the library practicum

Standard 4: Organization and Access

Candidates in school librarian preparation programs model, facilitate, and advocate for equitable access to and the ethical use of resources in a variety of formats. Candidates demonstrate their ability to develop, curate, organize, and manage a collection of resources to assert their commitment to the diverse needs and interests of the global society. Candidates make effective use of data and other forms of evidence to evaluate and inform decisions about library policies, resources, and services. ALA Librarian Preparation Standards 4.

Standard 4.1. Access. Candidates serve as agents of change by creating an inclusive learning environment that ensures ethical, equitable access to and use of physical, digital, and virtual resources in support of the needs of its learning community. Candidates design, develop, and implement evidence-based strategic solutions for addressing physical, social, virtual, economic, geographic, and intellectual barriers to equitable access to resources and services.

Evidence that I have understood and am implementing and upholding this standard will be evident in the redesign of our library facility. As noted in Photos 1-3, we are currently in the middle of reimagining the facility, beginning by reimagining the space; this reimagining includes moving and weeding 29,000 volumes and their affiliated bookcases.

Ultimately, the space will house learning corrals made from bookshelves, 4 bookshelves wide by 6 deep to meet ADA specifications. I’ll also experiment with the aesthetics of moving shelve heights with the intent of creating easy access for wheelchair patrons while simultaneously creating a visually interesting environment. Plans for the space furnishing are in development with the aide of Machabee Designs and, while currently limiting those furnishing options to school specific material, will be opened to a plethora of possibilities when I meet with the company’s district representative Tuesday. Until a CAD rendering is available, however, the generic specifications I’ve created for my LIS 6400 class can be found here as evidence of my preliminary interpretation of Standard 4.1, Access.

Standard 4.2 Information Resources. Candidates use evaluation criteria and selection tools to develop, curate, organize, and manage a collection designed to meet the diverse curricular and personal needs of the learning community. Candidates evaluate and select information resources in a variety of formats.

Evidence for this completion of this standard is still in progress as I am in the middle of polling faculty and students about the resources and interests they would like to have available for use in and out of the library. The policy that I am currently using is standard for the district I am in and has yet to be reviewed by our library committee because we do not have a library committee this year — we will for 2023-2024.

In addition to the in-progress collection policy, there are two bits of evidence to offer for my understanding of this standard: a library hosted a Henderson Police Department discussion for our Crime & Justice class and a zSpace presentation for our faculty. The first was inspired by a brief exchange with two students when I first arrived on site in November 2022; the second at the request of our autoshop teacher. Both events were a success. The first added real world experience to the students’ book learning as 8 female police officers of varied backgrounds, positions, and experiences shared their stories and answered questions from the students; the second demonstrated a technological learning tool that could increase student engagement and hopefully learning across multiple disciplines. Additionally, both events illustrated to faculty, students, and administration potential learning uses of the space and my commitment as their librarian to serve their needs.

In addition to Photo 4, the in-progress collection policy can be found here as another artifact of my understanding of standard 4.2.

Standard 4.3 Evidence-Based Decision Making. Candidates make effective use of data and information to assess how practice and policy impact groups and individuals in their diverse learning communities.

Standard 5: Leadership, Advocacy, and Professional Responsibility

Candidates in school librarian preparation programs are actively engaged in leadership, collaboration, advocacy, and professional networking. Candidates participate in and lead ongoing professional learning. Candidates advocate for effective school libraries to benefit all learners. Candidates conduct themselves according to the ethical principles of the library and information profession.

Standard 5.1 Professional Learning. Candidates engage in ongoing professional learning. Candidates deliver professional development designed to meet the diverse needs of all members of the learning community.

At present, ongoing professional learning is exhibited most readily via my library information science courses at SUU. Outside of graduate school, I will attend the Emily Dickinson International Society Conference in Amherst, MA at the end of July which will allow me to deepen my connection to the special collections librarians at Amherst College as a secondary librarian instead of a donor or Dickinson scholar. I’ve also continued being mentored beyond the school’s requirements by my librarian friends Dr. Andrea Trudeau, Professor Carol Kelly, mentor-mentee relationships rooted in friendships founded over mutual interests long ago. My graduate school scholarship, my personal interests, and my friendships all help me to meet the first part of this standard. Additionally, and more importantly, the experiences I gain from these activities are ones I bring into my professional persona and share when appropriate with students and faculty, modeling for students how learning is not constrained to the walls of a classroom. In future, if I remain as a librarian, I will consider joining associations such as those I have reviewed here.

The second part of this standard, “delivering professional development designed to meet the diverse needs of all members of the learning community” has already begun to be fulfilled as I transition from project manager for the ELC to the ELC librarian. As project manager, I asked the faculty at large, those who opted to take a chance on the new librarian, how they have used the library in the past and how they would want to use it in the future. One response was a place for zSpace lessons to occur. Because of their request, the ELC houses a 40 seat zSpace space and I have begun creating professional development for faculty on how to use the immersive computers. The first lesson of this project is the flipped lesson, What is zSpace. Though this learning is focused toward faculty, the computers themselves are for student learning and engagement and assist in the learning .

