I think with everything you do, there is always something to be learned from the experience.  For me, the lesson I learned was anything is possible when everyone is working together.  From ALA President Molly Raphael’s School Library Task Force to the ALA Think Tank on Facebook who bought ads on Facebook to the vendor community who sent out messages to all their customers to the librarians and their supporters who convinced their families to all sign the petition to the ALA divisions who helped pull in the entire library community to the other national organizations and associations that partner with AASL who spread the word through their websites and memberships as well, it truly was a team effort.   This group certainly took full advantage of the powers of social media.  It was amazing to watch the power of everyone working together and the results paying off when we crossed the magic 25,000 line.

We now wait for the White House response.  There is no timeline given by the White House other than they will respond as quickly as is possible.  The response will be posted on the White House – We the People – website and everyone who signed the petition will receive the response via email.  There is no guarantee that the response will include any action from the White House.   However, the petition will help raise awareness of the issues facing school libraries today.

But, the petition is not a silver bullet.  As we work towards getting school libraries included in the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, it will be important that we keep up the effort.  We need to be talking to Senators and Representatives, encouraging them to support the Skills Act.  On January 17, U.S. Representative Raul Grijalva (D-AZ, 7th), along with Representatives Rush Holt (D-NJ, 12th) and Lynn Woolsey (D-CA, 6th) introduced the Strengthening Kids’ Interest in Learning and Libraries (SKILLS) Act. The SKILLS Act, numbered H.R. 3776 in the House, is a companion bill of S. 1328 that was introduced in the Senate by Senators Jack Reed (D-RI) and Thad Cochran (R-MS) back on July 6, 2011.

The Congressional Briefing in October, followed by the petition, have been great steps in advocating for school libraries at the Federal level.  But they are just steps in the journey.  We’ve not reach our destination, so we have to keep moving forward as we paint a picture for our legislators about what today’s school libraries can do for students and the importance for each and every student to have access to a quality school library program!

Last week I had the pleasure to head down to Louisiana and spend a few days at the Louisiana Library Association.  The Louisiana Association of School Librarians is the state affiliate to American Association of School Librarians (AASL).  LASL is a division of the Louisiana Library Association.

One of my favorite parts of being President-Elect of AASL is that I get a chance to represent the association at some of the state conferences.  Many years ago the AASL Board votes to start a rotation so that the AASL President (President-Elects and Past-Presidents) would visit the various state conferences on a consistent basis.  Earlier this year I visited Nevada and the other state on my list this year was Louisiana!  The goal of the program was to help build and reinforce the connection between our affiliates with AASL.

The reason I enjoy it so much is the people.  Over the 2 1/2 days I was there, I got a chance to meet some amazing librarians doing some amazing things.  LASL is luckily to have quite a dedicated group at the helm of their organization.  They ran a wonderful conference.  I had the honor to present a couple of sessions – Engaging the Profession and 21st Century Skills are Elementary.  It was great to share some of the things AASL is working on.  Even more exciting is that we’ll be back in LA for ALA this summer in New Orleans.

Besides the time I was sharing in front of the group, I got time to sit back in the audience and enjoy of the session they offered.  There were some wonderful session such as Skyping with an Author and What to Read Next after  Percy Jackson with some great tech connections.   You can see some of the resources on the LASL wiki!  I also had the chance to attend their awards reception and the author luncheon with Wendelin Van Draanen who is an amazing presenter.

Carl Harvey and author Wendelin Van Draanen

But, as I said before the people are what makes these conference so wonderful.  The little chats and conversations in the hallways, before and after sessions, or at the meal functions were certainly the highlight for me.  I came back for ideas I can use in my own library as well as feedback for AASL, too.  I’d also like to thank LASL for the newest addition to my tie collection.  Its wonderful!  Thank you to all the great librarians in Louisiana for a great visit!  Looking forward to being back there in June!!!

AASL has started sending out a daily advocacy tips. From the simple idea of making sure there was a link to the library homepage from the main school page to setting up an advisory committee. Each day there is a little gems. Sometimes they are great reminders of things I keep meaning to do, but maybe haven’t quite the time. Sometimes they are ideas I hadn’t even thought of, and I start to wonder how that might work in my school. Every once in a while there is one that I know I’m doing!  It gives me that feeling of “I’m on the right track!”

If you are a member of AASL you can get these little tips emailed directly to your inbox – once a day, once a week, or once a month depending on your preference. You also have the option to get them as an email or text.  AASL also has been posting them on their Twitter.  So, lots of ways to get access to these wonderful ideas! If you have ideas that you think make great tips, make sure to share those with the AASL office. You might see them as a future tip down the road.

I’ve also come away learning just as much as if I had traveled to a convention center or hotel.  Now, don’t get me wrong.  I still love to travel and attend conferences for that face to face connection.  But, webinars certainly have their place, too.

Paul from P21 sent this note last night:

“I’ve already posted a discussion thread on the Cyber Summit (http://www.weareteachers.com/community/p21-cyber-summit) with your webinar title, so please feel free to post additional ideas, questions for discussion or links there for the community—As I said, we hope the conversation continues beyond the temporal confines of the 60 minute webinar. In that discussion post, you’ll find a PDF of your slides as well as a link to the online recording of your webinar.”

