School Library Research From Around the World

Brenna Smith

Gavigan, K. (2018). School library research from around the world: Where it's been and where it's headed. Knowledge Quest, 46(5), 32-39.

Summary: In this article, repeated keywords from issues of School Libraries Worldwide from 2010 to 2016 are studied. The recurring topics are advocacy, collaboration, impact studies, reading and reading promotion, and technology. They found that staff who advocate for the library are recognized as being leaders and indispensable members of the school community. In 2011, Ewbank published a study where half of 381 school librarians around the U.S. did not engage in advocacy activities due to lack of time and awareness. They found that collaboration between librarians and teachers help development of programs, improve instructional planning, and decreases plagiarism. Canadian-based study in 2011 found that school libraries that were more accessible, better funded, professionally staffed, and had more resources resulted in higher standardized test scores. Findings in several studies show that partnerships between school libraries and public libraries helped develop students’ reading skills. It was also discussed that school librarians need to develop and use their technology skills to become technology leaders. Two important factors to becoming school technology leaders is having support from principals and being proactive about how librarians approach their technology role. Overall, as for many studies, additional research is needed to find what effects school library programs have on student achievement.

Evaluation: I thought that this article was very informative, and reiterates what we have been learning throughout library school. It was interesting to find out that the same topics are being discussed and studied across the world, and that despite the populations, we all want to focus on the same ideas in the library.

Guides to Collection Development for Children and Young Adults

O'Brien, Sarah 
 

Book Review 

Gillespie, John T. (1998) Guides to Collection Development for Children and Young Adults. Libraries Unlimited (191 pages)

The essential handbook about collection development for children and young adults, John Gillespie has compiled a bibliography of bibliographies, indexes and professional reference material for any librarian who is focusing on building a bigger and better juvenile and young adult collection. This book is divided by sections covering periodicals, sources for children and young adults and sources for professionals. This expansive annotated bibliography is both detailed and extremely valuable for librarians. This book is highly recommended for anyone studying and researching Children’s Literature and more.

First extracted from the references from the Virginia Kay Williams article I previously wrote about, I ended up buying this book for myself to continue my education and research into juvenile collections. This is an excellent and easy to use handbook that should be on every librarians shelf, it provides access to bibliographies, indexes and professional reference material. As a graduate student studying Children’s Literature and Collection Development, this book would have been extremely valuable during my earlier courses, why my Children Lit professors did not include this handbook, I don’t know!!! As a future Children’s Librarian, I know this book will become extremely handy and helpful  throughout my career.

The Multiracial Population is Growing, But Kid Lit Isn't Keeping Up

O'Brien, Sarah

Brown, Monica. (2014) The Multiracial Population is Growing, But Kid Lit Isn’t Keeping Up. School Library Journal.

When a girl in Meolida’s class referred to her as “white,” Melodia corrected her only to be told, “Your white to me. During a conversation on race between school kids, Melodia says, “That’s the way people are. They have to label everything and if they don’t know you, they have to make stuff up.” When it comes to race in our society, our culture is definitely quick to label, exclude, bully and judge. And for those who do not necessarily fall under the right label, we’re quick to exclude or question authenticity. With the multiracial population growing and this country being described as the ‘tossed salad’ instead of the melting pot, racial identity is no longer black or white. In the example of the conversation between school kids in the beginning of this article, it is especially hard for children to identify as only one race. Multiracialism is an important identity in our culture now, therefore it’s time that children’s literature should develop more complex and realistic representations of race. Children’s books need to represent the biracial or multiracial experience, and not only black and white.

In all the courses I’ve taken on Children’s Literature, (from college and graduate school) the exclusion of race seems to be one of the biggest problems we face. Unless we’re reading history books, why is race often left out in what we are reading to our children? As someone who has worked in libraries for five years and exclusively in the Children’s Room for three of those years, I have seen little improvement in trying to fix this. We need to include diversity for many reasons, having an accurate portrayal and representation of other ethnicities as well as learning from different cultures. Don’t we want our children to be curious about different cultures, different people? In developing juvenile collections, it is imperative to include all backgrounds of life to be a part of not only the nonfiction collection but the fiction collection as well. How many culturally diverse picture books can you count and chapter books? It’s not many and it’s something that needs to be changed and quickly.  

The Educators Guide to Pinterest

O'Brien, Sarah

Muther, Sarah. (2015) The Educators Guide to Pinterest. Edudemic: Connecting Education and Technology. 

Now that learning is happening online, it’s no surprise that bulletin boards have moved online, enter Pinterest. Teachers, Librarians and Educators use the Platform for many reasons including staying organized, planning projects or collecting material for class discussions. Librarians are running reading programs and creating book lists on top of using it for creative purposes like story times, crafts and (actual) bulletin boards. With a guide for educators on how to use the application, Sarah Muther, provides an in depth outline including planning lessons, fostering collaboration, sharing ideas and providing a list of pinners to follow.

Although this article is very brief in its explanation on how librarians can use the Pinterest application, from the perspective of the (almost) children’s librarian at my library, I use Pinterest for a lot of ideas, whether working with volunteers or using it for personal projects. As the Youth Service Coordinator, I use it to build upon story hour and bulletin board ideas. The author points out that librarians use Pinterest to build book lists and even run reading programs. Just recently, I noticed an adult program called the Pinterest Club, I couldn’t help but join in. There are so many great ways to incorporate Pinterest into the workplace and the library is an excellent place to connect resources and information back into the collections and programs.    

