School library spotlight

School Library Spotlight is a regular feature of the Connections magazine scisdata.com/connections published by SCIS (School Catalogue Information Service). 

My library was chosen to be highlighted in Issue no. 106 in Term 3, 2018, and below are my responses to the questions I was asked in writing. I have included additional images to what appeared in the published article. I think it's important that teacher-librarians shine the "spotlight" on what is happening in their school libraries with the wider community.

What is your job title, and what does your role entail?

As the Curriculum Leader – Library and Information Services, I am a qualified Teacher-Librarian employed at Mt St Michael’s College. It is a Catholic Secondary College for young women in the tradition of the Sisters of Charity administered through Mary Aikenhead Ministries in Ashgrove, Brisbane. With an enrolment approaching 900 students, we are a medium-sized school renowned for our nurturing and inclusive community.

 

What is the most rewarding aspect of working in a school library, and why?

I love the multi-faceted nature of my role. Knowledge of the curriculum, teaching strategies and learning styles are combined with expertise in resource management, literature, information services, personnel management and information systems.

I lead a team of 3 dedicated part-time library staff, and together we are responsible for developing the library as an active and service-driven learning centre for the College. We are also passionate about fostering a love of reading by exposing our students to a range of genres in both print and digital formats.

Over the last 8 years we have built positive relationships with the Mt St Michael’s community and created a stimulating and welcoming environment which reflects the Library’s central importance as a learning and teaching hub. Library staff are in a unique and privileged position within schools, as we interact with students and staff across all year levels and most subject areas. No two days are ever the same and the lovely conversations with our smiling and thankful students keep us constantly motivated.

What do you see as the most important part of the library’s role in the school community?

One of the most important roles is the management of the physical and virtual learning spaces that integrate our traditional library material with progressive e-learning and information services. We are the ‘‘learning hub” of the school and we are always looking at how we can continue to create an exciting learning environment. We constantly receive positive feedback regarding our “Pathfinders” and “Suggested Source Material.” These are Library Guides which we create in-house, to provide the girls with subject-specific digital and interactive resources, including links to relevant websites and databases.

School libraries are also places where all students feel welcomed and are encouraged to grow and learn. We do a lot more than just provide books and information; we provide a haven for everyone to think, create, share, and grow. It’s certainly the favourite spot in the school for many or our girls.

Are there any current issues or challenges facing your library? How are you working to overcome these?

We are currently developing and implementing a strategic plan that will enable our library to deliver on the needs of all our key stakeholders, as it is often a challenge to accommodate all those who wish to use it.

To assess these needs, we have recently conducted an online library survey. There were over 400 student responses and 40 from staff, so it will take quite a while to sift through all the data, but some general trends are already emerging.

Users would like to see the creation of a new physical space which would cater for more collaborative learning spaces as well as the different needs of junior and senior students.

How do you promote reading and literacy in your school?

There is a very strong reading culture at Mt St Michael’s and the staff are some of our best borrowers. Our lending statistics are very healthy in the Junior school and students are encouraged to place requests for new reading material in the Suggestion Box we keep at the Circulation Desk. Our wide range of periodicals and magazines are also keenly read during break times. Recently processed resources are promoted through vibrant displays in the Library and around the College, as well as regular newsletters, the publication of a weekly “Library Lovers’ List” and our Library blog, “Between the pages” https://wordpress.com/view/betweenthepages.live

Frequent borrowers are acknowledged through our Star Reader of the Week program and all Year 7 and 8 students participate in Literature Circles for one term in the year. It can be challenging to engage our Senior students in reading for pleasure as their recreational time is taken up with study pressures but the #LoveOzYA movement is helping to make inroads with this age group. http://loveozya.com.au/about/

 How do you engage with your students in a digital environment?

24/7 access to information is available through our Library site on the College Intranet. It is a well presented and up to date repository of current information and electronic resources including our subscriptions to EBSCOhost and Questia School, New Scientist, Britannica School, Read Plus, Weblinks and ClickView Online.

We were also early adopters of digital books and chose Overdrive as our eBook and audiobook platform over six years ago.

Social media has really helped us to boost our library’s profile in the community. Mt St Michael’s College has Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts, so we regularly post to these sites with the hashtags #msmlibrary and #msmreads 

        

How do you encourage students to make use of the library? 

Our friendly and welcoming staff keep the library open from 7:30 am to 4:30 pm including break times. It is an incredibly popular place which is used not only for research, class work and study but for printing, scanning, photocopying, tutoring, future problem solving, debating, yarn club and guest speakers. Most importantly it’s where everyone feels welcome and comfortable. The physical space is warm and inviting with lots of opportunities to make connections with others.

We also celebrate four key themes a year: Library Lovers’ Week in Term 1, Library and Information Week in Term 2, Book Week in Term 3 and Spooky Stories Week in Term 4.

These events always coincide with either competitions, trivia quizzes, scavenger hunts, movies, book tastings, puzzles, 3D printing, games and craft activities.

What is your favourite thing about SCIS?

