PA School Librarian in Germany

Photo taken from Mt. Washington

I am currently in the air, having just left Pittsburgh International Airport bound for Mainz, Germany*! I have been anxiously anticipating this moment since February, after learning that I was accepted by the German American Fulbright Commission to attend a seminar for high school teachers. For the next two weeks, I will participate in a program entitled “Education in Germany - a Multi-Faceted System,” along with 14 other American teachers. Although the program schedule is very full, I find it important to document my experiences here, whenever I have a free moment. I hope to be able to look back on these two weeks and continue to learn from them, long after the program is over.

Mainz-bound!

“As a school librarian,” I state in my seminar application, “I convey my curiosity and passion for learning through the way I approach my profession and through the way I live my life. This passion for learning continually manifests itself as a desire to be culturally literate for my students, for my peers, and for myself.” I feel incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to learn about the German education system from the teachers at German schools and through the faculty at Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz. I will be forever grateful to these teachers (and to the German American Fulbright Commission!) for helping me to gain a greater sense of cultural literacy. In turn, I hope to be a good ambassador for my school, the library profession, and my country.

*I wrote this entry in the air, but had to post it when I had access to wifi. So, (update) I have arrived!
** For those interested in joining a similar program (either as a professional in the US traveling to Germany or as a professional in Germany traveling to the US), see the German American Fulbright Commission website. 

On the Main River in Frankfurt

Student Volunteers

Student volunteers are essential to the daily operations of our high school library. As I finish my third year as a full-time librarian, I have a much better grasp on "hiring," training, and working with volunteers. My goals are to have happy volunteers who love the library, while maintaining a productive library and positive learning environment.

Hiring

My hiring practices have changes over the past few years. I instituted an application/mini-interview process along with some advertising. I find that only students who are very interested in the position take the time to apply, and during the interview I have the chance to convey my high expectations for student volunteers. I provide an overview of possible tasks, which gives students the chance to determine if they are willing to put forth the necessary effort. In terms of advertising, I give applications to club advisers whose students may need volunteer hours. I also advertise on the morning announcements during the first week of a new semester.

Training

After being hired, I ask volunteers to read through a volunteer handbook I created. The handbook provides a list of period-specific tasks (certain things have to happen in the morning, some in the afternoon), instructions on shelving, shelf reading, dusting, due date cards, study hall passes, sign in sheets, technology use, obligations letters, processing discarded books, etc. I also have screen shots for properly checking books in and out using Destiny Library Manager. This student handbook can also be helpful for substitute librarians! After reading the handbook, I train students in person during their lunch periods. I find that my sanity prefers to only do two trainings, as opposed to nine or ten. I provide a light lunch as a thank you to volunteers for offering their services and also as a thank you for coming to training during their lunch period. It's a nice time for students to see who else is volunteering, and the afternoon aides get to meet the library secretary who is only in the library during the mornings.

Working

I try to have some sort of a routine for students, even if each day has different tasks. Study hall library aides count and run passes first thing, and then they can check for additional notes on the front desk. I also verbally instruct students on what to do for the class period, so that they know my expectations. I try to provide choices as often as possible. Inevitably, I learn my students' strengths and utilize these as best I can. Often big readers want to work in the library, and I will periodically ask for ordering suggestions (after all, the books I order are for them!). If I have a display idea, I'll ask students to help pull their favorite books that fit the theme. I also find that some of my more outgoing readers are excellent at Readers Advisory. I notice that volunteers will watch me ask students RA questions, and then they are able to model their own RA process after mine. When I have artists, I'll have them make signs and posters for the library. Some of my students even instituted an internship program, where they started training younger students to take over the library the following year. These moments of leadership always make me feel so proud and thankful for my kids!

Appreciation

Finally, I try to show my appreciation for my volunteers as often as I can. When we finish a big job, I like to get doughnuts or cookies. I give gifts to students before Winter break and play movies for them in the library. I purchase senior gifts and small underclassmen gifts at the end of the school year. But your appreciation does not have to cost money. You could allow students to choose a book to be purchased for the library and let them check it out first. You could dedicate a book to each volunteer and place a dedication plate in the front of each book. You could let them pick a day to have a potluck in the library during lunch.

I cannot put a price on the mutual benefit of student volunteers. I gain hundreds of man hours, which frees up some of my time to tutor students, promote the library, collaborate with teachers, or lesson plan. Volunteers gain work experience, a resume-builder, a built-in reference, and necessary volunteer hours for clubs. If you are not already using student volunteers, please consider this valuable experience for you and your students!

But Wait...There's More!

I try to do a book series display for students every year. I find that a lot of teenagers enjoy getting lost in a series. Often, they will read a book from a series in a night or two and be excited to come and get the next one ASAP. I found a concept on Pinterest for this type of display, using the infomercial quote "But wait, there's more!" So, I found a picture of a well-known infomercial actor and pasted book covers in his hands to make it look as though he's selling books. The display has been effective so far: I've gotten some chuckles from students, and a number of books have been checked out from the display. Score for Pinterest and Ms. Kauffman!

