Ideas

NEW TRIER's LIBRARIANS SHARING IDEAS Some basic ideas: Eat lunch in the cafeteria. Talk to everyone. Don't just sit with people you know.

Be active on school committees so they get to know and trust you.

Start with one person at a time...build from that. Teachers on the same "team" will copy each other's ideas.

Send emails, or put resources in their mailboxes.

Inform your administrators about what you are doing...they can then promote "working with a librarian". Some progressive school administrators make that a conversation during evaluations.

Offer to grade bibliographies. Offer to help with rubrics for class projects.

Visit the classrooms when student presentations (resulting from research projects) are occurring. Ask to be invited. Some teachers are amenable to having you evaluate class projects.

Work with teachers to develop "research folders" to emphasize process over product.

If possible, offer to "teach" in their classrooms.

Offer appointments to students to help discuss sources, bibs, thesis statements, how to support arguments.

Whenever possible, offer staff development-type sessions to promote what you can do in the classroom. (new tools like Photostory, Google tools, info literacy, etc so teachers don't have to go outside the school to get their prof. development needs met.

Know the curriculum. Be at the forefront of curriculum mapping if the departments don't already have them in place.

Ask for teacher requests for books, AV, etc. Let them know you will buy to enhance their curriculum. As soon as you get something new...share it with teachers who might need it.

Library Success: Best Practices wiki also has useful ideas. - this is more oriented toward the college level. [|http://www.libsuccess.org/index.php?title=Main_Page] see this section: [|http://www.libsuccess.org/index.php?title=Successful_Collaborations]

Offer to collaborate on projects...make suggestions when you can.

Offer to collaborate on pathfinders....don't stay holed up in the library with your head in your computer. You can do computer tasks at home. You can't visit colleagues at home.

Learn what students are working on at the computers. If you see assignments you don't know about, quiz the students and then you can inform teachers about cool materials you have (or can find) that will work with that assignment.

Deliver things to their desks.

Become the building "expert" on copyright, plagiarism, evaluating web resources.

Key to collaboration-- the librarian must show initiative, confidence, communication skills, leadership qualities, and, above all, the willingness to take risks.

Library media specialists must assume partnership and look for opportunities to plan with teachers, rather than waiting to be asked.

Collaboration doesn't have to be about the usual curriculum. It can be around something like the Presidential Election....e.g. resources you developed for school wide use...and the first 100 days.

Be addicted to learning....share (even at the lunch table) one cool thing you learned today...of course you can easily do this if you are addicted to twitter. You will have more to share if you, yourself are a lifelong learner...

Booktalks, bookfairs, Teen Read Week, National Library week, other fun initiatives in the library

Start a book club either for students or for teachers.

Partner with your local public librarians, especially if you are a solo librarian. Most of your audience will be solo librarians....doing everything.

Host "orientation to the library" with any new teachers (1st or 2nd year teachers especially). Example of this: last year new International Relations course. Got the syllabus from this brand new teacher...Raquelle & I created a collaborative Google doc which we shared with the new teacher to show what websites, movies, books, REFERENCE materials, etc we had to support the new course.