When the recession hit in 2008, many businesses panicked.  They tried to minimize all expenses and for the most part circled the wagons hoping to ride out the crisis.  Most of those who took that approach failed. The more successful looked around and identified what made them or their product unique.  They looked to see who besides their current customers could benefit from it and what changes in marketing would be needed to attract these potential customers.

If your library looks the way it did in the 1990’s with the addition of more computers and a Smartboard, you have not changed.  Having a website and adding e-books doesn’t make you a 21^st century librarian. And certainly it isn’t having a quiet library with kids polishing their Dewey Decimal skills. 

Have you taken stock of what makes you unique? At the end of February, I blogged on how librarians transform student learning.  That’s about change. Do you do those things?  Have you let your administrators know?  How?  Emailing memos and reports is not 21^st century.  Videoing students exhibiting these transformative behaviors and sending those out is 21^st century.

Is your library a place where students find things or is it one in which they create things?  Do you provide opportunities for them to go beyond your walls?  Across the globe? Who are you following on Twitter?  What’s the best idea you got from these outstanding school librarians—and have you adapted it for your library program? 

What do you know about Learning Commons?  Find out how other librarians have transformed their facility, often on a shoestring budget.  Share with your administrator the excitement of the possibilities a Learning Commons creates.

Life is about change.  You are either changing or you are dying.  We have lost too many libraries and librarians.  If you haven’t done so, decide it’s time for a change, and if you need help… I, and many other librarians, are here for you. Reach out!

The post Changes – Either you’re changing… appeared first on SLWorkshop.

Image from the World Literacy Council

It once was simple in the days before apps and the Internet. When all information came by way of books, magazines, and newspapers. Literacy was easy to define. It meant you were able to read and understand printed matter.  Functional literacy was said to be the ability to read on the fourth grade level. Basic literacy as defined by the U.S. Department of Education 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy is using “print and written material to function in society and achieve one’s goals and to develop one’s knowledge and potential.”

However, most often today when someone refers to literacy, you need to know which type of literacy they mean.  Information literacy?  Digital literacy?  Transliteracy?  Visual Literacy? And there are more out there.  The bottom line is that all these types of literacy are important, but it’s important to recognize that all these literacies –even visual literacy to some extent—rely on being able to read and comprehend text.

As school librarians we are responsible for guiding our students to develop fluency in all literacies, but we can’t forget the basics.  We still must provide the print rich environment leading to a love of reading and learning. All else follows from that.

On June 13, 2013, ALA Council passed a resolution reaffirming ALA’s commitment to basic literacy, noting that the ALA Policy Manual “recognizes Literacy as a core service and responsibility of all libraries.” All types of libraries are charged with “making literacy a high priority in planning and budgeting.”  In schools where administrators are pushing for book-less libraries (when they are not replacing them with computers for taking PARCC and other high stakes tests), standing up for literacy in its most basic definition is not simple.

It’s not that ALA and AASL don’t recognize we are living in a digital age.  These organizations are also working at helping librarians improve their own mastery of multiple literacies to be able to share that with teachers and students. (Several years ago AASL held it biennial Fall Forum on Transliteracy.) What they realize, as noted earlier, these skills rest on basic literacy.

How can you support basic literacy in a culture focused on technology?  Do what many of the top school librarians in the country are doing.  Create programs using a variety of digital resources to coincide with and connect to reading.  An example of the simplest level is having students write online reviews of books. You can have a book club with another school or have pairs of students in different schools read the same book and have an online discussion which they then share with others.  You don’t have to come up with these yourself. Librarians on Twitter and TL Chat on Google+ are sharing what they are doing.  Respond to them with any questions. They’ll be glad to help—and get your students reading for the fun of it.

The post Defining and Supporting Literacy appeared first on SLWorkshop.