BVSD Libraries: April Announcements

Think! Looking at Innovative Spaces

How This School Library Increased Its Student Use by 1,000 Percent: To adapt to changing student needs, some school libraries are reinventing themselves as makerspaces, but this Ohio library took a slightly different approach. Now they’re seeing incredible results.
10 Trends Driving Successful School and University Design: See this photo gallery exploring the common threads of design embraced by schools and universities across the country
12 Major Trends in Library Design: Trends and ideas to consider as the physical space of our libraries evolve to accommodate both traditional and digital assets and continue to provide space for collaboration, contemplation, group work, and research and technology instruction.

You can access your aggregate collection analysis in both Mackin and Follett Titlewave. (You may have received confirmation emails about this.) Feel free to log in to your accounts and check out your library statistics according to the Mackin and Follett standards. Compare your library to a companion library within the district.

Transform Your School Library (TYSL): Sponsored by your friends at Mackin with the goal of creating a forum where “like-minded educators who are excited about the transformation of school libraries can have an arena to work within and help to secure the future of school libraries and school librarianship.” Check out the discussion forum and the blog for timely conversations and insights from library thought-leaders.
ISTE @Denver: WE ARE SENDING FIVE TEACHER LIBRARIANS TO ISTE (BVSD IT/Ed Tech is covering the full cost of registration)! Submit your interest to this form BY APRIL 8th @4:00pm and we will hold a raffle to select these five lucky attendees! If you are selected to attend, you are required to come back and share your learning through a teacher librarian meeting, libinar or other district professional development. We will notify ISTE winners the week of April 11th.

Hello, I am Zoe Midler, BSVD’s new Digital Literacy Specialist. It’s wonderful to virtually meet you all. I am a former Teacher-Librarian and Information and Learning Technology Director working primarily in a PreK-8 school in the St. Vrain Valley School District. I live in Longmont with my husband. We moved to Colorado from Central Illinois 18 years ago (Go Illini!). We have a son who is graduating from CU Leeds School of Business in May and our daughter will be a Junior at CU next year. My how times flies! I have experienced first hand the transformational wave of changes that are impacting K-12 education and in particular school libraries and the library profession. I am incredibly excited about collaborating with you all and supporting your efforts to successfully navigate these changes as you continue to add value to your learning communities as literacy and information professionals. To learn more about me please read my “official” Ed Tech Team Bio.
LGBTQ Book Evaluation Work: Sign up if you are interested in being a part of the May 2nd work. Read the blog for more. Subs will be provided for this work!
Genreland; What are you reading?! Make sure to fill out the form as you complete your books!
The Annual Teacher Librarian Celebration is coming up on May 10th from 4:00-5:30 pm--look for more details in our May Newsletter soon!

Cecilia LaFrance (former Summit librarian) is an American Librarian Association Mover and Shaker!
ALA Think Tank on facebook has public and school librarians sharing ideas and struggles.

AnonymousApril 5, 2016 at 1:54 PM
I really like how the Ohio Library incorporated new activities without sacrificing their books/checkout. OTOH, as I think about how we could do that, I realize that with only .5 FTE, I am pretty much maxed out! We have actually increased our student checkout by 1,000 percent since I started six years ago:). But without add'l time and staff in the Library, not sure how I can make the time available for more frequent student use than weekly classes and some flex times.