This summer has been unique for me. Usually, I jump into professional development opportunities or professional reading, but this summer I have needed a minute. Instead, I have focused on reading for pleasure every day. I have just tried to… Read More ›
A School Library Theme to Inspire the Love of Reading Each year in the school library, I display a reading theme along the back side of the library bookcases that run lengthways through the school’s main transition hallway, which also… Read More ›
Summer Reading Inspiration In the spring of 2016, I received an e-mail from a friend and English teacher in my building. She invited the entire faculty to contribute to a slideshow she was creating. She encouraged every faculty member to… Read More ›
One of the most frustrating aspects of being a high school librarian is failing to increase the level of leisure reading among the teenagers who frequent my library. There are a handful of dedicated readers who are as enthusiastic as… Read More ›
Creating a culture for reading is a major part of what it means to be a school librarian. It is also an ongoing effort. There will never come a time when we stop encouraging students to read. One of the… Read More ›
A new year naturally makes us more reflective about our school libraries. Being an elementary school librarian tends to be a lonely job. If you’re lucky, you are a part of the resource team, but even that can be lonely… Read More ›
This year one of my professional goals was to reflect on how I was promoting a positive reading culture at my school and develop ways to improve it. Improvement implies there is something wrong with what is currently being done…. Read More ›
Polarizing Times Political polarization in the US is at an all-time high. A Pew Research Center study tracks partisan differences across ten specific political values. The study shows the partisan gap has more than doubled between 1994 and 2017. The divide… Read More ›
An administrator recently told me, “We don’t really need a school library. Let’s face it…in 10 years…wait, FIVE years…we won’t need print books anymore. Nobody reads books anymore. They can Google everything they need!” I’m guessing the look on your… Read More ›
As school librarians we are constantly giving book recommendations; in fact once I’ve read an incredible book I can hardly wait to tell everyone I know about it and put it in their hands too! However, there have been times… Read More ›