National Library Week - Free Fine Deletion and Teacher Recommendations

Photo Credit: Wilson Hutton from Penn State News

It's National Library Week! And this week I find it to be important to recognize everyone that makes the library possible. In the past, I've gotten cookie cakes for my library aides in honor of National Library Worker's Day, and this year we did Dunkin Donuts.

For patrons, I offer free fine deletion every year during National Library Week. I know that fines are sort of a hot button issue in school libraries - some librarians find them to be exclusionary and unfriendly. Personally, I like to think of library fines as preparation for late fees that students might encounter in their adult lives. Whether fines are for late library books, the electric bill, credit card bills, or something else, I think that knowing that there is some sort of consequence is realistic. This is not to say that everyone doesn't deserve a break now and again! We tend to get a lot of books back during National Library Week, which helps students out, but also is beneficial for the library and the main office. We called parents about missing materials the week before NLW, and we were happy to be able to tell them that fines would be waved if materials were returned the following week. I find that having a week of free fine deletion is good PR, but I do not find that charging fines in the first place is particularly bad PR for the library.

I also asked teachers to write book recommendations to be included on the summer reading Doc posted to the library page. Last year, I displayed recommendations in the library, but I thought it would be more beneficial for students to be able to access the recommendations online instead. So, thus our summer read list was born. I am always excited to see what teachers are reading and what they loved enough to recommend to students. I enter all teacher participants into a drawing for a small gift card, just as a token of my appreciation. I hope everyone with a connection to a library had a fantastic National Library Week!

Knight Readers Book-It to the Top of Westmoreland Interscholastic Reading Competition

*The following article was written by K. Kaufman and will appear in the Knight Vision newsletter

Norwin High School students participated in the Westmoreland Interscholastic Reading Competition (WIRC) on March 9, 2015 at Seton Hill University. Along with the two Norwin High School teams, Once Upon a Knight and The Knights Who Say Read!, forty other teams from around the state competed this year in the grades 9-12 division. In preparation for this annual event, our Knight Readers collectively read fiction and non-fiction texts off of a list of 30 total books. Students discussed these books during WIRC meetings and created practice questions to quiz one another on the content of the stories. Students competed against other schools at the event to answer trivia-type questions about the plot and characters of the books they read throughout the year. We are very proud of both of our teams! The Knights Who Say Read! won one round of competition, and Once Upon a Knight won four rounds of competition, placing them sixth amongst the forty-two total teams! We are so excited to celebrate the successes of our teams this year. Students in grades 9-12 for the 2015-2016 school year who are interested in joining the Knight Readers should contact Ms. Kauffman in the Norwin High School Library.

Girl's Mentoring Event

We have some pretty fantastic kids at school - kids who not only work hard, but also students who look out for one another. A group of incredible senior girls decided to start a girl's mentoring program called the Knights in Shining Armor. This organization brings together friendly, motivated, successful senior and freshman girls who want to get involved in their school. Together, they do a variety of activities: yoga, crafts, book clubs, etc., lead by different teachers throughout the school. During these activities, the freshmen can ask for advice from their older, wiser peers, or just network with one another and make new friends.
"Knitted Heart." by mararie is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Just before Valentine's Day, I offered to facilitate a craft afternoon where students could make cards or little candy boxes. I provided hot chocolate with heart marshmallows, and the girls brought brownies and popcorn to snack on during the craft hour. Listening to these smart, funny, strong, and friendly girls work together and offer their expertise on all things school made my heart happy. I didn't know many of the girls before the event, but I left with a smile on my face that there are such wonderful things going on at our school - events that are entirely student organized and student driven. These girls recognized a need for a mentoring group that could lead their younger peers on the right path to success, so they made one. And I know I am not alone in my pride for these lovely young women, as a number of teachers wanted to know what they could do to contribute to such a fantastic organization. I think I certainly learned an important lesson from them: do not wait for good things to happen, make them happen!

Evaluating Resources

According to the PA Core Standards, students must be able to evaluate resources based on credibility, relevance, currency, accuracy and bias. Many students understand that they need to use "good" resources, but find it much more difficult to define exactly what this means. In order to help my students to determine if a resource is worthwhile for a particular project, I devised a rubric for evaluation. Teachers use rubrics in order to make subjective evaluations more concrete, so it only makes sense to teach students to do the same thing in their evaluation of resources. I urge students to recognize that the same source might receive excellent scores for one research topic, but only mediocre scores for another. The research question or thesis statement greatly influences which resources are most useful. I try to make this concept easy to conceive for students with a number of examples throughout the evaluation rubric. The best part of having a very structured form for evaluation is that it only takes a few minutes to go over, and then students have a reference point for the rest of their research endeavors. After using the rubric for several projects, students no longer need to use the physical rubric because they begin to look for elements of good resources automatically.

Please feel free to modify and use the Evaluation of Resources rubric with your students. If you repost this rubric, please provide proper credit!