Our SCIS subscription includes access to catalogue records for digital content. We use Overdrive as our digital platform for eBooks and audiobooks, and because SCIS has catalogued over 100,000 digital items, it means we are able to find records for most of our digital purchases. When records are not available, we have always been provided with a very quick turnaround from Frances Todd, (Cataloguer - Queensland) which allows us to integrate these new resources into our Library Management System soon after they are purchased.

We have always found it easy to navigate our way around the SCIS Web site and we are enjoying the new features available from SCIS Data (www.scisdata.com) and look forward to more webinars and workshops being offered in Brisbane.

Sandra Mannion

Curriculum Leader – Library and Information Services

Mt St Michael’s College

Ashgrove, Brisbane

Developing a whole school inquiry research process model

When our Director of Professional Learning was appointed, she was keen to establish a common language or framework to distinguish between the stages involved in the inquiry process.
(Marzano & Kendall, 2007)

• forming and describing the inquiry activity
• finding valid and reliable evidence for the inquiry activity
• analysing and interpreting the evidence selected
• evaluating the conclusions, process or claims

This framework uses reflection as the connection between, and driver of, all the stages. The Library had already developed a Research Process model which had been in place for a number of years but it was not being widely utilised across the different departments, so a small working committee was formed by the Director of Professional Learning, involving myself as the Curriculum Leader: Library & Information Services and one of the Senior Humanities teachers.

A wide consultation process followed, and over the course of a semester we met with key stakeholders including all the Curriculum Leaders, until a new MSM Inquiry Research Process model was formulated and approved. The process is not linear and the inquirer/student can come in at any point along the continuum depending on the task requirements.

If you feel inspired to implement something similar at your school please acknowledge the sources above and give attribution to Mt St Michael's College, Ashgrove.

We're just wild about Harry (Potter)

It’s been 20 years since J.K. Rowling waved her magic wand and introduced readers to her boy wizard in “Harry Potter and the philosopher’s stone” and things have never been the same. Since then, seven books have been translated into 79 languages and have sold more than 450 million copies worldwide.

When we placed posters around the school asking the question, “How well do you know Harry Potter?” our girls were instantly hooked, which is not always easy with a teenage clientele!

 

Happy Birthday Harry!

  On Harry’s birthday (July 31), all students were invited to participate in some “Quizardry” in the Library. The original sign-up sheet catered for teams of four, to compete in each of the Hogwarts houses: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin.

On the first day we were fully subscribed so we created two teams per house i.e. Hufflepuff 1and Hufflepuff 2. It still wasn’t enough to meet the demand, as some of our teachers wanted to enter a team too! 

Great to see our staff getting into the spirit of the day. Sadly they weren't the winning team!

Once the girls heard this, they became very competitive.

Our two Academic Captains volunteered to be our Quizmasters and one of our library staff created the questions, answer sheets and PPT slides. On the day, many of the girls and the teachers arrived in full regalia. Pottermania is well and truly alive at MSM!

I’d highly recommend making this an annual event in your school library as there is not a lot of effort required to create something that has such a positive effect.

Because we held the quiz during lunch we only had time to ask 12 questions. At the conclusion, all teams swapped their answer sheets while the Academic Captains called out the answers. We didn’t have a clear winning team so went into 3 tie-breaking rounds before we had to award joint winners.

One of our Senior teams congratulate their lucky mascot from Yr 7!

That winning feeling when you know the answer to the tie-break question.

As Harry celebrates his 20^th anniversary, he has certainly shown that he still has the magic touch. We’re looking forward to celebrating his 21^st next year.

Mrs Sandra Mannion

Curriculum Leader: Library & Information Services

Mt St Michael’s College

Creating your Library Brand

Your brand needs to tell your story

At the start of the year we held a number of extended Library Team meetings to define our Library’s story and then visually convey this story via a new library logo and other branding elements. Technically, a brand is a mark, or logo, combined with specific colours and fonts that identifies a particular product or service to potential users. More generally, a brand is shorthand for the story that an organization wants to tell potential users about how it can meet a need in their lives. (Doucett, 2008)

What is your library's story?
What do you want to create in your library for the future?

Our Library story at Mt St Michael's College is told in the dot points below.

• We provide a welcoming space that engages students.
• We are information specialists who enable members of the College community to become creative and critical thinkers who use information effectively.
• We are innovators who stay informed about current trends in education.
• We equip students with the skills needed to actively participate in a digital world.
• We promote a positive reading culture and provide opportunities for users to engage in literature activities.

Once we had a clear story we needed to ensure that our logo or look clearly supported it.
The story and look had to work together. 

Our story can be summed up with four Cs - CONNECT, CELEBRATE, CREATE and CHALLENGE. All of these link together using the College colours and the four House colours.

New Library Logo

Library branding appears at the bottom of all marketing and promotional material.

We now use these 4 pillars for marketing purposes each term. 

In Term 1 we "branded" all our lunchtime activities with the theme of 

CONNECT TO YOUR LIBRARY

Students were asked to take a strip of coloured paper and write down one way in which they "Connect" to the MSM Library before attaching it to the chain.

