It's often said a child's lifelong love of reading begins at home. But declining literacy rates among the nation's public elementary school students suggests this maxim needs revision. For reading to become an everyday habit, it needs to be nurtured in a home of its own. Fortunately, there is space available inside most elementary schools. At just 5 percent of a school's total real estate, the school library is the most powerful and efficient way to reach 100 percent of the student body. But far too many of the nation's public school libraries lack even the most basic resources to support learning and encourage achievement. The nonprofit L!brary Initiative, created by the Robin Hood Foundation, has been working since 2001 to enhance student literacy and overall academic achievement by collaborating with school districts to design, build, equip, and staff new elementary school libraries. The L!brary Book takes readers behind the scenes of fifty groundbreaking library projects to show how widely varied fields and communities—corporate underwriters, children's book publishers, architects, graphic designers, product manufacturers, library associations, teachers, and students—can join forces to make a difference in the lives of children. Based on the premise that good library design can actually inspire learning, the L!brary Initiative brings together some of the world's leading architects to reimagine the elementary school libraries in New York City—the nation's largest public school system. Working on a pro bono basis, architecture firms—including 1100 Architects, Weiss/Manfredi Architects, Della Valle Bernheimer, Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, and Dean/Wolf Architects—have in just eight years built or transformed more than fifty libraries into vital resources for the whole school community. These libraries—both beautiful learning spaces and innovative architecture—feature a wide range of design solutions, including creative uses of space, color, lighting, and furniture. Author and former L!brary Initiative director Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi documents every project with beautiful photos as well as renderings and measured drawings. The L!brary Book concludes with the chapter How to Make a Library which shows how community organizers and architects can pursue similar initiatives in their own communities.

Through the real-life examples in this book, readers will learn how the successful modification of existing library buildings or the creation of new buildings requires the active participation and effective collaboration of library board members, administrators, librarians, and architects.

Provides vision for strong school library programs, including identification of the skills and knowledge essential for students to be information literate. Includes recommended baseline staffing, access, and resources for school library services at each grade level.

Current educational reforms have given rise to various types of "educational Taylorism," which encourage the creation of efficiency models in pursuit of a unified way to teach. In history education curricula, this has been introduced through scripted textbook-based programs such as Teacher Curriculum Institute’s History Alive! and completely online curricula. They include the jargon of authentic methods, such as primary sources, cooperative learning, differentiated instruction, and access to technology; yet the craft of teaching is removed, and an experience that should be marked by discovery and reflection is replaced with comparatively empty processes. This volume provides systematic models and examples of ways that history teachers can compete with and effectively halt this transformation. The alternatives the authors present are based on collaborative models that address the art of teaching for pre-service and practicing secondary history teachers as well as collegiate history educators. Relying on original research, and a maturing body of secondary literature on historical thinking, this book illuminates how collaboration can create real historical learning.

This title offers pre-service, newly practicing, and seasoned school librarians opportunities for reflection as well as inspiring strategies for enacting four core values of the profession. The school library profession has been in "crisis" for more than a decade. Educational decision-makers have not been made aware of or sold on the core values of school librarianship and its value to students, classroom teachers, administrators, and the entire school community. Budgetary priorities often do not include school librarians, resulting in a lack of funding and the elimination of many positions, which can cause many school librarians to feel vulnerable and afraid. Guideposts are needed to offer today's school librarians a chance to connect or reconnect with their passion for literacy, learning, and serving that led them to the profession. Core Values in School Librarianship: Responding with Commitment and Courage provides preservice, newly practicing, and seasoned school librarians with opportunities for thoughtful reflection alongside inspiring strategies for gathering courage and enacting four core values of the profession. It is an important and visionary book that all school librarians should read as they develop in their role as leaders in their schools.

Highlighting activities and discussion questions that will pique student interest and facilitate instruction, the 8th edition of this well-known school library text gathers management articles into a ready-to-use volume that showcases current best practices. This 8th edition of School Library Management offers a fully updated collection of articles designed to guide both new and practicing school librarians. It gathers information about the issues and trends in the field, programming ideas, and advice from school library leaders. Contemporary articles from the past five years of School Library Connection bring this edition up to the present. Carefully curated chapters address today's best practices to improve school library programs, integrating technology considerations throughout each of the sections. Authors cover timely topics such as equity, diversity, and inclusion; budgets; copyright; librarian professional development; evaluation; and advocacy. Each chapter begins with an introduction to put issues into context and ends with activities that will help librarians further explore. All readers will appreciate this volume as "one-stop shopping" for readings that address best practices in light of major new guiding documents and standards in the school library field.

The changing environment in higher education requires different approaches to be taken to the provision of professional support services. This may result in the development of outsourced shared services, the convergence of many different student-facing services or the development of more active collaborative networks. This collection of essays considers the changing context and broad principles affecting the ways in which we need to manage and provide services and offers case studies of changes that have already taken place. This book recognizes and uncovers the innovations that leaders and practitioners are implementing to transform and develop the provision of sustainable and creative support services. Such innovations are resulting in diverse models of service delivery and the development of more active collaborative networks and commercial partnerships. The essays are drawn from a broad spectrum of professionals working inside and outside library and information services as well as those responsible for leading multiply converged or joint service teams. Key topics include: The changing higher education context and how to build service success in uncertain times Connecting with the student perspective Working with professional associations Culture, values and change: observations from three consortia in Canada Managing complex change collaboratively and creatively Leaders and influencing skills of the future The role of technology in enabling collaboration and the role of shared data in extending the library?s value Space: changing the boundaries and the communal nature of the academic library Collaborative service provision through super-convergence Joint use libraries and transformational change. Readership: Library leaders and practitioners and students of LIS.|The changing environment in higher education requires different approaches to be taken to the provision of professional support services. This may result in the development of outsourced shared services, the convergence of many different student-facing services or the development of more active collaborative networks. This collection of essays considers the changing context and broad principles affecting the ways in which we need to manage and provide services and offers case studies of changes that have already taken place. This book recognizes and uncovers the innovations that leaders and practitioners are implementing to transform and develop the provision of sustainable and creative support services. Such innovations are resulting in diverse models of service delivery and the development of more active collaborative networks and commercial partnerships. The essays are drawn from a broad spectrum of professionals working inside and outside library and information services as well as those responsible for leading multiply converged or joint service teams. Key topics include: • The changing higher education context and how to build service success in uncertain times • Connecting with the student perspective • Working with professional associations • Culture, values and change: observations from three consortia in Canada • Managing complex change collaboratively and creatively • Leaders and influencing skills of the future • The role of technology in enabling collaboration and the role of shared data in extending the library’s value • Space: changing the boundaries and the communal nature of the academic library • Collaborative service provision through super-convergence • Joint use libraries and transformational change. Readership: Library leaders and practitioners and students of LIS.