Banner courtesy of John LeMasney via lemasney.com
This post is part of Show Me The Awesome: 30 Days of Self-Promotion,
an initiative by Sophie, Liz, and Kelly. To learn more, click those
links or check out #30awesome on twitter.
How To Have a Successful First Year in 10 Easy Steps:
1.
Get lucky- the first and most important step was
to be lucky enough to have strong administrative support for new initiatives
and wonderful students who were enthusiastic about everything
2.
Weed, weed, then weed more… no really you must
weed
I cannot overstate the necessity of
weeding in a school library. If you
have students who cannot use the library because of mold allergies, if you can’t
wear black to work because of the amount of dust that clings to you, if you
have no room for a single extra book on a shelf, you must weed. Since beginning weeding this year, we have increased
the average age of the collection by 20 years.
Because new things can come in and stand out on the shelves, we have had
six times the number of checkouts this year than we had last year.
3.
Goals/greats- it’s important to know what you
want to do and to remind yourself of things that are going well. It can be frustrating when things aren’t the
way you envisoned. Having a notebook
where I wrote monthly goals and “Greats” (things that I was proud of/things
that worked) really helped me to see that great things were happening, even
when I was discouraged.
4.
Communicate- I found that many students and faculty
didn’t know the wonderful things that were happening, so I made it my goal to
show them. From quarterly full length
newsletters to monthly “Mini-News” with new purchases, top checkouts, and who
was seen in the library, to infographics about checkout increases, to
announcements at our all-school assembly, to creating this blog, learning to
tweet, and just generally annoying people by talking about the library all the
time, I shared much and often and in many different mediums!
5.
Listen- I sent out surveys, talked to students,
put up a requests board and tried to stay in touch with what was new and
popular. I tried never to say no to a
reasonable request. I wasn’t afraid to change
policies that students didn’t respond well to.
For instance, DVD’s were not easily accessible to students and weren’t
generally interesting to them. I’ve
worked to increase that collection and brought it out onto the main floor. We had basically no Young Adult literature in
August, but since I’ve increased that collection and given it special shelving,
its’ circulation has increased seven-fold.
The physical space is more fun, with more collaborative areas and
hang-out space in response to student requests.
Our renovated library will have a coffee shop and more enclosed study
rooms as well. It’s critical to listen
to what our students want because they are the primary users!
6.
Have fun- The library has become a place
associated with fun! I held evening
activities such as 80s Night where we danced to 80s music, dressed up and
examined the 80’s books and magazines.
There were movie nights using the projector and white boards, Christmas
storytelling by the giant book tree, a webcast with John Green, a Book Fair,
and many other events just to get students in the library to see what we had
going on.
7.
Get Help- I am a solo, first-year librarian with
no paid clerical help. The student
assistant program has been an invaluable resource. I give them lots of responsibility and train
them in all areas of library service.
They help check out, catalog, do inventory, come up with the best ideas
and bring their friends in to participate as well. I love that this program brings me closer to
the students and helps them to increase their sense of ownership in the library. Who knows, there may be a future librarian
among them?!
8.
Stay current/share ideas- Since I am a solo
librarian in a very rural area, I have had to work extra hard to find library
mentors and colleagues. Luckily, I am a
member of several professional organizations such as VAASL (Virginia Assn. of
School Librarians), AISL (Assn. of Independent School Librarians) and AASL. I am so grateful for the ways in which these
associations, their listserv’s and conferences have impacted my ability to stay
current in the field. I am able to
network with other librarians in similar situations and it is so nice to have
new friends who love the things that you love!
Blogs, twitter and webinars have also become very important parts of my
professional development now that I am on my own in the library. It’s amazing what wonderful ideas you can
find from your online peers!
9.
Be patient- I’ve learned that it is very
important to stay calm and accept that it won’t all happen in a year. There are many 2nd tier projects
and Year Two (and onward!) goals. It’s
important to realize that people need time to make decisions and that you need
time to get to know the school and community in order to be effective. This shouldn’t hold you back from starting
off on the right foot, but it should give you comfort when things aren’t all going
as smoothly as you had hoped.
10. Finally,
enjoy the payoff- I am so looking forward to coming back to a new library in
August and to seeing the kids’ excitement.
I can’t wait to watch teachers working in the spaces that we’ve designed
and to hear from alumni who are happy with what we’ve accomplished.
Do you have any first-year success stories? What’s worked in your libraries? Please share!
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