Of Leadership, Advocacy, & Professional Responsibility

I teach because I learn, and I learn because I teach.  As a human being imbued with insatiable curiosity, I am naturally a proponent of lifelong learning; my education will never be “done.”  On a related note:  the only thing that delights and motivates me as much as seeking and gaining knowledge is sharing knowledge.

My proudest professional development moment, the product from which is featured herein, was the alphabetic presentation I initially created for a SLIB class and revised for the Fall 2021 VAASL conference.  In this--entitled An Alphabetic Odyssey Through a New Librarian's First Three Years, & What She Learned There--I reflect upon the challenges and little victories that I experienced at the beginning of my librarianship career and share some of the lessons I learned along the way.

Educators are mothers not only to their biological children, but to their students as well, giving birth to heirs of knowledge, and to leaders. Teachers themselves--and especially school librarians--are often leaders.  If all the world of a school is a stage, then the school's librarian is definitely playing a leading role in the work being performed. Sometimes we have a script; at other times, we find that we need to improvise.

Whatever the case, often audience members (and even some of our fellow thespians) are unaware of just how important our role is, and we need to remind them to check their programs (or really, check out our programs).  My presentation--The Librarian in Her Time Plays Many Parts--explains exactly how I "role with it."

Althea Warren's vision of librarianship--or, to use a perhaps more accurate term, "library life"-- is at once candid, humorous, and accurate.  All of the qualities and things--the "ingredients"--that she mentions are necessary, none of them less than any of the others; and while we, with angels and devils upon our shoulders along with the world itself, do not take ourselves seriously, we most certainly do take our work seriously, knowing how important it is.

Here, Hidden Treasure, a infographic combination of the two (the light-hearted and the weighty) in which I display just how helpful and wonderful an embedded librarian and the library "arrr."

As Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore once sagely observed:  "It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends."  I would add administrators into the friends group.  A librarian (especially a new one)  must be brave--even tough--to speak up about important topics, whether they relate to schedule improvements and time management, as described in The Only Thing, or even more pressing issues like censorship.  This is precisely what makes librarians such wonderful allies and advocates.

How many books are there out there?  

Billions and billions!

Being a school librarian is always an adventure, and advocating for the library can be the most dangerous yet undeniably thrilling part.  In Library Adventure, I take my cue from Mr. Spielberg and show, in somewhat cinematic fashion, just how awesome the feats accomplished by librarians can be, and how much derring-do and smarts we really have.  

Indiana Jones would be proud.

Author Neil Gaiman is a staunch and vocal ally of libraries, and eloquently and fervently supports libraries, as he states he believes everyone has an obligation to do.  As a child, his life was directly impacted by the presence of libraries, since he spent summers in them while his parents were at work; and as a writer, he is directly impacted by issues around intellectual freedom.

Our children--my students--are impacted too, just as much, which is why I created Rights of the Reader.