5 Things You Want a Principal to Know About the School Librarian

Posted on August 19, 2023 by Barbara Paciotti

Toward the end of a school year, a School Librarian may decide to transfer to another school or leave the district for a librarian position elsewhere. In either case, a job interview with a school principal is around the corner. Alternatively, our school may get a new principal and we want her/him to know how to support the school library.

Even if we are not making a change, School Librarians nowadays must always be ready to defend our position within the school building, and in the district and the community. Sometimes a quick “elevator pitch” is enough, but at times we have to express our needs in order to serve the needs of our students and their school library program. This question can help us narrow our focus so we are, in fact, giving the “big picture” to those who can make a difference:

What 5 things do I want a principal to know about me, the School Librarian,
and about the school library?

1) I am a Teacher.

My primary role is as a teacher of information literacy. I have a set of National Standards which provide a framework for the knowledge and skills students are expected to master by the time they move on to their next school or future endeavor.

To fully integrate the information literacy curriculum into content-area lessons, I need to collaborate with teachers. Research shows that regular collaboration between the school librarian and other teachers greatly increases student achievement, so I need the principal to actively encourage faculty to collaborate with me. I document collaborations in reports and my end-of-year appraisal, and it would be helpful if the principal recommends that teachers tally their own collaborations with me.

Download this short PDF Library Lesson Collaboration Short Form from my FREE School Librarian Resources page. Make copies and keep stacked on the circulation counter, to use for a collaboration opportunity when a teacher comes into the library.

Image of single Library Lesson Teacher Collaboration Form. | No Sweat Library

click to enlarge

2) I need sufficient funding to maintain a quality school library.

To ensure student achievement, the school library collection—print, digital, and online—must be from authoritative sources, with current publication dates, and in support of student and teacher curricular needs. To maintain this quality, I need a budget that will provide for the acquisition of new resources and the replacement of out-of-date, lost, and damaged ones.

Most states have guidelines for the library budget and for a minimum number of materials. Here is an example of one state—Texas**—which falls about the middle of all U.S. States for library guidelines:

Resources budget for print and non-print materials=
$5500 or $12.00 x Average Daily Attendance
Operational budget=6% of Resources budget
An Acceptable school library has a minimum of
11,000(secondary)/12,000 (elementary) books or 12/14 books per student,
plus at least 250 videos, 46 audios, 12 periodicals
Refresh annually at least 3% of materials, licensed databases, and other electronic resources, including audiobooks and eBooks.

I also need funds from the principal for building media that cannot be purchased with library funds. Such incidental audio/video/digital items include cameras or computer products that teachers check out for student projects.

3) Make my morning/lunch/afternoon duties in the school library.

For some students, these are the only times during the day they can come into the library to check out a book. Students may be sent to the library by morning-duty teachers to take make-up tests or to review videos or classroom presentations. For students on sports teams or with difficult home situations, these library times are a “homework hub” that allows them to keep up with school work. For project-based inquiry learning, this is also the best time and place for students to collaborate on projects!

Teachers rely on me to be available at these times to help gather materials for their classrooms or collaborate on lessons. This is also when I can sponsor a library club for students who like to help shelve books and other volunteer tasks. On busy days, this may be the only planning time I have to prepare library lessons for class visits.

Make a powerful statement to students and teachers that
the School Library is an important learning center in our school
by allowing me to be in the school library during these critical times.

4) I am a department head, even if I’m the sole library unit.

I need my principal to include me in various decision-making meetings, especially those that affect library use or curriculum and technology materials. I can provide a unique perspective that no one else can:

I am broadly familiar with every subject-area teacher’s curriculum.
I may be the most proficient technology specialist in the building.
Along with the custodian and school secretary, I have extensive knowledge of the physical building.
As the library program administrator, I have contacts in district offices and departments that can ease the acquisition of supplemental materials or equipment for classroom, school or extracurricular plans.
Library activities touch every subject and grade level, so I often see and hear more of student and/or teacher issues than others.

