A library is a place of safety, a haven from the world.
It’s a place with librarians in it.
We need to teach our children to read and enjoy reading.
We need libraries.
We need books.
We need literate citizens.
Neil Gaiman, 2013
"The reference interview is fundamentally a conversation between the school library media specialist and the study, for the purpose of clarifying the students' needs and aiding in meeting those needs"
(Riedling, 2013, p.99)
I work 4 days a week in a K-5 LC. 75% of my time is prep time. The other 25% is my prep time, collaboration, and library administration time. From what I hear around the district, I feel more privileged than most to receive library administration time. I also feel very supported with having an experienced library technician 50% of my time. Besides recess, lunch, before, and after school there is very little time built into the day's schedule to provide a calm, quiet environment to give my full focus on a question that may arise from students or staff. I see 16 of the 22 divisions on my 4 days and to be honest, I need my breaks to decompress. However, I am very mindful of my role to provide the most accurate and relevant information to users of the LC.
We need literate citizens. People learn best when they feel safe and cared for, in an environment that nurtures trust and openness.
Photograph was taken in Langley, BC February 2023
I am working hard to learn more about the 550+ students and staff I work with. I carry post-its everywhere. There are so many of them and just one of me. I write down each question/query so that if I am unable to answer that question at the moment, they know (and I know) I will get to it as soon as I can, which curiously enough, is before or after school, recess, and lunch breaks. To help with this, I ask students to tell me what's on their minds or what they are curious about (related or unrelated to the LC) at the beginning of their prep during attendance. I also write a quick reflection about the prep session I had with the class so I can refer it to the next time I see them. This gives me more of a handle on where I should direct some of my information-giving before sending them off to browse the collection and planning ahead with their LC-related skills activities.
Photograph was taken in Langley, B.C., February 2023
Three basic purposes of reference interview questioning are as follows:
1) to ascertain what information the student wants 2) to clarify the question (what it really means) 3) to discover the amount, level, and difficulty of the resources that will answer the question
(Riedling, 2013, p. 103)
I find I am able to satisfy the purposes outlined above with adequate efficiency in relation to ready references. I have focused on familiarizing myself with the collection in our LC regularly. Because our collection only builds with the acquisition and purchasing by me, I can easily direct students and staff to materials we have, or if we don't have, I am able to navigate our district catalog with ease. Recently, the Grade two teachers were planning a Book Tasting and I was able to gather various genres of books at their grade level for them quickly.
Research project interviews, as Riedling describes them, "...lie at the other end of the spectrum" (2013, p.104). I am confident I can steer the student to a resource they can access and any following resources that may be needed. However, being able to provide prompt, regular interactions or teacher literacy skills for a single student is highly improbable. This provides a great opportunity to offer my collaboration time and services to the classrooms to be active participants in their learning for their research.
The biggest takeaway from reviewing BCTLA Working and Learning Conditions was the unbalanced access to materials in the province. I was surprised to see that the Richmond District's responding schools allotted an average of nearly $20 per student whereas Maple Ridge was only $3 per student. To see that the average funding for elementary schools a few years ago was just under $3 000 made me hope that schools were receiving funding from PAC, gathering funds from Scholastic Book Fairs, and/or grants. If we use Riedling's definition of reference resources as "sources specifically designed to be consulted for definite items of information" (2013, 139), the cost of dictionaries, encyclopedias, and atlases seems quite high. Because we are building a collection to meet our users' needs and needs vary from school to school, a committee of financial stakeholders like the principal, district principal if you can, PAC members, as well as student and staff representatives, would be beneficial to outline what is needed for the LC, both in physical and digital formats. From thereon, acquiring wishlisted resources and calculating costs would perhaps help persuade PAC and the district to provide more monetary support. I have already been told many times that PAC will not be supporting the LC for the next few years as they are putting all their fundraising toward playground equipment.
As I have mentioned in my previous blog, a space encyclopedia is the extent of our K-5 physical resource reference collection. Encyclopedias are limited to more topic-related rather than something vaster like Britannica. After more probing on the district elementary's catalog, almanacs have more recent publishing dates and National Geographic dominates many of the elementary schools' collections. I use the term "dominating" loosely as there are only one or two copies of resource reference titles within the entire district of elementary schools.
