Reading Reflections - 7/5

Empowering Learners - Chapter 2

Chapter 2 is titled "Teaching for Learning," which seems kind of silly at first, because isn't that what teaching is all about? Learning? Students need to be taught in ways that will be beneficial to them and will meet the needs of all learners. This chapter really focused on inquiry-based learning. Most of the teachers in my district are trained in eMINTS. I really related my eMINTS training to the information in this chapter. eMINTS is all about inquiry-based learning and teaching the students to dig deep. I think that the library media specialist plays a major role in this, and collaboration with the classroom teachers is a necessity. The section on assessment focused on data. This is something that my district is really working on right now. We have formed data teams and at every faculty meeting it is preached about how important data is in forming instruction.

Empowering Learners - Chapter 3

The Learning Space - The library is broken into two parts: the physical space and the virtual space. The virtual space is more important than most people think about because it gives students access to the library 24/7. I know I have always been one to procrastinate, which means that access to resources while I'm at home is vital. The virtual space should be a resource center. I think that this is important not only for students, but for teachers too. I think that a professional virtual library needs to exist as well. I have many ideas for creating this in the upcoming school year.

Collection and Information Access - A well-developed collection is important to a library media center. All libraries are different depending on size and patrons, so that means that their needs will be different as well.

Woolls - Chapter 8: Managing Access to Information


Library privacy is something that I didn't know much about until I completed a research paper on the topic for Dr. Antrim's Foundations course. During the research process, I realized just how important patron privacy is. I also realized how many librarians, including some in my district, were not educated on this issue.

We have been talking about the importance of a selection policy in the LIS 5250 class, so the sections of this chapter that touched on that subject really stood out to me. Before covering this in 5250, I did not realize the importance of having a selection policy. I kind of compare it to insurance. It lists the criteria for choosing books, policy for challenged materials, and also "weeding" the collection. I think it is important to have a policy for weeding. I also liked in the chapter when it mentioned that everyone needs to work together on this. Students need to contribute their input on whether or not materials are useful.

Woolls - Chapter 10: Managing Services

There were a couple sections in this chapter that were interesting to me. The first, when Woolls mentions a professional reference collection of all textbooks in the school. Part of my library design project included the addition of a professional library, but I have to admit, it did not occur to me to add all of the textbooks to the library. I think that in a small district like mine this is probably not as big of an issue as it would be in a larger school. In my school, the departments are familiar with the textbooks used throughout the grade levels, but I could definitely see having a textbook library as being beneficial in a school where the departments are not as close-knit and communication is not as easy.

The section on the media specialist's role in the classroom is one of interest to me. I have many plans to go into classrooms next year as the lms. One of the top priorities on my list is teaching students to use the online databases. This issue also came up in 5250, and I did not know about databases or how to use them until I got to college, where I had to teach myself. If I can get to the students at the middle school level then it will be so beneficial to the rest of their education.