Standard 5.2 Leadership and Collaboration. Candidates lead and collaborate with members of the learning community to effectively design and implement solutions that positively impact learner growth and strengthen the role of the school library.

The ELC is a physical representation of a curricular and pedagogical collaboration between librarian and the learning community. The space has morphed from the storage facility it was when I arrived (housing over 24,000 volumes, 160 chairs, various sectional seatings, and one black widow spider) to the more modern, multi-fuctional use facility that will reopen in the fall. The design is a combination of what administration and faculty and students told me they wanted — a multi-use space (admin), group work capacity (faculty), and more true crime options (students). While true crime options within the collection are not facility per se, the plan does give students different seating options for the reading of them.

There is a zSpace space sectioned off from the collection area by high-backed benches. This, too, is a collaborative effort between faculty and librarian and administration and IT. Though one faculty instigated the procurement of the zSpace computers, eight others joined the crusade and we have 40 for the entire faculty to use with their students. As with any roll-out, our collaboration has started on a small scale - nine faculty members, mostly science, learning the computers on their own and then bringing select classes in so students and teachers alike can see how the teaching might go come fall. This fall my colleague, artist and art teacher Lilia Todd (see Photo 1 at left), will add art to the courses using the zSpace space and bring her AP students in to create art in 3D. Additionally, Ms. Wafer, a special education math teacher will bring her students for geometry and I will host a monthly zSpace Crew Collaboration Coffee where those forging the pedagogy can learn from one another.

In addition to the ELC hosting the zSpace space, it will also host a speaker’s series for interested students regardless their gpa. The only requirement for attendance is a desire to learn, approval to miss class from the appropriate faculty, and a promise to abide by the library rules. In 2022-2023, the library hosted Community in Schools (CIS) Christmas party, their awards ceremony, and a panel presentation by the Henderson Police Department for our Crime and Justice classes; in 2023-2024 the ELC hosted the CIS Christmas party, their awards ceremony, and the first annual spring Eldorado Art Show. In 2024-2025 the ELC will add a December art show, a Community Stars speakers series (that will include the Henderson Police Chief, newly elected Judge Wolfson, a Cirque d’Soliel acrobat, and a YoNutz franchise owner to start), and a mock crime scene for the Crime and Justice students to solve staged in collaboration with the Henderson Police Department.

Standard 5.3 Advocacy. Candidates advocate for all learners, resources, services, policies, procedures, and school libraries through networking and collaborating with the larger education and library community.

The creation of the ELC has been an advocacy undertaking. Each purchase, each design, each book culled or collected, each space planned with the one goal of creating for the larger Eldorado community a place for teachers to teach, students to learn, and people to be. While the space itself might be altered, the procedures have still to be set in place and tried and refined. However, to do this, people must come to the space. This is where my practicum time ties most directly to the standards. Ms. Alberti recommended Canva for faculty outreach and her examples epitomized her. My media of choice is iMovie and so, incorporating Alberti’s mantra of don’t waste their time, but interest them in, I created Video 1 (to the left) in order to bring faculty into the space for an informal introduction and to suss out how I might help them in the 2024-2025 school year. This video exemplifies the advocacy standard by directly targeting the learning audience to come into the space. Getting faculty to the ELC and to interact with it librarian, me, is the foundational step to increasing my collaboration abilities.

One larger collaborative effort will be with a submission to present at LibLearnX with my zSpace Crew. If we are accepted, the validation they will earn in the space outside of our campus will, hopefully, help them continue their collaborative and cross-curricular practices after I have left. This preparation for the future of the space independent of the librarian might also be viewed as an advocacy of sorts - an advocacy that teaches ownership of the library facility to others from a librarian’s perspective so that the efforts, pedagogical and curricular and behavioral, are maintained by the larger school community, thus ensuring its survival beyond one librarian.

Standard 5.4 Ethical Practice. Candidates model and promote the ethical practices of librarianship, as expressed in the foundational documents of the library profession including the American Library Association Code of Ethics and the Library Bill of Rights.

I must admit that this has been the most difficult standard for me. Partly because I have had little time to focus on the issue of librarian ethics due to familial issues and extra library time that demanded attention before the power went out in the main building (which houses the ELC) for all of July. My initial thoughts on librarian ethics (found in this video) still hold true; however, before the start of school, I will revisit the subject and codify my curating practices, both collecting and culling, so as to reinforce ethical librarian behaviors. An example of this is the codification of use via an ELC Interest form that patrons must fill out in order to reserve space in the ELC. The form eliminates favoritism, intentional or not, from the reservation process by collecting the time of submission which, barring non-academic use requests, will be fulfilled on a first-come-first-served basis.

Still to be created are forms for student book requests, requirements for extracurricular use, and post-mortem procedures with those who use the space so that improvements can be made. Each of these items will provide guidelines that, if created in accordance with the ethical practices promoted in our profession, and they will be, should help me maintain and uphold those ethics.

Requirement Area #6 Competencies: Technology.