A principal will want to take advantage of the wealth of knowledge and information a school librarian can provide to any committee or meeting.

5) The library may be empty, but I really am busy working.

Being a School Librarian is a demanding job, as I must manage my time among the 5 areas of expertise that help me contribute to student success. Here are just a few of the “invisible” tasks that absorb my time when I’m not checking out or shelving books or teaching a lesson to students:

Teacher: create my Library Lesson Plans for student visits.
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Instructional partner: plan lessons with teachers, prepare materials for teachers, prepare student/teacher audio/video/digital projects.
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Information specialist: phone or meet with book and digital vendors, generate purchase orders for new print & digital materials and equipment, unpack, process, and shelve new print and audio/video materials for the collection, inventory materials and equipment in the library and throughout the building.
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Program administrator: manage the library facility, including scheduling, in an equitable manner according to need, balance the budget, generate reports on circulation, overdue books, library use, collaborative lessons, and curriculum that help you and me make decisions to benefit our campus.
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Education leader: update the library website, create and manage library print & social media communications to parents and the community, create presentations for staff development training, keep up with my own professional learning, and with library and educational trends.

MAKE MY DREAMS COME TRUE!

To conclude, please remember that this isn’t about me, the School Librarian, but rather it’s to provide students with access to high-quality resources when they need them. And that can only happen when you understand that my needs are the needs of the School Library Program. When you support me in the above 5 ways, it is a dream come true!

If you like this article, you can download this 2-sided PDF document explaining the 5 important ways to best support the School Librarian and the School Library Program and give a copy to your principal.

Image of the PDF document "5 Things You Want a Principal to Know About the School Librarian." | No Sweat Library

**School Library Programs: Standards and Guidelines for Texas. Texas State Library & Archives Commission and the Texas Education Agency, updated 2017. Accessed 8/15/2023.

Article updated from 2015.

Show Everyone What School Librarians Do! Make a KANBAN

Posted on July 13, 2022 by Barbara Paciotti

A recurring lament on School Librarian listservs & social media is that our education colleagues don’t really know what School Librarians do. Some teachers have even said to us, “It must be nice to spend all day reading books.” If only it were that easy!

The amount of work we School Librarians expend to keep the school library functioning is daunting, not to mention keeping up with everyone’s curriculum and designing meaningful lessons for students. However, there’s a simple way to conquer misconceptions and reveal the enormity of school librarianship…

Hang a KANBAN!

Kanban is a visual process management system that allows us to plan projects, arrange priorities, keep track of progress, and manifest what has been accomplished. More importantly, Kanban is an eye-catching display that shows everyone—teachers, principals, visitors, students—just how busy we School Librarians really are!

THE ORIGINS OF KANBAN

Kanban, from the Japanese word for signboard, was developed by Taiichi Ohno, an industrial engineer at Toyota. Inspired by the “bin” system used in airplane factories in the United Kingdom during World War II, then later applied to shelf re-stocking in their supermarkets, Ohno adapted it as a method to implement “just-in-time” production that responds to consumer demand.

During the early 2000s, software development companies adapted the Kanban from a production system for manufacturing into a software development workflow to coordinate tasks in project teams. Since then it has morphed into systems for change management, marketing, human resources, knowledge work, and personal workflow.

The last—personal workflow—is why a Kanban is useful for School Librarians: the variety of tasks we do—from budgeting to collection development to facility management to creating lessons to professional development to school committees—can all be organized and tracked using a Kanban.

WHY USE A KANBAN?

With so many print and digital organizers available, it may be tempting to use one of those for task organization—in fact, many School Librarians already do that. But I say DON’T—no one sees a print or digital organizer!

I do use print and digital checklists for myself during workdays at the start and end of the school year, but during the school year I use a Kanban whiteboard with colorful square sticky notes to display all my ongoing tasks and projects and how they are progressing.

That big whiteboard with its columns of bright-colored notes is pretty hard to miss. In addition to helping me stay focused, it prompts a lot of conversations with others, and conveys to them just how many things we School Librarians must do to make the school library a valuable learning space.

