A homework club activity Business Competition from Cully and Sully - "Sew your seeds and sing us your puns and then upload a video" (reading, writing, performance and technology skills!!). All in the days work of a JCSP librarian!
So it is really important to engage with other librarians and not limit my professional engagement to just school librarians. So what's holding me back. TIME!
I did find Advocacy and Engagement an interesting exercise. I am used to at a local level advocating for my library. It did make me think about how we (as a group) advocate for the JCSP library service. Although the focus of some of these questions were specific to the public libraries. It made me think about the contribution my school library makes to teaching and learning. I need to take ownership and present the data I collect with The Management of my school and the Board of Management.
Professional Groups: After this exercise, I was disappointed and did not feel that I was engaging enough. I have thought about this a lot since Thing 20 . I stated there that it was important to join, participate and contribute. I felt I performed poorly. Why am I so passive about engagement. Why do I not network more?
However I think I only put value on formal professional engagement where you are visible. I gave it some more thought I reviewed my engagement with other librarians outside of my immediate professional circle. I should not underestimate the value of twitter chat, skype and old fashioned email interviews!
- Locally I am involved in PLICS (Promoting Literacy in Communities and Schools) a committee made up of community agencies and the public library. We meet regularly.
- I have participated in The International Librarians Network (ILN) Peer Mentoring Program which is more of a partnership. Their philosophy that we all have something to learn and something to teach. I was matched up with a lady from Chicago Public Libraries who was involved in Adult Services but it was called Culture and Civic Engagement. They are involved in an interesting program on Financial Literacy called Money Smart. In the school environment the library facilitates workshops for parents on how to help their children with their maths homework, which often involves building parents confidence in basic maths operations. I got some great tips from her on setting up adult workshops for everyday financial literacy.
- I have also supported school library research and participated in interviews which has resulted in publications. My most recent involvement was with Dr. Patrick Lo, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Library and Information Science at the University of Tsukuba in Japan. From January 2016 to December 2017 I was responding to research questions via email and skype.
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| My contribution is in Volume 1: The Americas & Europe |
I also was a case study! "In the Invisible Libraian: A Librarian's Guide to increasing Visibility and Impact" by Aoife Lawton which was published in 2015. How ironic is that.
Why do I like my cloak of invisibility so much. I suppose again it is due to TIME - school librarianship is quiet intense. You wear many hats.
So replying to any request for information on school librarianship from M.A. Students or Professional Librarians is my form of engagement and advocacy. I like to think I contribute quietly. But is that enough??
This part of Rudaí 23 has got me thinking about how I can engage more effectively with other librarians. I think I signed up for this course because I wanted to hear about other librarian experiences and I have made so many note on Evernote on snippets of information from blogs I have read. Going forward I will be keeping a much closer eye on what's going on and in time I am sure I will find my voice! I have learned so much and will be constantly referring back to all I have learnt and all this course has asked me to focus and reflect on.
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