Technology-Enabled Learning. Candidates use digital tools, resources, and emerging technologies to design and adapt learning experiences. Candidates engage all learners in finding, evaluating, creating, and communicating data and information in a digital environment. Candidates articulate, communicate, model, and teach digital citizenship. Southern Utah University K-12 Library Media Endorsement Competencies.

This competency is evident in the technology that has been brought in to the ELC for faculty and student use. Evidence for this can be seen in my purposeful inclusion of technology into Eldorado High School’s library (now the ELC), the job for which I was hired in November 2022 and which will fully reopen in August of 2024.

Candidates use digital tools, resources, and emerging technologies to design and adapt learning experiences.

One aspect of this competency can be seen in the aesthetic design for the ELC. Specifically, with the acceptance and hanging of the print The Mathematician 2.0 by Artnwordz.

The work, The Mathematician 2.0, incorporates AR via a QR code to use emerging technologies for educational experiences. By highlighting Albert Einstein, one of the 20th century’s preeminent physicists, by incorporating physics to make a statement about love, and, further, by doing so via art, another subject with which students should be aware, it provides a plethora of learning possibilities for myriad subjects. Because it is art, this media encourages students to respond to it on a personal level before doing so scientifically or analytically, and because this print incorporates AR and students are allowed to use their phones (if they ask first), it encourages them to engage with an adaptive technology to ultimately learn something. Additionally, the print presents possibilities to those students interested in 3D media, in creativity, in art, in connecting the technological possibilities beyond the current ways technology is being used.

The few students who have engaged with Einstein have been mostly impressed and curious; the faculty who have experienced it have been shocked and awed, mesmerized and overjoyed, encouraged and recharged — their teacher brains began turning and the seeds for new lessons with students in the library in the new year have been planted.

To experience meet Einstein and learn about his equation, please scan the QR code in Image 1 and, while the experience is loading on your phone, focus your camera on the fully framed print in Image 2.

Candidates engage all learners in finding, evaluating, creating, and communicating data and information in a digital environment.

The use of the Goosechase platform as an introduction to students this session and faculty and students in the new school year shows my ability to meet these requirements. While the experience is no longer available for play, the beta testing of it with three students provided enough encouragement for me to pursue discussing possible purchase with my administration for the ELC and faculty.

Another example of assisting learners, both faculty and students, in finding, evaluating, creating, and communicating data and information in a digital environment, was with their introduction to their zSpace space. All teachers interested in the technology are required to take it home to use it in order to determine if it is necessary for their content. They will also be required to complete a Canvas course designed to encourage them to play with the programming as a learner and think about how to apply it as a teacher (this course is also necessary if they are to be paid for their time).

Candidates articulate, communicate, model, and teach digital citizenship.

One principal of digital citizenship is media literacy; a part of media literacy is “using screens mindfully” (Media Literacy Now). While Eldorado High School is a one-to-one school with rampant screen use via mobiles and laptops, the ELC counters this with its phone policy, a move that also serves to model and have students practice this aspect of digital citizenship. To whit: never have a phone out when in a class, never when on your own in the ELC except when you’re viewing the Einstein, and only one earbud, pre-set to music so the phone is never out and the librarian never hears (this is also a safety issue).

While there is a zSpace computer lab with 40 units, they are in a separate section and only used when in a class setting and for purposes the teacher deems it necessary to use its 3D/360 capabilities. This models purposeful use of technology. Moreover, when students use the technology, they will be asked to reflect on the technology as a tool (see student aggregate responses in Slideshow 1 to the right). Moreover, while six computers connected to a printer will be available for student individual use, they take up a minority of space and are the least attractive of the seating areas. The ELC’s interior is designed to encourage study habits, prompt quiet group discussions, and enable individual reflection - actions that will mostly pull students from their screens into their world.

To encourage students to be aware of digital citizenship broadly, the articulate 360 interactive presentation Digital Citizenship @ the ELC will be used. It also supports my proficiency in the technology competency for candidacy. To encourage teachers to be aware of digital citizenship, those using zSpace will be required to watch John Green’s Navigating Digital Information Crash Course #10 . However, in order to reach a larger audience, I’m going to propose to my principal that we craft a school-wide media literacy awareness campaign introduced with Dino Ambrosi’s Tedx Talk The Battle for Your Time during a 3rd period for every class the second week of school (which will tie in with the district’s new no phones during school policy); I’m going to suggest we build on that during Media Literacy Week beginning 24 October 2024 by having a 2-day school wide almost synchronous showing of each of Green’s courses in his Navigating Digital Information Crash Course.

Technology-enabled learning may be the most important literacy digital natives will master and, therefore, one of the most important skills for librarians to learn. Underpinning the entire idea of learning and technology is the pedagogical skill of media literacy which many teachers have not been taught and, therefore, are ill-equipped to teach (U.S. Media Literacy Report 2023). Integrating media literacy practices into the ELC is one way this librarian is subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) modeling and teaching the digital literacies of this requirement. More, while technology is inevitable in modernity and, therefore a subject students must learn in their education, I believe it must be integrated in such a way that technology remains a tool for teachers to use instead of teachers becoming the tools technology uses.