This book details effective strategies for promoting a library beyond the building level in order to make an impact with the influential individuals who make the key decisions that directly affect the school district and library program. Make a Big Impact @ Your School Board Meeting was inspired by the authors' experiences speaking at local and national library conferences on the topic of making presentations to school boards and forging relationships with key administrators. It became clear that many librarians are unsure how to create a comprehensive marketing plan, and are simply too busy with their day-to-day tasks to tackle this daunting project. This book is written specifically for K–12 librarians in the field. It can also serve as an instructional tool for school library certification programs. It spotlights the importance of ongoing advocacy and leadership, teaches school librarians how to demonstrate the tremendous value of their library programs and how they directly impact student achievement, and showcases library-specific marketing techniques that can be used during good and poor economic times. By using the straightforward methods and tools provided, librarians will greatly improve their ability to avoid detrimental budget cuts to their programs.

This book provides practical strategies and step-by-step plans for developing advocacy initiatives for school libraries. School libraries provide an essential service to the community, but without proper funding few libraries stand a chance to maintain the resources they offer—or to survive at all. School librarians can play an instrumental role in the survival of their programs. This how-to book provides school librarians with effective advocacy and activism strategies for promoting and improving their library programs. Activism and the School Librarian: Tools for Advocacy and Survival offers straightforward, practical approaches for creating advocacy programs. This guidebook examines the characteristics for becoming an advocate, explores the meaning of advocacy/activism as an effort that is ongoing and proactive, and provides the steps required for initiating a successful program. The contributors address the various types of advocacy and activism, including legislative advocacy at the local, state, and national levels; school and district level programs; and community-based initiatives. The book includes expert advice from successful advocates and provides helpful reproducible tools.

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 digital age has made it easy for anyone, even those with limited technology proficiency, to create some form of media. With so many different types of media and the sheer volume of information coming from a wide array of sources, media literacy has become an essential skill that can be very difficult to learn and teach. The Handbook of Research on Media Literacy Research and Applications Across Disciplines aims to present cross-disciplinary examinations of media literacy, specifically investigating its challenges and solutions and its implications for P-20 education. An assemblage of innovative findings centered on national and international perspectives, with topics including critical thinking and decision-making processes, smart consumerism, recognizing point-of-view, media influence, responsible media creation, cyber threats, media literacy instruction, among others, this book is ideally designed for educators, researchers, activists, instructional designers, media specialists, and professionals.