More ideas for outreach by public librarians to teachers

Another article, Outreach Collaboration, with useful tips for making connections with teachers was written by Library Media Specialist, Elaine Ezell. It proved once again that literature written for, and by, school librarians can help public librarians provide services for teachers.

• Approach teachers who come to the library simply to borrow books on a particular subject about collaborations you have done with other teachers. Suggest programming you can do with the class that compliments the curriculum.
• Handout a user-friendly template for teachers to use to outline their goals for research.
• Ask the teacher who has booked a simple “library visit” for their class how you can best prepare for the session; compliment their requests with even more programming and collaboration ideas.
• Enquire about upcoming projects and suggest ways to integrate library collaboration with future research needs.
• Share ways that you’ve collaborated with teachers in the past; they may not know that public librarians will work with teachers in this way.

If you wish to read the article in its entirety:

Ohio Media Spectrum v.55 no.1 (Winter 2003)

Connecting with teachers: Outreach ideas

In terms of outreach between public librarians and teachers, I found some very basic tips in an article I would like to draw attention to, “Connect with Success: A Few Tips for Public Library-School Cooperation”. The article was written by Ed Sullivan, who worked with New York Public Library’s Connecting Libraries and Schools Project which, amongst other goals, promoted workshops designed to improve communication between public libraries and educators.

1. Initiate contact with the school librarians. If there is not one, contact the principal if it’s an elementary school, and the head of the English department if it’s a secondary school. If it’s Catholic school, contact the diocese who is in charge of administration.
2. If efforts to get the teachers to the library fail, bring the library to the teacher. (See my previous posting for more ideas on this issue.)
3. Feed them! I cannot tell you how many times I have seen this mentioned in the literature. The offer of food seems to go along way in terms of the success of outreach between public libraries and teachers!!

(Adapted from Sullivan, 2001)

If you wish to read the article in its entirety:

Journal of Youth Services in Libraries 14 no3 14 Spr 2001