Introduce your teachers, librarians, and administrators to the roles and responsibilities of educators in advocating a whole school library learning commons using this step-by-step guide for creating shared learning space in your school. It is no surprise that technology has shifted the way we educate—bearing on how, what, and where we learn. This guide lays the framework for helping turn your school library into a whole school library learning commons (WSLLC)—a space where traditional academics merge with the latest technologies to engage learners in a way never before realized. Author Judith Anne Sykes contends that since the WSLLC philosophy allows staff and students to co-create knowledge in a shared space, it is more effective than the traditional approach. Sykes addresses the differences between a school library and a WSLLC, provides reasons to champion its creation in your institution, and discusses how to use mentoring as a means to sustain its survival. The book explores the roles and responsibilities of educators in developing WSLLC goals and presents strategies for using typical assessment tools—including standardized tests, report cards, and anecdotal assessments—to help support its philosophy.

As school districts across the United States increasingly question the need for trained librarians, this collection of research-based evidence helps make the case for a state-licensed librarian in every school. While serving on the AASL legislation committee, Mirah Dow recognized the urgent need to utilize research-based evidence to prove school librarians are much more than an educational luxury. This collection is the result. It brings together school library research studies and findings from the past decade and draws connections to how they can be applied to situations and questions that occur in practice. Taken as a whole, the research underscores that state-licensed, school librarians are a necessity for 21st-century students. Chapters center on important research studies from the past decade that examine data and locate school libraries within operational contexts. Methodologies are explained and findings summarized, while notes clarify practical applications for school librarians. Because each chapter includes a connection to broad realms of theoretical influence in the social sciences, the work will also be relevant to educators and public policymakers, arming them to better communicate research-based links between investments in school libraries and student learning outcomes.

This title gives concrete practical examples of how to align school library programs and instructional practice with the six key concepts of brain-compatible learning: increasing input to the brain; increasing experiential data; multiple source feedback; reducing threat; involving students in learning decision making; and interdisciplinary unit planning. This title, Brain Friendly School Libraries, gives concrete practical examples of how to align school library programs and instructional practice with the six key concepts of brain-compatible learning: increasing input to the brain; increasing experiential data; multiple source feedback; reducing threat; involving students in learning decision making; and interdisciplinary unit planning. It includes chapters that summarize the current brain research and current thinking about its implication for instructional practice in the school library media center as well as discusses the work of Ellen Langer (mindful learning), Geoffrey and Renette Caine, Bob Sylwester and other major proponents of teaching with the brain in mind.

Cataloguing for School Libraries: A Guide to Simplified Form presents the rules, based on the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, for the cataloging of library materials. The book covers standard procedures and some proposed modifications in the cataloging of both print and non-print library materials. Subtle variations to standard procedures are made to ease the burden of catalogers and simplify the use of card catalogs. Details on cataloging from the preparation of the author entry; description of the work; adding of notes; tracing of catalog cards; and filing are thoroughly discussed. Practicing librarians and students of library science will find this text very useful.

This book celebrates the new IFLA School Library Guidelines and shows how the Guidelines can be used in improving school library services. Each chapter describes innovative initiatives for developing, implementing and promoting school library guidelines. The book provides inspiration and guidance for the creation of national school library standards and for the development and use of standards and guidelines to change school library practice, to define the teaching role of school librarians, to guide the initial preparation of school librarians, and to advocate for school library services. Contributors to the book come from around the world: Australia, Canada, Ethiopia, France, Malaysia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United States. Their work illustrates the shared commitment of school librarians around the world to "teaching and learning for all", as envisioned in the IFLA/UNESCO School Library Manifesto.

Promoting literacies through the school library : "Reading opens all door : an integrated reading program at Genazano College in Melbourne, Australia" by Susan La Marca, Sandra Hardinge and Lyn Pucius.