Being in the library this week, Kelly explained the importance of advocating for the library. She explained that it is important to document everything that you do in the library to show people outside of the school how important the library is. She wanted me to understand how many people do not understand that the media center is used more than just to check out books.
One way of documenting how your patrons use the library is to take pictures of activities that you do in the library. Kelly keeps a PowerPoint and adds slides for every month with the different activities and lessons that have taken place in the library. She also includes any displays she sets up or any professional development that she participates in. This makes sense to me because my classes have all stressed the importance of showing why the library is essential to the school and students. She also displays these slides on the TVs that are inside the media center so everyone can see what has been going on.
Kelly also uses these slides to create her part of our district’s media specialist newsletter. The newsletter includes the number of patrons that have come through the media center and the different programs that have been put on or the teachers that have been collaborated with. Our school had an entry featured in the SCASL Winter magazine for the media center’s lunch program: https://www.flipsnack.com/scasleditor/scasl-messenger-winter-2022.html.
This week, one of our district leaders ended up reaching out to Kelly and asking her to put together information about what she has done in the media center this year. Kelly already had most of this information in her PowerPoint, so it did not take her long to get the information that was needed. This showed me that the district can request your information at any time, and if you already have a place where you keep it, it’s easy to access to advocate for your library.
It’s also important to include your patrons in your advocacy to give them ownership of the media center. Kelly does this by having media specialist helpers who can come in during homeroom, lunch, or after school. These helpers go through training to know how to check books in and out and how to shelve them. They also have a Google Classroom class with resources and helpful links posted. Last year, students created a book club completely run by them and hosted meetings during lunch in the media center. Kelly helped to supply the books the students were interested in reading and gifted the students the books when they finished.
I really liked the idea of bringing students in who may not normally visit the library by featuring themed lunch days. Monday is Makerspace Mondays where students can build with Legos, Strawbees, and more. Wednesday is Whispering Wednesday where students can get creative and participate in art activities. Students play bingo on Tuesdays and play board games on Thursdays. These activities help to show students that the library is a safe space where they can come and meet other students who have the same interests.
Our library also reaches out to parents through our ConnectEd phone system with special events that the library hosts. Parents are also always welcome to volunteer in the library or help with special events like the Scholastic Book Fair or Literacy Night.
While thinking about advocacy, I found some resources that explain the importance of advocating for your library and why you should support school libraries!
- This infographic from the AASL explains why media specialists and libraries are important to schools:
- This article is from the U.S. National Commission on Libraries and Information Science and explains why people should care about school libraries and having certified media specialists working in the library:
- This article is from the School Library Journal and discusses why it’s important for media specialists to advocate for school libraries: