Some of the libraries shared with us on the course were totally amazing to those of us who work in the UK. Here, we generally do not have spaces big enough to turn into “Learning Commons”, even if that idea were appropriate for our schools!

As I take part in the YSL courses I feel more and more that I am connecting with fantastic teacher-librarians from around the world who are working at a level far beyond most of us in the UK. This idea inspires me to try to achieve more – it feels like climbing up a steep mountain-side to reach the summit. On the way up, colleagues are reaching down to help us all get to the top together. As I learn more from these librarians, I realise just how much I don’t know. This is where my lack of teacher-training makes itself felt. Quite often, we are speaking different languages – and I don’t mean the fact that many of the participants come from a range of countries where English is not the first language. What I do mean is that my first language was Librarianship and theirs is Education. I have to travel towards the Education side and strive to understand a language that is sometimes not that comfortable – there are occasionally huge gaps in the translation! But I will keep trying as I feel that I somehow have to make up the deficiencies that my lack of teacher training gives me.

If that sounds negative, I don’t mean it to be. This striving for knowledge is an important part of any professional development – I have always said that when I stop learning or trying to learn, that will be the time for me to retire. Hopefully, this is a long time away!

So, what did I learn from the course this time? Well, that many of the things we had built into our tiny new library space were spot-on in terms of new ways of thinking about school libraries – particularly trying to make a flexible space, displaying books face-on as much as possible, using slatwall imaginatively, positioning of our desk, trying to build in good ICT facilities.

I also took away some more practical ideas that I immediately tried out. One library had the words “Ask, Think, Create” on the walls. This library also had a very large space which had been turned into a Learning Commons. Musical and other performances take place regularly and have been very well received. I thought about the words used on the walls and one night (when my creative thoughts tend to bounce around the most) I realised that I could extend the words to make a kind of logo for the library. The next day I played around on Publisher and made a logo with the words:

Think…Ask…Read…Imagine…Create… @ Your Library

I have used this on bookmarks, compliments slips, report covers, noticeboard frames – in fact on all library communications and stationery. The words could be put on the library walls and also fit an Information Literacy “framework”. I am going to play around with the idea some more and see where it leads.

As to the performance idea – I spoke to our Head of Music that week and suggested this to her – she was thrilled with the idea. So let’s see where that goes…

I will move on, because that issue depresses me totally and I don’t want to feel depressed right now! I love my job and am thrilled about our recently opened library. So, I have decided to write about the hows and the whys of becoming a Librarian following (a bit late) on a meme going around called Library Routes. If you are interested, have a look at The Library Routes wiki.

Well, I am probably more than a bit strange as I have always wanted to be a Librarian! No, I wasn’t born with a bun, glasses and a book in my hand – but I did learn to read at about 3-4 years old! My Mum’s family were avid users of the public library – particularly my Grandfather, who left school at 12 and educated himself by reading as many books as he could. As I grew up, I remember vividly my Mum taking us to the public library every week and before we went back again, I would have read all of my books, all of my sister’s and all of my Mum’s too! In many ways, the library was a forbidding building, but not to me. I just loved the books and the comics and especially admired the Librarian who helped me to choose what to read next – I wanted to be just like her!

Funnily enough, my school libraries were not up to much – I have vivid memories of hiding underneath the shelves in one of them with a book, trying to avoid a PE lesson. But the books were not the colourful and attractive creations that they are these days – old cloth bindings were the  norm. I probably borrowed far more from the public library than from those at school – these libraries were small and pretty unloved, with no staffing.

What I did enjoy, was going on the mobile library that visited my primary school. The Headteacher used to ask me to help return our class books to the mobile as I was good at alphabetical order! Oh, the stereotype was beginning already!

All through my school days, I cannot ever remember wavering from my goal of becoming a Librarian when I left. Without much career advice, I wrote to the Library Association, as it was then called, when I was in the Sixth Form and asked what I should do to further my career. I decided that I did not want to do a first degree in Librarianship, but went down the route of taking a degree in Ancient History and Archaeology, followed by a Master’s in Librarianship.

In those days (late 1970s), you had to do a Graduate Trainee year between the first degree and the Master’s. With my normal laziness, I didn’t try seriously enough to get this post and messed up interviews with Sheffield Public Library and Birmingham University Library! Instead, I took a Master’s in Ancient History and Archaeology, then was able to try again the next year and was lucky enough to get a post at Lancaster University Library, with a place at Sheffield to do Librarianship.

At this point, I was convinced that I was looking at a future career in academic libraries. The year at Lancaster totally changed that view! The staff there were brilliant, but I did not have a happy year at all, although I did learn a huge amount. During my time at Sheffield, I became convinced that I would go into public libraries – my first love after all. But, on leaving, the first post I was offered was in the Schools Library Service in Nottinghamshire – the Education Library Service.

I had a fantastic time working for ELS – it was great because a lot of my friends from Sheffield were also working for Nottinghamshire in a variety of library posts. After a year, some new posts came up in the city of Nottingham. These were to be the first professional librarians being placed into a number of schools. My boss, suggested that I try for one…. and a School Librarian was born!

So, looking back 27 years to that day when I first took up the date-stamp at The Manning School, do I regret the route and the choices that I made? After all, I have now worked in six schools and have never changed into another area of the profession – could I have done anything differently?

Well, I did try to change a couple of times, but somehow it wasn’t meant to be. My Mum said something to me a while ago – she said that I found my vocation when I “fell” into school librarianship! I think that she was right. From those first stumblings at Manning (I was pretty awful), to now, I wouldn’t change a thing. Along the way, I developed a passion for school librarianship – I honestly believe that it is the most important area of the profession. We play a part in shaping young minds and are privileged to see students grow and attain amazing things with our help. This is why I firmly believe that school librarianship must not be watered down – our students deserve the best-qualified and experienced people to run their libraries.

So, if you are reading this and are thinking of becoming a librarian – consider coming into schools. You can make such a huge difference! We need people who are highly educated, committed, passionate, caring, expert, knowledgeable, ICT literate, resourceful, assertive, well-read, brave, strong and bold!

School Librarianship – the greatest job in the world!

(Most of the time)

Anyway, it is progressing very well and we hope to open it soon. From the time the work started, in July, I have been taking photos and posting them on the library site – Library Online. Also, I have been tweeting (probably too much) from The Librain’s account and also my school library account – Library Online – with almost daily updates. I think that because of this activity, I have been asked to do a presentation for the next Your School Library Course!

If you are interested in library design, then this course should be very interesting. There are some great presenters – I wish I could have had this course a year ago! Anyway, if you want to find out more, then check out the flyer below:

I am not doing a detailed review of these sites, just commenting after a quick look and in terms of how useful they might be to school librarians who need a way of displaying or accessing their stock from their website.

Also, bear in mind that our library stock is very small at the moment – only 2700 items. Out of the three sites, only LibraryThing asked for a subscription as it has a limit of 500 items.

So, here are the results of trying these out:

LibraryThing
On the site, widgets are very customisable, which is nice. The issue I have is that if you upload old books, then LibraryThing puts in a generic cover, if it cannot find the real one. The generic cover is not very pretty! I have, however, been able to upload the catalogue complete with the keywords – which have gone in LibraryThing’s “tags” field. As I originally exported the catalogue records into Excel, I was able to add the Dewey number into the “tag” field as well. With some books, again old ones, it cannot find details, so they are not uploaded. You can do lots of activities on LibraryThing, such as add reviews, join groups and so on. I had thought of using the site for my Reading Group then realised that, as most of them are under 13, the site rules say that they cannot join. So I am using a wiki for this.

GuruLib

Recent books from My Library

powered by Gurulib

Gurulib seems to be a lot more basic than the other two, some of the books were not recognised, but uploading the file went very smoothly and more quickly than the other sites. I have not yet spent much time exploring the site.

Shelfari

An interesting thing about making the Shelfari widget is that you have the option to choose a tag – this would enable a lot of flexibility. The site did allow me to upload the entire catalogue, although I did have some problems initially with getting the upload to go on to the correct “shelf”! Again, I have the problem with the unrecognised books that ended up with weird covers – but if I had the time, I could scan in the real ones.

What do you think?

Well, I have now reached a similar stage in my new job – very quickly it seems! We already have the following library sites:

• Library Online – the main library site
• Library_Online Twitter account – used to put news updates on to any of the library sites
• Library Online Netvibes pages – these have been created to house news feeds from France, Germany, China and the UK. Also, I am adding in Business and Sports news feeds
• Library Online Wiki – this is a private wiki for our Reading Group

I expect you are seeing the pattern here! Yes, I am branding all of these with Library Online in order to draw all of these services together.

I have played around a bit with Wordle and made these temporary logos. These are the colours of the refurbished library – I think the one on the left looks best!

I may open this as a competition at school later on – I am sure that the students can do a better job!

I want to make this clear, because Yin has been generous enough to make me a fellow administrator, to help her with the Ning. My role, as I see it, is to support the development of it and assist new members to the Ning, if I can.

SLNers – A Network for school librarians in the UK

Membership

The Ning is owned by its members and they set the terms of who can join. All that has been said so far is that we do not want spammers or commercial members, so Yin and I ask prospective members to tell us something about themselves before we “approve” membership.

If anyone were to ask to join who we weren’t sure about, we would then ask the existing members to decide. We are not trying to be an elitist or exclusive club, but just protecting the Ning from spammers in the main.

Activities

Ning allows us to add discussions, groups and resources to be shared with members. Again, the entire membership will decide what they want on the Ning, but the general feeling so far is that, without being boring and humourless, we want to discuss and share things that will help us learn and develop as librarians.

So far, we have shared quite a lot of helpful things, such as Web2.0 tools, books that we enjoy, links with university libraries and book trailers. Members have uploaded photos and videos.

The US TeacherLibrarian Ning is a great example to follow – let’s enjoy learning together!

So I doubt that anything will some of it, except for me personally and professionally.

So, The Librain will shut up for a while as I have nothing more to say on here. Thanks to those who commented here and also who said something positive on SLN.

Dear Colleagues,

This is most probably the very last time that I will write to you via SLN. You probably thought that I had left anyway, but I have been reading the posts on the Yahoo site for some time. I make no apologies for what I am about to say – I think that someone needs to say it. As I am well known for sticking my neck out, I will do so as I feel so strongly about SLN and all the support that it has given me over the ten years that I have been a member.

A large group of committed, professional and passionate school librarians is a wonderful thing. We support each other in a way that I think very few other professions do. We care about each other and try to help. We welcome new members to our profession and do everything we can to assist their development in what I believe is one of the most important roles in education.

Over the years I have been a member of SLN, members have given me so much – I don’t think that I could have achieved what I have without you. I have tried to repay that by sharing my own experience and expertise as much as I can. I hope people agree that I have been generous with my own ideas and knowledge gained through many years of experience, professional development and education. I have also joined in some of the fun stuff on SLN and feel that many of you are more than professional colleagues – we have a comradeship and friendship that has lasted for many years.

So, it is with great sadness that I have to write this. Today I am embarrassed to be a member of SLN. For the last few weeks a large group of members have been discussing off-list just how SLN has descended to a completely trivial and unprofessional level. There is a very large and wide membership including professional librarians from many sectors, commercial interests, international colleagues. It is totally shocking that they see UK school librarians discussing insect bites, Dewey numbers, and other low-level trivia!

Many of us are also shocked at how easily colleagues “give away” their hard earned knowledge and expertise. Before Easter, I was attacked on the list for suggesting that school librarians should have proper training to do their job. Professional qualifications were rubbished by one member. Yet, the list relies on a large group of expert librarians who readily share their professionalism with others. Let me state my belief firmly and unequivocally – school librarians need training! Yes, there are some brilliant people who do not have formal librarianship qualifications – but all of the best school librarians have had training of some kind – courses from SLA, SLG, local SLSs. Anne-Marie, Ingrid, Nikki – have all had some training!

This is from the description of SLN from the Yahoo site: “We aim to promote the professional standing of the school librarian, and encourage all unqualified school librarians to develop their skills and knowledge through relevant courses and qualifications. SLN is not itself a substitute for proper training.”

So why do so many of you continue to support SLN members who have no intention of doing any training? Why are you allowing their schools to get away with employing people with no knowledge of librarianship and then training them on SLN for free?

At the very least – have colleagues no fear that their headteachers will see this as the way forward? Are you all that secure in your jobs?

Good, committed and able school librarians are leaving this list in some numbers, others are now posting very infrequently. Is this what members want? If the main topics on the list are so trivial, the expertise will be driven away to other places where we can raise the level.

Those are my thoughts.

Farewell
Anne