It seems hard to believe, but Judy Gressel and the New Trier librarians started this blog a full decade ago.
Since then, multiple authors have written just under 700 posts and had roughly 150,000 page views!
 We are really excited about promoting future conversations as we continue to explore many new and different ways that will continue to impact how we teach and learn. Thanks for your support - see you in the future!
The national School
Librarian of the year is Todd Burleson of Hubbard Woods School in Winnetka. See the School Library Journal article and announcement for more details.
Having worked several years
ago with Todd at Hubbard Woods on creative and inventive projects like “The
Sky’s the Limit” about all aspects of flight, I am personally very excited that
his work as an educator is being recognized nationally. Todd has been
instrumental in collaborating with District 36 and the Parent-Teacher
Organization to create a “libratory” at Hubbard Woods. Having this IDEA
LAB makerspace recognized on a national level is a wonderful affirmation of his
– and the District’s – focus on the whole child. Todd’s work has
been profiled in the local press, including The Chicago Tribune, and is
described in more detail on the Hubbard Woods School site
and his blog: http://toddburleson.wixsite.com/hwsidealab
I was very fortunate to have viewed the many changes to the Hubbard Woods library in person during the celebration of Hubbard Woods’ 100th year. And earlier this summer, Todd generously acted as a guest lecturer for a graduate Library Science course; he certainly was an inspiration to the new school librarians from all
around Illinois. By far the favorite speaker, Todd's pictures and descriptions of the renovated space were
very energizing for all involved.
It is so stimulating and
motivating to see the many new spaces available to students in our community –
whether it is the new library in W250 on New Trier’s Winnetka campus, the
inviting look which has been created at Northfield, changes to the local public
libraries, like Winnetka’s new children’s area, or the very innovative library space
at Hubbard Woods School! Congratulations to Todd –
can’t wait to see what comes next!
I had the wonderful privilege of working with graduate
students in library science this summer and one of the topics that really
caught our attention is Future Ready Librarians.
This initiative is part of the Future Ready Schools work which
at least 2200 superintendents from 17 states (representing 16.3 million
learners) have pledged to support. That
list includes local Winnetka D36. Basically,
the focus is on digital technology and transformative learning.
Take a moment and glance at these graphics… what do you
notice?
What do you see? Personalized Student Learning at the center? The many, many facets of a school librarian’s
role? The opportunities for leverage and
impact? The focus on how we actively promote (builds, designs,
empowers, leads, facilitates, etc.) student learning?
I encouraged my graduate students to be proactive and
initiate conversations on Future Ready Librarians with their administrators,
particularly because these materials helpfully highlight the many ways in which
school librarians are positioned as leaders in the digital transformation of student
learning.
Now, take a few moments and reflect on your own
practices. What are your strengths?
Where do you want to grow this year so as to be more future ready?
Based on an annual study from Follett and School Library Journal, we can see
that the percent of school libraries offering eBooks has plateaued, although
the size of the collections continues to grow:
Perhaps this is due to the
disparity in pricing and availability, which while better than a few years ago,
is still an issue for libraries. Based
on work pioneered at Douglas County Public Library, we looked at comparable prices for this year’s Abe
Lincoln award nominees:
The above chart basically shows
that a librarian could buy roughly 20 (21) hardcovers OR 40 paperbacks OR 18
ebooks for the same money ($320 to $325). That amount is roughly double the
cost that an individual would spend on Amazon ($172) to buy the same eBooks or,
again, roughly double the cost of buying one paperback copy ($161) of each
title. Prices are as of June 2016. Perhaps we will see some movement in the
future as more consolidations occur.
This past spring, Follett purchased Baker & Taylor and last year, OverDrive announced it was being acquired.
Do you have an interesting
way to promote eBooks? Let us know. Interested in etextbooks use of digital
content in schools? Check out this joint report from ASCD and OverDrive, published in April 2016.
Good Charts by Scott Berinato is published by Harvard Business Review
Press so it understandably uses examples relating to the corporate world (power
outages, customer complaints and revenue, for example). However, it is written
in such an accessible way that our students will definitely benefit from many
of its suggestions on how to best present and read graphs. Berinato “speaks” to the reader and asks
numerous questions and shows many charts (both good and bad), encouraging
interaction with them and the data they display. Sections with titles like “When
A Chart Hits Our Eyes” or “Getting into Their Minds: Storytelling” further encourages
the reader to think critically about the reasons for sharing data and how to
best do so, often needing to follow Berinato’s mantra to “deconstruct and
reconstruct.” I look forward to sharing Good Charts by Scott
Berinato with Social Studies, Business and even Art teachers and classes. If you would like to see more right now, read Berinato's "Visualizations that Really Work" online from the June 2016 issue of Harvard Business Review.
Visual Literacy is an area that we are
increasingly exploring in the library profession. This 2015 Knowledge Quest article, for example,
explores the possible connections with Math, Science and English Language Arts
and this Edutopia post from 2014 offers several
strategy suggestions. More recently, Journalist’s Resource has published an
article, “Getting Started with Data Visualization,” that we have recommended to our newspaper
classes along with several database (Statista) and open sources (Pew Research
Center) on this Classlinks
page. If you have other ideas to suggest,
please let us know.
I will leave you with a chance to reflect upon a couple of charts; one leads to Berinato's article and the other (click to enlarge) from the Knowledge Quest article illustrates commonalities amongst disciplines -- where the library can often be a leverage point:
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