Support Systems for School Libraries: Technology Department and Communications Team

Study Skills and Recommended Reads

Where I work, I am a one-man/woman librarian. I have a staff, though, who assists and helps me in all administrative, clerical and technical matters of library work. Early on in our journey of setting up the library, it had been our agreement to start right. This meant, setting up systems and structures that are efficient and productive so that, we can concentrate on readers' services and user education.

My staff and I have been together for the past five years and so far, we have been doing pretty well. The work doesn't end there since we are to evaluate the systems and structures we set up. While we get feedback from the community, a formal evaluation is necessary. Annual reports are there to qualify the numbers, but I am looking for a more client centered method. More on that in a future post as this would involve Design Thinking for school libraries.

This academic year is also our International Baccalaureate (IB) authorization process. In some ways, it is a way of analyzing and evaluating our library services and programs through the lens of outsiders, otherwise known as IB evaluators. For the past few weeks, I have been deep into writing reports, reviewing statistics and attending meetings. Did I say that there's been requests for Information Literacy sessions, acquisition and cataloging work, management of technology and teacher - librarian collaborations?

More Recommended Reading

Yep. I am a busy bee!

What helps see us through, is the supportive people in our learning ecosystem. Ah, the advantage of working in a small school. One of these people happens to be the Communication Associate who is always on the ear for good news to share with our community. Since school started in August, the library is getting space in the weekly school newsletter. Students, teachers and leadership are regularly informed of our new titles, events and activities and updates in art and culture through the school's mailing list. There, another system that supports the library - the Tech department!

The inclusion of library updates in the weekly school newsletter is one way of putting a face of the library to the bigger members of our community: the parents, the alumni, possible donors and organizations to partner with. In a bigger sense, the library is seen as a part of a bigger whole that belongs to a school community and its ecosystem for learning.