The new adventure last night was that I was one of three co-presenters for the webinar.  I’d always been on the receiving end and so it was quite a switch to be on the other side of the slides.   I will have to give a great shout out to Paul with the P21 folks.  He made sure the technology worked and was pretty easy to use.  He walked us through every step of the way and his help was invaluable.  My co-presenter, Melissa Johnston who is a Doctoral Student from Florida State University and Vince Barnes (my principal).  The time went fast as did my voice (I talk REALLY fast when I’m nervous sometimes).   I think we helped provide a little clearer picture of what P21 Skills look like at the elementary school age.

Our webinar was part of the P21 Cyber Summit this week.  Each day for the last couple of weeks P21 had anywhere from two to three webinars going on.  I know I was most honored for them to invite me to be a part of this.  I’m also glad that they archived all of these webinars because I wasn’t able to attend very many.  It will be good to go back and listen to some that I missed.

This last week I got to thinking about our dinner meetings, but in a little bit bigger picture.  I had a few thoughts after our meals….

1.)  Most of the time our group includes folks at different grade level configurations.  But, I think what I find the most interesting is that each one of us operates our programs differently.  The program we’ve created is based on the needs of students and teachers.  We’ve assessed how the library media program can be such a vital part of the school, and then worked to implement that plan.  One of the things I’ve noticed is school districts continue to move to “we all have to be the same” which I often think of as the “cookie cutter” approach.  I obviously have very strong ideas about what I think an elementary school library program should be.  I’m typically not very bashful when it comes to sharing how we do things and why.  I guess so much so that our music teacher once bought me a sign that said, “I’m not a control freak, I just happen to know what is best for everyone!”  To be honest, I’ve probably had that feeling, too.  But, my aha this week was that while what I do works for my building, but if I had to move to another building I might have to really adjust the program based on the students needs.  No matter what I do, I’m never going to have the same program as a friend of mine in the district.  Our personalities, our principals, our staffs, and our kids are just totally different…and that’s ok.  The important thing is we took the fundamental elements of the library program and then made those work for our schools.

2.) One of the most valuable parts of our meetings is the sharing and swapping and networking.  There are so many ideas floating around and we steal from each other all the time.  Even being different levels, we tend to be able to see adaptations we can make as necessary.  We also need that opportunity to vent a little and no one really understands your problems like another librarian does.  Our library friends are just too important to not make sure we stay connected!

3.) People ask the return on the money they pay to belong to national and state professional organizations.  I can’t begin to put a price tag on the friendships I’ve developed.  I don’t know that without belonging to our state organization, that I ever would have had a reason to meet any of the talented librarians I had dinner with last week.  Our initial connection was our work in the organization and from there it led to some of my most cherished friendships.  I can’t even begin to equate the value into a dollar amount.  It is just one more reason why I think those membership dollars are well spent.

So now we wait a little while and then we schedule another time for dinner again.  Until then I may just be stuck making my own dinner at home.  Guess that would be one more benefit to our get togethers – I don’t have to cook!

So, school started last week.  As always it was wonderful to see our students return.  To see how much they’ve grown over the summer and think about all the possibilities this year will hold for them.  Like many of our colleagues, this year brings with it many challenges for our library program.  But, one thing I think about as we deal with lost positions and budgets being cut across the country is the future.  How do these changes impact our students future?  How do we begin to position the library program to be at the top of the list of what is restore when the funding returns?  I think that is going to be a critical question for school librarians and their advocates to ponder.  There aren’t going to be easy answers, but in the end we have to be ready!

For those of you in education, I hope you have an amazing 2010-11 school year.   Hopefully I’ll be on here a little more often sharing some of those adventures with you.

As I was thinking this week, I realized that the Indy 500 is a great analogy to the race for library media specialist working collaboratively with teachers. Sometimes we wish that collaboration was a quick endeavor like qualifications and everyone wants to get in the big dance, but unfortunately it takes time and persistent and going the full distance in the race to get teachers to work with us.

Sometimes there are many factors like the weather that are out of our control. Things like schedules, budgets, and time are often obstacles that we can’t control. Just like on race day, the weather is never a sure bet. But, we have to look for that window in the the weather when we can make it possible. Sometimes it might be a comment a teacher makes in the lunch room, or it might be a request for books that we can use to spark a conversations about what teachers are doing in their classrooms.

As we work collaboratively with teachers, sometimes we have to take pit stops to evaluate what is working right and what alternations can we make along the way to make the lesson/project more successful for students. Do we need more resources (more fuel)? Do we need to change resources (new tires)? Maybe we need to take a minute to reteach (realign the wing)? The great thing is just like in a pit crew, by working together the LMS and teacher have two people that can work to make the project more successful.

Sometimes our best projects hit the wall with a loud crash. Hitting the wall often ends the race for that project, but it shouldn’t end our attempts to collaborate. We need to take the car back to the garage, repair the machine, and try again at the next race. We need to take time to reflect on what caused the wreck. Was it our resources? Was is the project? Was it the rubric? Was it the timing? Was it our lack of teaching students the skills they needed? Did we not have students interested?

The Indianapolis 500 is called the Greatest Spectacle in Racing and we should strive that our collaborative projects provide the interest and motivation for students to want to be involved in the project. We should hopefully pass along our excitement that we have when we watch those car in the battle for the lead. As LMSs and teachers we hope we can help guide our students down towards those checker flagged. We can’t drive the car for them, but we can help provide the resources, support, training, and skills to help them get there.

As we win races with teachers, other teams of teachers will want to join on the bandwagon. 500 miles is a long gruely race, but the rewards at the end make it worth all the effort. Collaboration is much the same way. It is a lot of work for teachers, LMSs, but the rewards and opportunities it provides for students is well worth it.