You can ensure that your school library is a place where teens feel seen, heard, and inspired. "Growing Teen Engagement" is your essential resource for transforming your secondary school library into a thriving, learner-centered community. Whether you're looking to inspire creativity, encourage teamwork, or build emotional resilience,…

In this article, the author examines the need of the Future Ready Librarians (FRL) initiative. The FRL Framework helps define how librarians might lead, teach, and support schools based on the core research-based components defined by Future Ready. The framework and initiative are intended to be ways to change the conversation about school…

This article shares the story of the author's involvement in a national literacy initiative known as the African American Read-In (AARI) in Springfield, Missouri. The article highlights successes that public school librarians and university librarians are experiencing as they work together to promote diversity and reading through a community-wide…

This article describes the author's (an elementary school librarian) journey as she researched various bike bookmobile programs in the United States. Though the three programs had different target audiences, all the bike bookmobiles that she observed generated excitement and interest in reading. Public interest for each program was high. People…

In this article, Summer Creek High School (Harris County, Texas) librarian, Louise Lankau shares a formula for successfully integrating technology via the school library and reaching every department and teacher in a school of 2,500 students and 170 teachers. The challenge is that the teaching staff at Summer Creek increases each year to…

How long does it take to form a habit? Recent research done at the University College London by Phillippa Lally and colleagues suggest it takes an average of sixty-six days to form a new habit. Other research indicates that rewards make habits easier to form, but it takes repetition to form a habit. A literature review conducted for Pearson…

A school librarian may or may not have access to the same students on a daily basis as would a teacher. This could be a good thing or a bad thing. Often, students are drawn to those who are not their "teacher," and a bond is naturally formed. In other instances, students may not seek this bond. Either way, a school librarian can reach out to…

This article describes a nearly decade-long partnership between three institutions representing school, public, and academic settings in Westchester County, New York. The program, designed to improve the academic performance of local high school students, is unique due to the extensive contact students have with academic librarians during the…

The late rapper Tupac Shakur wrote a poem called "The Rose that Grew from Concrete" that serves as a good metaphor for helping educators, including school librarians, to disrupt stereotypical metanarratives they might have about urban youth and replace them with new narratives of hope, compassion, and high expectations for all students. Tupac's…

Two years ago, members of a strategic planning committee at Woodberry Forest School set a goal to re-engage African-American and Hispanic alumni, many of whom had lost touch with the Virginia boarding school for boys. One of the committee's ideas was to launch a mentoring program to connect current minority students with minority alumni. Two years…

Reading advocacy is an essential aspect of school librarians' role. Using their knowledge of students, school librarians provide reader's advisory, matching books to individuals based on their interests, aptitudes, and abilities. They know that reading skills are an integral part of academic achievement and work to accelerate this important…

This publication follows the tradition of publishing selected papers from the Pacific Islands Association of Libraries, Archives and Museums (PIALA) annual conferences. This 24th annual conference was held in Koror, Republic of Palau, November 10-15, 2014. This volume includes a listing of the PIALA 2014 Organizing Committee and PIALA Officers and…

Thanks in part to technology, the boundaries of library positions are dissolving. It is no longer practical to discuss the profession in terms of traditional library types, and in today's library, the relationship between librarians and technology is stronger than ever. In this informative volume, veteran author Laura Townsend Kane interviews…

While teacher-librarians embrace the concept of equitable access when they select "multicultural" materials to include in their collections, plan special programs, and teach lessons on a variety of topics, what do they do to make equitable access a part of their online catalogs? Have they achieved (or nearly achieved) a consistent level of…

There is much buzz about the new American Association of School Librarians (AASL) Standards, and while many library media specialists are just trying to get their minds around the innovative Skills format and accompanying Dispositions, Responsibilities and Self-Assessment Strategies, the author takes a moment to direct one's attention to the use…