New online book club for school library staff - What next?

Running an online book club

Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash

Well, it has been and gone. My first attempt to create some professional development for school library staff. After a sudden and inexplicably impulsive suggestion that I wanted to set up an online book club I found myself having to put my money where my mouth was. Too many of my twitter friends thought it was a great idea so I had to find a way to make it work. 

My plan, well I didn't really have a plan, and to be honest I still don't! Was to create a platform for book suggestions and provide an area for discussion. I have joined in several twitter chats and felt that this was something that I could do but also wanted to provide a platform for those who don't use social media. This was why Padlet was chosen. I was not sure whether to post the link open to all or keep it for those that asked for it and have currently decided to keep it closed.  I may be wrong but this feels like a little like signing up for it which gives it a little more status. If you want to join in after reading this, either email me at ehutchinson@library.gg or follow me on twitter @elizabethutch. Be aware that I don't automatically follow back so you will need to post a message to me saying that you want to join. At that point, I will follow you and give you the link to the Padlet. 

The first discussion took place on the 23rd January both on the Padlet and on twitter. We had chosen to read Reading by Right by Joy Court. After 2 hours of moderating I was shattered. I did learn a lot from the experience and will be making changes to the next one. I have also had some very useful feedback too that will be taken into consideration too. 

My thoughts on the first discussion 

• I need to consider my focus for my questions. Am I wanting to engage in school library discussion or more about the book? I think this was a little difficult with the first book Reading by Right by Joy Court as it had very specific chapters and it lent itself to linking what we do in practice. This meant that it was possible to join in the conversation even if you hadn't read the book. I don't think this will be the case with every book so will monitor as we work our way through the next few books. 

• I had far too many questions. 10 in an hour does not lend itself to a good discussion. I was moving to the next question just as an interesting discussion was starting on Padlet. On Twitter, I did not have time to join in the discussion myself as I was too busy getting the next question ready. I felt that I could not change this once it had started because I had already posted a link to the questions out on Twitter. I could, however, have some reserve questions in future! (Thanks, Janet!)

• I need to sit at a desk and not the kitchen table as I was aching after I had finished 2hrs of talking on the computer...

• Is the Padlet the best platform for this discussion? We had to keep refreshing in order to see other peoples comments and it felt a little disjointed although I am not sure if there is a platform that would give us what we need. I don't intend to change it for now as it may be that we just need to get used to it. 

• I also need to think about keeping a 'request only' link to the Padlet. I am not sure if it will get too big to have a proper discussion if too many people are involved. Will I have time to keep adding people? I think I will have to monitor to see how this goes. 

• Twitter, this worked well but I just need fewer questions and maybe someone else moderating with me. One person to ping out the questions and another to respond to comment might work better. Looking for volunteers :)  

• The books need to be reasonably priced, most of the time. I had not thought about this at all and chose the first one on book suggestions and votes. I don't want to be restricted by price all of the time as there will be some really useful books that we should be reading that will have a higher price. I will try to make sure that at least every other book is one everyone can afford to buy.

• This is a very useful thing to do and there is a need for this kind of #PD for school library staff

Where next?

I am very pleased with the enthusiasm for this book club. I do feel that there is a need to continue it. I hope that everyone taking part will suggest books or if not at least vote for what they would like to read. I don't want to feel like I am making all the decisions and so far that is not the case. 

If you have any feedback on the last discussion or any suggestions please feel free to comment below. This is very much our book club and I will try, as best I can, to make it worthwhile for everyone taking part. 

5 easy steps to full integration of your school library and librarian

The Role Of The School Librarian In Teaching And Learning

They are essential for the information world of today and tomorrow

The full article can be found on edCurcuit 

How can the Head Teacher/Principal effect change?

Find out if you have employed a qualified librarian or not. If you do, make sure you are supporting them to do the job you have employed them to do.

• Question your teachers about how they have included the school library and the librarian into their teaching.
• Expect to see the school library and librarian in their lesson planning.
• Embed information literacy at policy level with the help of the school librarian.
• Make the school librarian head of a department.
• Make sure the school librarian attends meetings regarding teaching and learning.

Reading and traditional school #libraries

What is more important, keeping a traditional school library or putting books into the hands of the children?

This is not as simple as it seems. Which librarian would want to keep a room full of unused books if they had the opportunity to give those books to children who do not have the opportunity to have access to books anywhere else? Why in this instance would you demand that the Dewey system was the best way forward?

I have read many articles including this one on " why I won't ditch Dewey" and I wholeheartedly agree with all of them. We should teach the children to use the library properly, but what if that is not possible now and getting the books into children's hands is? I have also read Successful school libraries which demonstrates good practice but what if all this is still not possible. 

We help support all school libraries in our area, and up till now they have all had traditional library spaces. We have one small primary school that is really focused on improving literacy in the school and has an infant and junior library. They are asking us to change the 'traditional' set up of infant library resources and this is my dilemma. 

The infant library is tiny and in a corridor and there is nowhere else to put it. It is not very accessible and cannot be used for class visits. We have discussed a redesign that would allow it to be more open but financially that is not possible. Last summer they asked us to split the library up and put bits of it into each infant classroom making the resources available to the children in the classrooms but we were not keen to encourage this as it would reduce the amount of access each child had to all the books. We also felt that a tiny library is better than no library at all!

As I have already said they have a wonderful reading scheme for the infants that is used heavily, children are given a colour banding and encouraged to swap books within that band, there are both fiction and non-fiction books in this scheme. These books are in the library and the children are used to going and choosing books from there. This is done before school, usually with their parents but they are never encouraged to choose from the library stock. There are several reasons for this but mainly they are difficult to access when a lot of children are in the small space and the parents know if their child had been given a red colour banding that if they choose it from that box they are doing the right thing and its easy. 

I have therefore suggested that we add the library books into the reading scheme so that the children get more selection and the library books are just not sitting on shelves. In order for this to work we need to ensure that any teacher who did use non-fiction books from the library as a resource within a topic is encouraged to issued these books to themselves and take them to the classroom. This will need to be monitored as it depends on how many there are as we still may have to store them in the library space. This is could be a better solution anyway as the children will see the teachers using the library too. 

I am not sure if I have agreed to do the right thing. On one level this seems right. By putting them into the reading scheme we are giving more choice and there will be a chance that the books are read. On the other hand this is not a 'traditional' library and it will be impossible to run library skills lessons, if we ever get the chance to do this, as nothing will be in traditional order therefore really difficult to find. Banding them will just mean that on the catalogue they will just be in the 'red' section. At this point in time we are a long way off from teaching basic library skills lessons to these infants. 

The positive of this is that the school has agreed to do transition library lessons from yr2 to yr3 so that in the juniors they will learn what a traditional library is like and have the skills taught then. This can be built on and feels very positive. 

I'm not sure if any of this makes sense but your comments would be appreciated.