Judi Moreillon - Core Values in School LIbrarianship

Core Values in School Librarianship

Responding with Commitment and Courage

Judi Moreillon, Editor

Copyright 2021 by Judi Moreillon

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Moreillon, Judi, editor.

Title: Core values in school librarianship : responding with commitment and courage / Judi Moreillon, editor.

Description: Santa Barbara, California : Libraries Unlimited, [2021] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020052147 (print) | LCCN 2020052148 (ebook) | ISBN 9781440878152 (paperback ; acid-free paper) | ISBN 9781440878169 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: School librariesUnited States. | School librariansProfessional ethicsUnited States. | School librariansProfessional relationships United States.

Classification: LCC Z675.S3 C756 2021 (print) | LCC Z675.S3 (ebook) | DDC 027.80973dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020052147

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020052148

ISBN:978-1-4408-7815-2 (print)

978-1-4408-7816-9 (ebook)

252423222112345

This book is also available as an eBook.

Libraries Unlimited

An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC

ABC-CLIO, LLC

147 Castilian Drive

Santa Barbara, California 93117

www.abc-clio.com

This book is printed on acid-free paper

Manufactured in the United States of America

Contents

Judi Moreillon

Erika Long and Suzanne Sherman

Julie Stivers, Stephanie Powell, and Nancy Jo Lambert

Meg Boisseau Allison and Peter Patrick Langella

Suzanne Sannwald and Dan McDowell

Jennifer Sturge with Stacy Allen and Sandy Walker

Kelly Gustafson and M. E. Shenefiel

Pam Harland and Anita Cellucci

Kristin Fraga Sierra and TuesD Chambers

Judi Moreillon

Acknowledgments

As the editor of Core Values in School Librarianship: Responding with Commitment and Courage , I had the honor of inviting school library and education leaders from across the United States to contribute to our book.

These passionate and compassionate contributors are my heroes. They committed to this project just ahead of school closures and persevered through the spring and summer of 2020 and into the unknowns as school districts prepared for and began the 20202021 academic year. The coauthors in this book are among the leaders who will assure the future of our profession for the benefit of all. I am in their debt for sharing their values, commitment, courage, and examples to follow.

All of the contributors to this book join with me in thanking the professionals who shared their experiences through the vignettes offered in each chapter.

We are also grateful for the support of our ABC-CLIO acquisitions editor Sharon Coatney without whose enthusiastic support this book would have never come to be. We are indebted to project editor Emma Bailey who shepherded us through the publication process.

Most of all, we are grateful to you, our readers. We thank you for pausing to reflect on your practice and recommitting to the core values and exemplary practices of our profession.

Judi Moreillon

Land Statement: The coauthors in this book have made their contributions from the homelands of seventeen American Indian nations. As the editor of the book, my writing and editorial contributions were made from my home in Tucson, Arizona, which is built on the traditional homelands of the Tohono Oodham and Hohokam peoples. Their care and keeping allows me to live and work here today.

Introduction: A Passion for School Librarianship

Judi Moreillon

All school librarians need a firm foundation to provide strength and direction during these rapidly changing and challenging times.

Rapidly Changing and Challenging Times

These are indeed rapidly changing times. The pace of change led by technological innovation and global interconnectedness in every aspect of our lives creates a challenging context in which to learn, work, and live. The impact of change on the educational landscape is undeniable. Broadband, technology devices and tools, and digital resources have the potential to transform teaching and learning for students and schools with access. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the unconscionable digital learning opportunity gap for many K12 students in the United States was exposed for all the world to see. As this book goes to press, long-needed strategies and initiatives to close this gap for students of all backgrounds, races, and socioeconomic status are still being considered, and funding for technology devices remains inequitable at the district, state, and national levels.

As author, reporter, and columnist Thomas L. Friedman notes in Thank You for Being Late: An Optimists Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations (2016), very few, if any, of us can keep up with the rapid pace of change. The accelerations in technology, globalization, and climate change result in the imperative to exist (and thrive) in a constant state of destabilization (Friedman 2016, 35). This requires flexibility, adaptability, and reflection. Although technology has made waiting obsolete, succeeding today requires patiencethe patience to pause, think, and reflect, and the wisdom to adjust our priorities and actions.

We know that the current and future workforce requires and will require high-level literacy, technological skills, and continuous learning. But access to high-quality educational experiences is inequitably distributed. Whether face to face or in the virtual classroom, our increasingly diverse students bring their heritage and home cultures, their languages, and their need for social-emotional learning as well as academic learning to class every day. They also bring with them a call for justice. In locations across the United States, many school systems are failing to meet todays students needs.

The stakes are high for students who do not have access to information and digital literacy instruction. The stakes are also high for school librarians to raise awareness of the school library as essential to the education of all students.

Carol Gordon

As educators in this challenging landscape, school librarian leaders are called on to bring our whole hearts, values, commitment, and courage to our work in order to best serve the evolving needs of all students, educators, and families. We must rise to our calling and lead our learning communities in seeking educational, racial, and social justice. We must demonstrate our core values and our value to the learning community. Finally, we must enlist the support of stakeholders in securing a role for librarians and libraries in the deeper learning our students need.

Friedman also points out that cultures must address peoples anxiety about the present and the future. We must offer one another a home. It is so much easier to venture farnot just in distance but also in terms of your willingness to experiment, take risks, and reach out to the otherwhen you know youre still tethered to a place called home, and to a real community (Friedman 2016, 452453). In their daily work with students, other educators, administrators, and families, each author in this book is working to create a deep sense of belonging in their communities. We know the value of finding a home in the librarya place of possibility.