For school librarians, technology is an essential component of their work. To meet the growing need in this area, Odin Jurkowski first wrote Technology and the School Library in 2006. To address the technological advancements, Jurkowski provides an overview of the types of technologies used in school libraries, from traditional low-tech options to…

The collection in a school library should reflect the community it serves. When curating information and ideas for new books and materials in the school library, the school librarian should communicate with students, faculty, parents, and administration through a variety of digital tools and resources. Input from your school community is crucial…

This article explores all the actions and opportunities school librarians take to reinforce reading instruction and reinforce learners' growing reading skills. It also details ways to enhance reading instruction through technology and makerspaces.

Due to the development of new 21st-century technologies, the world of children's and young adult literature is continually changing. For example, one of the fastest-growing multimodal formats that today's visually literate youth embrace is the digital graphic novel. Digital graphic novels are graphic novels produced on and/or accessed on some form…

Building a personal learning network (PLN) for intellectual freedom has long been an important role of a school librarian; however, in the steadily increasing onslaught of digital information that librarians face today, and in the future, the task has become mission-critical. Personal learning, it stands to reason, requires an appropriate dialogue…

Collaboration and coteaching with classroom teachers and campus specialists are the cornerstones of a successful school library program. Whereas collaboration is the process of planning a lesson or unit of instruction, coteaching suggests a much deeper level of collaboration--one in which both the teacher and campus specialist (be it school…

Academic, government, and corporate librarians organize and leverage internal resources and content through institutional repositories and library catalogs. Getting more value and usage from the content they license is a key goal. However, the ever-growing amount of content and shifting user demands for new materials or features has made the…

School librarians need a simple action plan for overcoming the barriers to adopting School Library 2.0. This book provides one, and describes how fully integrating technology would dramatically benefit 21st-century schools. Despite the substantial efforts that have been made to bring schools into the 21st century, research indicates that the…

To assume the role of technology leaders and information literacy specialists in their schools, librarians need access to the most current information. And, they do this by helping each other. There are many definitions, but professional learning networks (PLNs) involve sharing work-related ideas with a network of colleagues via various digital…

When it comes to helping others learn, there is a simple piece of advice that is often recommended to educators: Show! Don't tell. While appealing to the visual learning style of an audience is always a good idea, there is a growing expectation for more than just static images. They want video, which can deliver more dynamic presentations with…

This study explores the perceptions that Israeli reference librarians have of their jobs and their academic environment. Fifteen academic reference librarians were interviewed over a period of four months and their answers were analyzed using the thematic analysis approach. The analysis resulted in five major themes: 1) elements in reference work…

The workload of Web librarians is already split between Web-related and other library tasks. But today's technological environment has created new implications for existing services and new demands for staff time. It is time to reconsider how libraries can best allocate resources to provide effective Web services. Delivering high-quality services…

In an effort to address the lack of empirical knowledge about the school librarians' role in technology, the Institute for Museum and Library Services funded Project Leadership-in-Action (LIA) to study leadership practices of school librarians. This current grant project includes a survey of the technology integration practices of school…

School librarians need to be proactive in identifying new ways to help students prepare for the world of the future. Students need relevant educational experiences that support emerging demands created by information and service based economies. The economies of Pacific Rim countries such as the USA, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Canada are…

Cuts abound despite an infusion of technology, restructured media programs, and research connecting media specialists to improved student achievement. Verbal and written support about the value of a library or media specialist has not translated into monetary support at a time of universal funding problems. All grade levels and district sizes are…