart of the building, but in the future, if "programs" means having a media center space in the school or having a media specialist in the school- I'll take the media specialist. Kristin's example of the media specialist who used her book buying budget to have duplicate sets of books in each classroom, versus more titles in the media center rang true to me. Our goal should be to provide easy, effective, and consistent access to learning; not to develop a collection full of depth and insight in a room that children only spend an hour a week in. So much to think about, but I think I will take a nap right now. Looking forward to being back to normal- SOON.