Category Archives: Marketing

Advocacy Is Not Optional

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Chapter 8 Advocacy by Kristin Fraga Sierra and TuesD Chambers
Blog post by Judi Moreillon

“Spreading the message for stakeholders to advocate for the program is an essential activity for today’s school librarian, particularly during school closures” (Sierra and Chambers 123).

Kristin and TuesD began their chapter with a note about the critical need for advocacy, particularly in times of stress and change such as the school closures that occurred while they were writing Chapter 8.

In their experience (and in my own), school librarians who are leaders must be intentional about communicating and building relationships with library stakeholders in order to develop a team of advocates who have first-hand experience with the value of working with a state-certified school librarian and providing students with access to the full range of resources available through the school library program.

Advocacy is not optional.

Creating the Welcoming Space
Before communicating the value of the library program, the librarian must create a space in the library that serves all students, educators, administrators, and families—all library stakeholders. These are some strategies for building a space for belonging:

  • Focus on students first;
  • Listen intently to library stakeholders when they express their needs;
  • Distribute marketing tools such as surveys to collect feedback.

In all cases, make changes to the policies, physical space, programs, and teaching and learning opportunities based on feedback from library stakeholders.

Communication Strategies
The coauthors provide many examples of public relations communication strategies that build library stakeholders knowledge of the value of the library program. These are some:

  • Newsletters with section tailored to the needs of specific stakeholders;
  • One-page infographics that summarize the influence and impact of the library program on learning and teaching;
  • Flyers and invitations to literacy events and teaching and learning opportunities offered in the library space;
  • Social media posts that promote books and share the learning experiences of students’ literacy-focused clubs;
  • And more.

Building Relationships
In every aspect of their work, school librarians must be intentional relationship builders. Putting people first is a leadership behavior.

Whether this focus is evidenced through policies such as late fees or lost materials, providing diverse resources to equitably meet the needs all educators and students, or teaching and learning activities that are inclusive of multiple perspectives, the focus on people means that school librarians will build a cadre of advocates as an organic aspect of their work. Others will have first-hand experiences of how the work of the school librarian and the resources and activities in the library program made a difference in their learning and teaching.

“Strong advocacy work is absolutely necessary to the survival of the school library and is a core, undeniable element to the position of the school librarian” (Sierra and Chambers 124). (Sierra and Chambers 124)

Responding to School- and District-level Priorities
While school librarians will have particular areas of expertise and interest, if they are to be successful, they must align their work with the perceived needs of the school and district. They must be able to tell a “library story” that matters to their decision-maker stakeholders

“We need to keep in mind that library numbers and statistics
are pretty meaningless to anyone else unless they are connected
to your school and/or district priorities”
(Len Bryan cited in Sierra and Chambers 129).

This does not mean stepping away from the work of school librarianship and serving as a reading intervention teacher or technology coach throughout the school day. Rather it means, showing administrators with those needs that the work school librarians do will help them reach their goals. In these cases, improve students’ reading proficiency and students’ and educators’ use of educational technology.

This means teaching and coteaching with classroom teachers to achieve student learning targets, assessing student learning outcomes, and determining how to improve instruction in order for more students or all students to reach standards-based learning goals.

With these data in hand, school librarians will demonstrate to administrators how their work matters, and administrators will understand and value school librarians’ impact on teaching and influence on student learning.

Reflection Question
“What types of advocacy efforts have you led or been a part of in your career or schooling experience and what were the outcomes?” (Sierra and Chambers 137).

Work Cited

Sierra, Kristin Fraga, and TuesD Chambers. 2021. “Advocacy.” In Core Values in School Librarianship: Responding with Commitment and Courage, ed. Judi Moreillon, 123-138. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.

School Library Blogs

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This month, the Building a Culture of Collaboration (BACC) co-bloggers are sharing information about school library and librarian blogs. Each of us will spotlight various blogs and bloggers and share why we think these sites are useful resources for school librarians.

Edublog-Awards-1mb7e9dEach year, Edublogs-hosted blogs in various categories are nominated for the “eddies.” (Note: BACC is hosted by Edublogs.) “The purpose of the Edublog awards is to promote and demonstrate the educational values of these social media. The best aspects include that it creates a fabulous resource for educators to use for ideas on how social media is used in different contexts, with a range of different learners. It introduces us all to new sites that we might not have found if not for the awards process.”

Congratulations to Katie Dolan and Kathy Counterman, two Texas school librarians, whose sites earned #15eddies in the “best library blog” category.

Katie Dolan is the school librarian at James Randolph Elementary (JRE) School library in the Katie Independent School District. Katie and her library program earned the top award for the best library blog. Edna Mae Fielder Elementary School Librarian Kathy Counterman, also from Katy ISD, earned the third-place best library blog award.

School librarians use their library blogs for many purposes, including promoting books, reading, and literacy events, publishing student work as well as educators’ lessons, and interacting with students, classroom teachers, administrators, parents, and the community at-large. School librarians can analyze the content of these two bloggers’ sites to get ideas to implement in their own teaching, to lively up their own library blogs, or to get ideas for starting a school library blog in 2016.

#15eddies graphic used with permission

Reaching Out to the ELA-R Department

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ELAR_LibraryI asked Becky McKee, District Librarian, Mabank ISD, to share more details about a brief mention she posted to the Texas Library Connection distribution list about her initial efforts to reach out to teachers in a district where she is new this year. She has given me permission to share what she did when she had five minutes to talk with middle/junior high school (JHS) English language arts and reading (ELA-R) teachers where they were participating in another meeting.

First, Becky gave each teacher a copy of the “You Might Need a Librarian If” handout. (See BACC post from Monday, August 31st.) She followed that up with giving way four prizes. The first prize was a fancy spiral notebook to the first ELA-R teacher who could tell her about something that she/he wrote over the summer. Then she talked about the importance of students seeing adults compose. She volunteered to help develop some short opportunities for writing.

Next, she gave away a 2015 Texas Lone Star Reading List to the first teacher who volunteered to talk about a young adult novel she/he read over the summer. Then Becky talked about the importance of students seeing adults read, and previewed a Lone Star Contest that she plans to implement for JHS teachers.

Then she gave away a poster that said: “Today is a great day to learn something new” to the first person who could tell her something new they’d learned during the in-service that week. (Becky noted that her principal was lingering in the area and really liked this; she smiled when Becky asked the question. This was strategic on Becky’s part.)

Finally, Becky gave away a bag of snack mix to the person who had the closest birthday to hers. In this way, all of the teachers knew a little more about Becky, and Becky knew at least one other person’s birthday.

Becky reported that later that day she had a productive conversation with the JHS ELA-R department head about some writing ideas and a reading teacher followed her suggestion about a specific title for her remedial reading class and asked Becky to order a class set of the book.

Assessment: Success!

Get your school year off to a positive start. Reach out. Be warm, friendly, and ready to serve.

Thank you again to Becky for allowing me to share her marketing strategies and her success! You can reach Becky on Twitter @bsmartr_educatr or rsmckee@mabankisd.net

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