A fantastic workshop idea

I was interested in looking at journal publications on the subject of public libraries and services offered to teachers. There are a lot of issues that arise when browsing through articles on this topic. Many typical issues are covered in many areas of librarianship, such as advocacy, promotion, outreach, etc. But there are unique elements involved when combining teachers and public libraries. In the next few entries I will share some of these issues and articles I found to be interesting. Through them I picked up a lot of good information and tips for providing services to teachers in the public library:

I found an article, Library-School Cooperation, Sitting Down with a Teacher written by two Seattle Public Library librarians, Mary Hillman (Young Adult librarian) and Carlene Barnett (Children’s Librarian). Though it is not terribly current (1993), it offers a timeless idea for increased collaborating between teachers and public librarians.

The article outlined a workshop organised by the Seattle Public Library (SPL) for Seattle Public School District teachers that can be tailored for any school district. The article outlines the planning, implementation, and aftermath of this workshop.

To briefly summarize, the workshop was inspired by budget cuts and an increasing need for cooperation between the two publicly funded institutions, the public library and the public schools. The SPL wanted to be sure that the funds allocated for materials for students completing homework were being utilized in the best possible manner. They decided that the best possible way to do this was to sit down with as many teachers as possible. They offered a workshop that would attract a large proportion of teachers and met as many of their needs as possible. These were the steps and decisions they made that allowed the workshop to be a success. They:

• Identified a district to approach
• Identified how to approach the idea of a “sit-down” to appeal to school staff
• Selected a time and a place that would appeal to the teachers, principals, and library staff (In their case, 7:15 AM on a professional development day in the closed public library)
• Designed an efficient, enthusiastic, and practical workshop. This is important when you’re “teaching” teachers.
• Selected library staff from various branches so that teachers who work/teach in different communities could have questions pertaining to different branch locations answered.
• Presented both traditional and newer library resources.
• Divided the attendees into five groups and had five individual workshop stations, staffed by different librarians. The attendee’s rotated to each station for a ten minute presentation.
• The attendees were then brought together for a continental breakfast, encouraged to share their experiences with their colleagues, and provided evaluation/suggestion forms.

The workshop was deemed to be a huge success, as attested by the comments on the evaluation forms. The results were that the teachers learned about new resources they could use and advise their students to use, while at the same times exploring some of the limitations that could be expected when sending the students in for particular assignments. Teachers who were not currently using the library were introduced to useful resources. As a result of this initial experiment, additional schools requested a workshop. Library staff noted an increase in advance notification regarding homework alerts. Most significantly, a dialogue was created between these teachers and the public library staff.

If you’re interested in reading the article in its entirety, it is published in Alki 9 28-9 D 1993. Alki is The Washington Library Association Journal. Check them out at: http://www.wla.org/publications/alki/ It looks like their articles are only archived from 97 onwards, so you’ll have to get this article, as I did, through a subscription database.