"School districts’ funding is established at the provincial level... Note that the provincial allocation to districts does not specifically target funding for learning resources" (ERAC, 2008, p. 70)
SD35 provides across-the-district resources like the digital resources found on their website as well as resources from the district learning commons. Oftentimes there is something new like Mystery Science available for the year, but each school would have to purchase or ask the district for funds to continue a digital resource if teachers asked for it. This doesn't always mean schools receive it.
"The main goal in acquiring learning resources is to make them available as quickly, efficiently, and cost-effectively as possible. The purchasing process is enhanced by ordering from as few sources as possible; for example from consortia, wholesalers or jobbers, bulk ordering of key resources, etc." ((ERAC, 2008, p. 76). I see this as part of my role as a TL to promote the materials we have available to us as educators through staff meetings, e-mails, and collaboration.
"In carrying out these evaluations, it is recommended that teachers consider all five areas of the Ministry evaluation criteria: curriculum fit, content, instructional design, technical design, and social considerations" (ERAC, 2008, p.75). A few years ago, teachers were able to use their own Apple ID and add apps to their class iPads without consulting evaluative-type permissions from the administrator. Now, apps can only be downloaded through a self-service which has been vetted by the district IT department.
Money is tight and educators need to be proactive. I fully support open access to resources. If educators can back up the rationale behind using them using a school or district selection criteria and the administrator is aware of the use, then this would save the classroom and school money and the resource can easily be shared amongst colleagues. When evaluating and then selecting such resources some points to keep in mind are:
differentiation to fit student levels and age-appropriateness
copyright issues
tech issues (as it is already difficult to get IT to problem-solve vetted resources from the district)
quality as we want to give the best resources to our learners
Nothing compares to a live human being in your learning environment whose primary job is to boost your learning. Paralleling the LC as the "hub" of the school community, Clinton states: "We need libraries more than ever because they are places for communities to come together... as librarians you go above and beyond every single day to serve the needs of the people living in your communities."
Photograph taken in Langley, B.C. 2023
Photograph taken in Langley, B.C. 2023
There is no one way to deliver a library program to your users because there is no identical type of users in each school, and there is no identical school. There are many guidelines offered by each district and by the provincial TL associations, and the ministry itself. We have established how time and money bear a strain on providing access to the best resources for our learners so that they can meet their full potential. With the changing times of DIY videos, self check-outs in grocey stores, AI programs that claim to substitute health professionals and educators, I am not the one to devalue my profession and myself as a professional. The photographs above did not create a safe, inviting space that promotes learning and reading in the LC; a living, breathing person with passions and hopes to motivate her community did. Each LC curated resources and space both physically and virtually to meet the needs of their users.
Perkins, M. (2013). Canva: free design tool. Canva. Retrieved February 16, 2023, from https://www.canva.com/
Riedling, A. M., & Houston, C. (2013). Reference skills for the school librarian: Tools and tips. Libraries Unlimited, an imprint of ABC CLIO, LLC.
It all starts with a question that can take very little time to answer or can be a work in progress or grow into more questions. "It all begins with an information problem, based on a question, problem to solve, or just plain curiosity" (Riedling, 2013, 3). As teacher librarians we are looked upon to be equipped with the skills to do be able to guide these inquiries. Many think straight to the process and topic-related projects it might entail, but inquiry is a mindset, a shift in perspective in our pedagogy as educators.
Cadwell exudes passion: "I have the best job in the world. Why? Because I get paid to learn..." (2018). As a trained kindergarten teacher, I was that teacher that had photocopied sets of work ready to go in August. I practically knew exactly what I was teaching each block; I had the Shape of the Day prepared for the next day. As I reflect back on my early years, I was clearly directing students to the answer I wanted them to find rather than allowing them to find the answer to their own questions. I was interfering with their learning and blocking them from developing their inquiry skills.
"None of us is as smart as all of us" (Cadwell, 2018). When we put students' interests, motivations, drives, and inquiries into the driver's seat, inclusion occurs, collaboration is necessary, passions are ignited, and learning becomes natural.