HOW TO CREATE A KANBAN

The simplest Kanban is a whiteboard divided into 3 columns and labeled TO DO, DOING, DONE. Each task is written down on a square sticky note and moved from column to column as the job progresses.

Image of a simple Kanban board with 3 columns labeled To Do, Doing, Done.

Lasovski, Jeff. commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/, 9 July 2022.

I recommend using at least a 24″ x 36″ whiteboard—remember, we’re planning for the entire school year, and it’s amazing how quickly the board fills up with tasks. Instead of drawing column lines with a whiteboard marker, use narrow black (or other color) tape in order to move notes around without smearing the grid.

I prefer to divide my whiteboard into 4 columns, adding an IDEAS column at the left to accumulate possible tasks or projects as they come to mind. I also use IN PROCESS instead of “Doing,” because I’m not always actively working on everything in that column. In addition, I merge the bottom of the two middle columns and label it AWAITING INPUT to indicate that other folks need to do or give me something in order to continue.

A whiteboard divided into 4 kanban columns labeled Ideas, To Do, In Process, Done with bottom of center 2 merged and labeled Awaiting Input. | No Sweat Library

No Sweat 4-column Kanban

To make my Kanban really useful, I color-code the sticky notes for categories of related tasks. In this way I see where the bulk of the year’s work will be so I can prioritize tasks & projects for a smooth workflow. Here are the colors and categories I use:

Image of color sticky notes labeled with my task categories. | No Sweat Library

No Sweat Color-coded Categories for Kanban Tasks

EFFECTIVE KANBAN STRATEGIES

A Kanban makes it easy to prioritize activities. I put my most immediate or most important tasks at the top and less needful ones lower down. If timing becomes more critical for something, I just move the sticky note upward.

For large projects with several phases, I use a sticky note for each phase (with project title along the top) and stack them in consecutive order. As each piece of the project begins & progresses, I move notes to the appropriate column, stacking as needed, usually in a single row across the board, and slightly separated from disparate tasks.

One advantage of the whiteboard is being able to use a dry erase marker to draw arrows or symbols next to a sticky note, which is very helpful to align phases of a project. Plus, so much of what we do in the school library is interrelated, so if I have to work on something else before I can go ahead with a task, I can line-link the notes together without moving them.

Certain of our school librarian chores recur from year to year, so we can reuse those notes. For example, I do mini-inventories of sections of the library over a 5-year period instead of one big inventory—it takes less time and is less disruptive to students and teachers. I use five 3”x5” rectangle sticky notes and list a column of Fiction Subjects and a column of Dewey numbers for each year. When I complete each section, I check-mark it. At the end of the school year I move the top note to the bottom of the stack and put the stack back in the TO DO column, ready for the next school year’s mini-inventories.

When a task or project is finished, it’s tempting to throw away the note, but don’t do that! I accumulate them near the top of the DONE column until the end of the grading period so I am sure to include finished tasks in my Report to Principal. Then I move them as a batch toward the bottom of the Done column. There’s great satisfaction in watching the sticky notes build up toward the top in that last column, seeing how much I’ve accomplished throughout the school year!

Be sure to place your Kanban in a prominent place to easily check status and to show others what School Librarians do! | No Sweat Library

A No Sweat Library Kanban with Tasks & Projects

KANBAN IS A SPECTACULAR ADVOCACY TOOL!

It’s important to hang the Kanban in a prominent place where it’s easy to keep updated, and also where it can be seen by others. I hang mine on the back wall of my librarian office, where anyone at the circulation counter could see the colorful display through the windows. Many students and teachers ask about my Kanban, which gives me an opportunity to talk about how the school library can assist them.

At the end of the school year, I take a snapshot of the Kanban with all the finished tasks, then paste it into the final Report to Principal and include it in my professional evaluation report to visually emphasize how busy my year has been!

So, go to it! Create your own KANBAN!

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Category Archives: SLIS as Program Administrator