AASL Standards Framework Interview #1

Note: The following interview of Mrs. Farr, the Ralph Chandler Middle School media specialist, regarding the AASL standards framework, occurred on September 2, 2021.

Include: AASL School Library Framework Shared Foundation

Examples of the ways in which Mrs. Farr is implementing the include competency in her library program is through promoting diverse books. Social justice books are “kind of her thing” - a fact her principal shared that led him to believe she was the right person for the job. With a student population lacking in diversity, promoting diverse books allows her students to read about kids who are having different life experiences than them. After assessing her collection, and seeing a lack in diverse books, she is making it a goal to purchase and then promote these books. She is pleased with the diversity among the current South Carolina Junior Book Award Nominees, most of which she has read; she talks up these books, displayed in the front of the library, when students visit the library and during class orientations.

The main resource in the library program used to implement the include competency is providing students with the books to read about diverse viewpoints. Mrs. Farr has also considered beginning a social justice club at her school, modeled after Riverside High School’s club, Students for Change, in which students select and work on a community project together. As for the future, she would like to promote Banned Book Week, using the many promotional materials her library already has, and will seek advice from her middle school Listserv on how to do so.

The include competency that Mrs. Farr is implementing includes collaboration with classroom teachers through classroom book clubs. For example, two 6^th grade ELA teachers selected two carts of books in which the library possessed many copies. After sharing these books with their class, the students returned to the library to check out their selected books for a small group book clubs. Additionally, seventh grade teachers sought the former librarian's help in selecting books for their class book club last year; based on this request for help and the diverse viewpoints of the chosen books, it was felt that the librarian encouraged the teachers to purchase these diverse books.   

The challenges Mrs. Farr faces when trying to implement the include competency is being a librarian for the first time this year. While she taught elementary school for the previous 17 years, it seems transitioning to this new role is an adjustment, as any new job is; she feels the knowledge of how to best carry out the include competency in the library will come in time. For example, she mentioned not knowing what her new school community was like yet; perhaps conducting a community and school analysis as we did in SLIS 720 School Library Program Development would be helpful in her understanding of her new educational environment.

There were no additional comments she would like to share regarding the include competency.

Collaborate: AASL School Library Framework Shared Foundation

Examples of the ways in which Mrs. Farr is implementing the collaborate competency in the library program include library orientations and check out times. She has collaborated with ELA classroom teachers to arrange specific times for the students to visit the library and learn about its services through an orientation. She has also talked to ELA teachers to request that they set up regular library visits to check out books; for example, one teacher is set up to visit the library with her four classes every other Friday for 15 minutes. Mrs. Farr’s library website has its Google Calendar of scheduled visits imbedded with instructions to contact her to set up class visits.

One of the resources in Mrs. Farr’s library program that she is using to implement the collaborate competency is Destiny. She uses Destiny to teach the students how get online and find and reserve books. She then delivers those requested books to their homeroom teacher.

The collaborate competency includes collaboration with a teacher through a graphic novel project. A 6^th grade teacher would like to create a ComicCon-like event the two days before Thanksgiving. To prepare, the students will read a graphic novel about a famous person or event, then create their own graphic novel online. This teacher has asked Mrs. Farr for suggestions on which graphic novel creator to use; she has researched Book Creator and PowToons and is leaning toward the latter for its sharing capabilities. 

Mrs. Farr is also participating in a USC library research project collaboration with Dr. Green. The project is to determine how school librarians improve students’ test scores. Mrs. Farr is going to create a social studies unit with a 7^th grade teacher, while another social studies teacher will prepare the unit without a librarian’s assistance. Students in both classes will be administered pre and post tests and the results will be compared to determine which group of students better performed.

One challenge Mrs. Farr faces when trying to implement the collaborate competency is making the school view her library program as valuable. In fact, some students have never been in the school’s library before because it was closed last year due to COVID. She said it will take time to make the school’s community see the benefit of the library program.  

Mrs. Farr feels the collaborate competency is the most important framework to her. As a former classroom teacher, she feels the library can offer so much to the school as a whole. Building librarian-classroom teacher relationships will be necessary before the library will be viewed as a collaboration source. When asked why teachers don’t use the librarian as a collaborative teacher, Mrs. Farr responded, “It is a time issue. [Plus] the librarians need to make themselves look valuable.” The librarians need to reach out to the teachers and say, “Hey, let me help you, I have good ideas; let me help make your instruction better.” Once teachers experience the benefit of working with the librarian, they will want to work with the librarian again in the future. 

Explore: AASL School Library Framework Shared Foundation

Some examples of the ways and resources in which Mrs. Farr is implementing the explore competency in her library program in person supports their learning in a virtual environment. She teaches students when they’re in the library how to use the library website. For example, she teaches students how to use the library website to access Destiny, Sora, the library calendar, book reservations, and first page Friday recorded read alouds. 

The explore competency does not currently include collaboration with the classroom teachers. Mrs. Farr believes these activities can be done independently by the students online without the teacher’s help.

Some of the challenges that Mrs. Farr faces why trying to implement the explore competency is getting the information about the library out to students. Unlike other schools, her school does not have a news show, morning announcements, or TVs around campus. Therefore, she feels she needs to come up with creative ways to tell her students about library events such as book club and battle of the books.

Mrs. Farr feels there is a good network of school librarians in Greenville County’s school district. She is on a listserv with all of these librarians. Within that group there’s a middle school media specialist listserv of 13 librarians. The group connects together well virtually and in-person due to their small size and shared experience.

 Curate: AASL School Library Framework Shared Foundation

Some of the ways in which Mrs. Farr is implementing the curate competency in her library program is through teacher and student resources. While she is new to the position, she is still working on developing this competency for teachers but currently has a section on her website with Google tutorials. Her plan is to add the resources teachers need to her website as they arise. The student resources section of her website has the same Google tutorial, plus links to Discus and Greenville County Public libraries.

The library website and Destiny collections are the resources in Mrs. Farr’s library program that she is using to implement the curate competency.

Before implementing teacher collaboration regarding the curate competency Mrs. Farr needs to know what topics teachers need help with beforehand. Again, where she is new in this role, she feels this information with come with time.  

A challenge Mrs. Farr faces when trying to implement the curate competency is hoping teachers will contact her for help. Unless they contact her, she does not know if and/or what they need help with. This goes back to the importance of librarians reaching out to teachers to let them know how they can help them.