Building and Evaluating Juvenile Collections in Academic Libraries

O'Brien, Sarah

Williams, Virginia Kay. (2011) Building and Evaluating Juvenile Collections in Academic Libraries. Wichita State University. Pg 1-25

Although many college and university librarians support teacher education programs, relatively little attention has been paid to developing juvenile literature collections that support these programs. This paper discusses needs of education students and characteristics of juvenile literature which academic librarians should consider when developing collections. It examines standard tools for selecting children’s and young adult materials and analyzes their usefulness for building collections that support teacher preparation programs. Finally, it provides practical advice for evaluating juvenile collections and selecting materials to fill gaps in support for teacher preparation programs in mathematics, art and other subjects. (taken from the abstract)

While teacher education programs and majors are common in colleges and universities, these courses are not necessarily targeting academic librarians, they are intended to appeal to public and school librarians. Instead of adding material to a collection they know, it is important that academic librarians “understand how education students use juvenile literature, the characteristics of juvenile literature, and the standard tools available for selecting and evaluating children and young adult collections.” As academic librarians, they should be studying and reviewing the majors and certification programs on campus and talking with faculty staff about how they use juvenile literature in teaching. Important questions to consider may include: how do you use children and young adult books when teaching? What assignments do you give that require students to use juvenile books? Would you be willing to share a copy of your syllabus? Etc. Being a part of these types of classes will help the academic librarian build better collections focusing on children’s and young adult literature and teaching methods for education.

Book Trends and the Future

O'Brien, Sarah

Kellogg, Carolyn. (2016) Six Book Trends for 2016: Look Into The Future. Los Angeles Times.

Although this article is not directly about libraries and their collections, I think it is important to implement the trends this writer suggests. It was reported that 571 million print books were sold in 2015, while ebooks sales stayed at 25% this past year. We all worry that print is dead, luckily this statistic proves otherwise. With print books coming back, Harper Lee’s much anticipated second book “Go Set A Watchman”, David McCullough’s book about the Wright Brothers and Jeff Kinney’s Diary of Wimpy Kid Series, along with the spike in coloring book sales, print books are on the way back, which means libraries are getting busy. With magazines going by the wayside and bookstores closing left and right, libraries are full of titles and material just waiting to be discovered. With box office success like Star Wars, Harry Potter and highly anticipated television shows like Game of Thrones, the fantasy doesn’t stop after two hours. Publishers and Marketers want to keep fans in the loop, buy Game of Thrones action figures and games, visit theme parks (have you been to Harry Potter World yet?) and stock up on every book ever written about Star Wars because it’s out there. It’s not just about the movie experience anymore, we live in world where we can further explore the worlds that authors create.  And although journalism is taking new shapes, we know that with the success of podcasts like Serial, the Netflix original docu-series, Making a Murder and the fantastic reporter and sensational nonfiction writer, Jon Krakauer, it’s clear that deeply reported nonfiction stories have a ready audience.  The last point that is brought up in this article is a call to diversity in books. Toni Morrison was the last American award the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993, as our country becomes more multicultural, it’s important that we have something for everyone.

Again, this article is not really discussing these trends in the library setting but I think it’s important that these trends can be used as connections to make library collections stronger, programs/events bigger and better and make the library experience as a whole an important part of our weekly routines. This article can serve as an excellent guide as we think about collection development and programming for the future. With the release of the new Star Wars film, The Force Awakens, many libraries are adopting a whole festival celebrating the world and characters George Lucas created. The same can be said with diversity in literature. This is something that we have been struggling with for years, as a Children’s Librarian I am constantly looking to publishers that focus on diverse stories and searching for authors of different ethnicities. In fact, I came across this blogger and author from London, Ann Morgan and her quest to read books from all over the world. Looking to the future of libraries, all these points and trends that the author brings up are very relevant to sustaining successful libraries.  

Corporate Social Responsibility Initiatives for Promotion of Public Libraries

Christina Perris
INFO 266
Fall 2015

Corporate Social Responsibility Initiatives for Promotion of Public Libraries

Kumar, P. V. (2013, January). Corporate social responsibility initiatives for promotion of public libraries. DESIDOC: Journal of Library & Information Technology, 33(1), 29-31.

 

This journal article explores the ways in which corporations are becoming involved in the different parts of the world to help establish and promote in freestanding libraries, establishing libraries in government-run schools, the purchase of books and even assisting with the renovation of older or decaying libraries. 

It is clear that this new sense of corporate social responsibility many corporations are now adopting appears to be a potentially mutually beneficial arrangement for libraries, especially for cashed-strapped public libraries.  Where these corporations have money and the time and willingness of their workers to contribute to help out these libraries, the libraries are understaffed and underfunded, in near-constant need of help and resources to keep their doors open to their patrons.

The Self-Published Puzzle

LIBR 266

The Self-Published Puzzle.

In the past self-published titles may have had a bad rap, libraries are setting out to redeem these titles, giving the content a platform to reach and audience.  lnnovation continues to be a hot topic for librarians and information students who are studying the development and maintenance of collections. In the article, Solving the Self-published Puzzle, author, by Greg Landgraf , the potential for incorporating self-published titles is examined (2015). A Toronto library uncovers multiple benefits to integrating self-published works. Writers who have books on local interest subjects prove to have a niche within the Canadian patron population.  According to Landgraf’s article, some libraries even promote local writers by designating a tent where patrons can stop by and purchase copies from the authors.  Other libraries have taken the self-published contributions a step further by incorporating self-publishing tools within the libraries in order to support local writers. It seems that the benefits are mutual between the audience, writer, and library.

Solving the Self-published Puzzle

By Greg Landgraf | October 30, 2015

http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2015/10/30/solving-the-self-published-puzzle/