Last year one of the school districts in our service area took the drastic step of eliminating its school librarians. As it turned out, this did
not help them pass a needed referendum.
Subsequent to the layoffs, the public library (us) won a $2000 grant from Sam's Club to promote "library literacy." We had envisioned working with the teachers to give a basic introduction to libraries ... particularly to our own since all of the students in this school district are library district residents. We weren't going to replace the school librarians but (making lemonade out of sour lemons) this also gave us a rare marketing opportunity.
The referendum defeat prompted the school superintendent to resign. This put us in an odd position for several months. The resigning superintendent knew what we were up to but there was no way that we could expect the incoming superintendent to readily agree to what we wanted (especially as the "No Child Left Behind" legislation pushes a strong focus on classwork).
So ... we had to come up with something which would be flexible. It seemed best to create a workbook that promoted library skills and which could be used "by itself" by a teacher or used in conjunction with classroom visits by our public library staff.
Kerry Reed (our Head of Youth Services) and Elisa Gueffier (now a Children's Librarian here) came up with the workbook content ... it became part of Elisa's coursework for her Master's degree. Elisa worked with our staff artist and came up with what I think is a great product.
The teachers like it too!
I've attached an image of a few pages so you can get an idea as to what the workbook is like.
I imagine I can send a few samples. We're thinking of modifying some of the "Lake Villa Library specific" pages and marketing them to the public library community ... so I'd appreciate any feedback you might have.
Let's hear it for Kerry and Elisa!!!!