I was inspired by the Inquiry Fair at Wildwood Elementary under the leadership of Principal Mary Beth Cunat. Students worked with teachers and staff to experience the inquiry process and the fair was the culmination of their learning, which was shared with the community. Although this is a large-scale, lots of learning and teaching went into this; at a whole-school level. Inquiry was very intentional and purposefully interwoven in the students' environment where all stakeholders were involved.
"So kids are hitting the standards with the bigger questions and being able to create evidence of their understandings and their learnings in all kinds of ways that the kids get to pick," says Cunat. "But it does mean that teachers must be willing to be flexible. Lessons can go anywhere. Depending on what the students are interested in, learning may go in a totally different direction than the teacher planned." Inquiry learning is messy.
Riedling introduced me to imposed and unimposed queries (2013, 138). Unimposed questions could be questions connected to big ideas. These questions could be the opportunity for TLs to teach the inquiry process and many 21st-century learner skills like critical thinking, information skills, and digital literacy.
"Bibliographic instruction is an expression widely used and accepted in the modern library world. It is defined as any activity that is designed to teach students how to locate and use information in the library, as well as sources that exist beyond the physical boundaries of the school library" (Riedling, 2013, 5).
The term, bibliographic instruction, reminded me of one of my ventures into inquiry. During the 2019-20 school year, I decided to move elementary schools after 14 years, so I wanted to take more risks and try new things. I had been teaching Grade 3 for half of those 14 years and experienced a variety of grade group collaborations. To get to know my neighbour better, and because she was also new to our school community, we decided to co-teach and collaborate on our Science program (which integrated social studies, art, and language arts). What we thought would be a term project turned out to stretch out of all 3 terms. We used the BCTLA's points of inquiry. Here are some highlights:
Journals were used both for writing automaticity and for inquiry. They were encouraged to access their journal any time they were curious about something. They were also able to put their journals in a public space so other students could respond to their entries.
We began using a field notes journal when we started our science inquiry projects on biodiversity where all of our notes were glued, stapled, taped, and written in there. Students were responsible to bring them to field trips, different spaces in the school, and other classrooms, during online interviews.
Rather than a teacher-student relay of questions and answers, students were encouraged to ask and respond to each other's comments.
Wonder Wall - a wall dedicated to ongoing questions about anything they were curious about. We posted their faces and a question mark and a light bulb beside each. Once a question was answered (by anyone) and sourced, we would post it by their light bulb.
Before online interviews with biologists and university science students, students brainstormed with their classmates in their field journals about "red light" and "green light" questions. Red light questions required a quick one-word response. Green light questions required further, deeper thinking. The excitement the students had when they "stumped" an expert or when they responded with "I have to think about that one" is truly priceless.
Formative assessment and teacher observation was ongoing; there was less teacher-focused instruction. Students and I would meet often at the rainbow table to talk about their essential questions; where they are and what their next steps would be. This gave me the opportunity to differentiate for students. They would also receive feedback from their peers.
We used My BluePrint to take pictures of our progress and video reflections; we were able to use this as talking points in parent-teacher interviews.
The grade 3 teacher and I shared iPads so we were able to have access to a class set of devices on a regular basis. Being at a more established school, we also had access to COWs (computers on wheels) and 2 intermediate class sets of iPad carts from our LC. We also had access to print material from our LC and I ordered materials from our district LC.
I would send students links to digital resources on our Teams channels.
This took up most of our afternoons. Truly, the engagement was there. It was a little unsettling at first because as a primary experienced teacher, this was out of my nature. Rather than planning ahead and setting goals way before their time, it was more fruitful to set aside the time for students to explore. It was messy, inconsistent, and a little chaotic, but students really did wonder more. They were given the space to make their voice, take ownership of their learning, and be given the responsibility and accountability to build upon their self-directed explorations.
A new year, a new position, a new point of view. I have limitations and a lack of time to do something so comprehensive again as the TL. I have been fortunate this year to have time built in for library adminstration, but I am in dire need of it as we are a newly built school with imminent challenges. However, I can use my one block of collaboration time to support classroom teachers... or perhaps at least one this year. I am leaning more towards using the Super 3, adapted from the Big 6. I feel like I can digest and begin using Super 3 during prep coverage times and begin trying a Wonder Wall for the whole school in the LC. I love infographics; creating one for the Super 3 for the LC is something on my To Do list this year.
