Collaborating with Students and Staff to Change Your School Library's Culture

Erica Chancellor is no stranger to challenges. Her six years in education have been spent as a middle school classroom teacher, then computer support specialist, and finally as a school librarian. In her first year in the library at Minden High, Erica set out to change her high school library's culture with a clear mission statement and a copy of the new AASL Standards Framework by her side. Here's how she is doing it in her own words:

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Library Mission Statement 
The Minden High School Media Center aims to be an information resource for all students and faculty. It strives to provide access for all. It seeks to provide both print and digital resources that support the districts and teacher curriculum. The MHS Media Center is a space that fosters learning, collaboration, and reading for pleasure.  

Gone are the days where libraries are only used for checking out books and quietly entering in and out.  The school library today is adapting to the needs of its school, teachers, and students it serves. There is definitely a shift in the library culture happening throughout schools everywhere and here at Minden High School we are trying to be part of the progress. School libraries are now becoming the hubs of the school. A space where students can gather in order to collaborate, communicate, and access information.  School librarian roles are adapting with that space into becoming technology integration specialists, co-teachers, information specialists for both print and digital resources, and digital literacy experts. 

At Minden High School we have been working towards this change and curating a new library culture. Collaborating with teachers has been the greatest step in this direction thus far.  Through collaboration, as educators we are trying to increase student achievement by really holding our students accountable in the information they are seeking and then producing. We are preparing them to make critical choices about the information they are using. Making sure they are checking sources for credibility and giving credit to the sources they use. We are also striving to help students curate high quality resources that reflect the information they have learned and demonstrates their thinking.  Today, more than ever these skills are needed. As the school librarian, I am working towards being able to provide our teachers with ways to implement information literacy into the lessons they are already teaching through collaboration with them and providing them with the resources they need. Some of the classroom collaboration we have done thus far is teaching students about databases, using something other than Google slides to create a presentation, and library orientation for research. 

Another piece of the school library is to foster the love of reading. Ways we are doing this at Minden are through our book club and our student podcast.  Our podcast is led by myself, and I interview a student who volunteers to share with us the book that they have read. The student answers some fun get-to-know-you questions and then we move on to discussing the book and what happens in the book. The podcast is then uploaded to the library website and shared out through our social media platforms and library newsletter.  The hope is that it will inspire students to want to read that book and foster a love for reading at the school as they see what their peers are reading. Students really seem to love doing the podcast and we have hopes of it becoming a student led activity. Our book club meets every two weeks after school to discuss the books we are reading. We are currently getting ready to read Nothing but Sky by Amy Trueblood who has agreed to Skype us in December (thanks to our awesome English teacher Angie Oberg who coordinated this for us.)  The book club is just another great way to celebrate the love of reading and continue to encourage that. ​

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Another huge piece this year - getting students to pick up a book and read - has been the collaboration with the English department. The English teachers do an amazing job of promoting books and allowing student choice into their directed reading program.  Students like having the ability every so often to choose a book they are going to read for class.  Through collaboration with the English department we have been able to do some neat lessons such as a book tasting and will begin monthly book talks to promote the new books in the library for student checkout. ​​

There's so much more!

Erica has a wealth of information online about her school's library and library life. To connect with her, visit any of these:
Instagram- @mhs_mediacenter 
Twitter- @mhsmediacenter1
Website- https://echancellor7.wixsite.com/library
​(Personally, I love her website the most! Constant goodies there.)

The Kearney Hub wrote a fantastic article about the student podcast here.

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