"A good reference source is one that serves to answer questions, and a bad reference source is one that fails to answer questions" (Riedling, 2013, 21).
Riedling describes the following criteria needed to evaluate reference resources and I have included some of my thoughts on each:
content scope - the why
accuracy, authority, and bias - trying to look for a mission statement or vision can be helpful to find out authorship
arrangement and presentation - when looking at digital resources, especially younger students or students that are still working on decoding skills, have difficulty focusing on the relevant. If the material is not easy to navigate, it won't be used by learners. Many of the nonfiction features: font, size, colour, and spacing also affect the aesthetics of a resource.
relation to similar works - I can see this to be very time-consuming and help from a committee, online ratings from credible resources, and checking school databases for similar works can help with efficiency and evaluation.
timeliness and permanence - "Printed resources are often considered to be out of date before they reach the student" (Riedling, 2013, p. 22). That seems to go against the push to have some physical resources in your LC. Digital resources can be easily updated with less cost.
accessibility/diversity - I find this criterion to be very difficult to achieve especially in the early grades when the range of learners is non-readers to very fluent. There are also students with IEPs and diverse learning needs.
cost - Is it worth the price? What other vital resource is it taking away from? Is it worth serving only a small percentage of your users or is that percentage of users going to consistently use it? If a physical resource, can the school maintain purchasing subsequent editions?
I am learning about the growing collection in the LC as my first year progresses. It is an onslaught of information, but I am taking note. Literally. I have a little book of questions I have started using since the second week of this course and questions that start with "Do you have the book ______ ?" has its only a little section in my book. I will be starting this during our monthly TL meetings too. I also have "wishlists" all over the web.
In terms, of the selection of the best materials for our LC's users, I perused the Canadian sites for reviews of school library materials. I have casually used Kirkus, Common Sense Media, and Childrens Book Review. I have added CM Magazine to my list; my favourite part is that is reviewed by librarians.
I have had this discussion with many colleagues about print and digital resources. Yes, of course, "everything" is available at the click of your fingers, but that's the point. Everything. Everything might not be your answer to your question. Long gone are my own experiences in elementary and high school. If I had an inquiry about Martin Luther King Jr. or a comprehensive project on the Roman Empire, I walked to the public library with my notebook and pencils. I sought out the librarian and spent hours scouring reference books. My mother purchased (slowly purchased from the local grocery store) a Funk & Wagnall Encyclopedia set that I also referred to. I meticulously copied notes and bibliographic information. Everything is now at your literal fingertips. I don't recall the publishing date being more than part of a citation and an actual factor in the quality of my references. "Many libraries find that their reference collection is shrinking rapidly; however, a good ready-reference collection continues to be a vital component of good service" (Crew, 2023, p. 37). It happens more often than not when a teacher comes a few minutes before the bell, needing a set of biographies, hibernating animals, or provinces.
Final Thought
Having reliable and current resources at hand is important and vital to providing reference services. Digital resources are meant to supplement physical print, and when thoughtfully sourced out, have immeasurable utility. What is even more important is a living, breathing, information-literate, effectively communicative teacher librarian that is able to guide you to the resources needed to solve your problem.
Riedling, A. M., & Houston, C. (2019). Reference skills for the school librarian: Tools and tips. Libraries Unlimited, an imprint of ABC CLIO, LLC.
Task Force, k-12 information (Ed.). (2011, January). The Points of Inquiry: A Framework for Information Literacy and the ... the points of inquiry: a framework for information literacy and the 21st century learner. Retrieved from https://bctla.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/the-points-of-inquiry.pdf
TedX. (2018). Students need to lead the classroom, not teachers. YouTube. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/gzQhiB2EOVE.
TSLAC: Texas State Library and Archives Commission. TSLAC | Texas State Library And Archives Commission. (n.d.). Retrieved February 1, 2023, from https://www.tsl.texas.gov/