This term we have changed our "branding" to MSM LIBRARY CELEBRATES

We have enjoyed creating these exciting and attention-grabbing ways to tell our story so that our clientele of staff and students cannot miss seeing and understanding it. 

Doucett, E. (2008) Creating your library brand : communicating your relevance and value to your patrons. Chicago, Illinois: American Library Association.

Sharing Innovative School Library Practices

Have you downloaded Softlink's recent publication, "School Libraries share innovative ideas yet?"

Like many other teacher-librarians, I always participate in the Australian and New Zealand Softlink School Library Survey. Last year they included a new question:-

"Do you have an innovative practice story about your library you would like to share?"

Over 300 participants responded, and many of these ideas feature in the document which can also be accessed via the resources page on the Softlink website.

"Whether you're looking for inspiration or just want to see what your peers are up to, you'll find plenty of ideas that demonstrate just how versatile school libraries can be. The paper includes fresh ideas for traditional library roles, such as learning support, reading programs and organising the collection. There are also sections that focus on the changing role of libraries, with ideas for innovative use in the digital age, as well as contributing to overall student well-being. There are even some handy tips on making your budget stretch even further."

Coincidentally, before this paper was published, I had asked my Library staff to come up with at least two new ideas or innovations which they'd like to see implemented in 2017.
We quickly filled a whiteboard with our ideas and are now prioritising them.

Here are some of our innovative Library ideas for 2017

The innovative ideas in the Softlink paper are grouped into 9 categories. I have annotated each one with my own favourites from the ideas which were shared by the original respondents to the survey.

• Ideas for the Library space "When we opened our library last term we made a 'shelfie' booth. Students had their photo taken with the first book they took out of the library. This became our first display."
• Ideas to support learning "I create library displays featuring students' current topics and inquiries. Associating fiction and non-fiction books with these displays, draws in both students and staff, identifying the library as a functional research area."
• Ideas to encourage engagement "We have done very well with eBooks, partly because I am asking students to borrow while I teach them how to access them, and partly because we are publicising them heavily."
• Ideas involving technology "One of the main goals we have achieved this year is the implementation of a new learning management system with enables federated searching."
• Ideas for organising the collection "The use of spine label icons (many produced in house) makes searching for certain types of books much easier."
• Reading program ideas "Grades 7-9 have engaged in a reading program which includes silent reading at the start of every class and fortnightly library visits."
• Budget ideas "We are involved in sharing resources through a network of other school libraries."
• Student wellbeing ideas "We have taught the students that reading a book for 6 minutes can relieve their stress levels by 68%"
• Ideas for using Oliver 5 "Advertise library and school events and competitions on your Oliver v5 home page."

School library staff are creative! We are always looking for new and exciting ways to make our libraries better and more inviting for our students, staff and wider community.

DO YOU HAVE AN INNOVATIVE LIBRARY IDEA YOU'D BE WILLING TO SHARE?

Celebrating our Top 20 Borrowers

How do you acknowledge your top borrowers?

In the past, we have always acknowledged our top borrowers with a special morning tea during Book Week but this year decided to wait until the final week of school, in order to generate the most up to date statistics.
This meant for the first time, we didn't include Year 11 or 12 students as they were on exam block; however, looking at the data, no students from these year levels were in our Top 20 anyway.

Our top borrower for 2016 was a Year 8 student, who as of November 7, had borrowed out an amazing 98 books across a wide range of genres! By the end of the year, she had well and truly gotten past 100 loans!

The break down of the Top Borrowers by year level were:

Year 7 - 10 students
Year 8 - 2 students
Year 9 - 4 students
Year 10 - 2 students

Each student was given a personal invitation to attend a special morning tea in the Library by email, as many of these students have indicated to us previously that they do not like being named in the Student Notices as a reader!

The Principal, Deputy Principal - Curriculum, and Director of Literacy were sent their own personal invitations too.

Each top borrower received a laminated certificate which we used as a place-mat, so when they came into the library they could see where to sit. On each placement was a small packet of chips, a chocolate golden coin and a hand-crafted bookmark. The Library staff did a lovely job of decorating one of the more cosy areas of the library and putting out all the morning tea treats. The girls loved the way we waited on them, asking what they wanted to drink - Apple juice or orange juice only :)

Proud recipients of the Top 20 Borrowers' certificates.

During the break time, we shared our favourite reads of 2016 and presented our top borrower, Paris, with a special prize in recognition of her endeavours.
To finish off, we paired up the girls (as many of them didn't know each other) and had them participate in a written Literary Quiz. The winners of the quiz were each given a Xmas stocking which contained some small treats.

Enjoying a well-deserved morning tea for their reading efforts!

We've decided to tap into the talent of our Top 20 Borrowers in 2017 by asking each one in turn to recommend a book they've read in the past. That will give us 20 weeks or a whole Semester's worth of reading recommendations!

Would love to hear how you reward your best borrowers.

Is it time to update your Library site?

When I was appointed to my school nearly 7 years ago, as the Curriculum Leader : Library and Information Services, the Library portal was accessed via our SharePoint LMS - Learning Management System. SharePoint has continued to work well for us as a secure place to store, organise, share and access information but the Library Staff knew that the interface to the Library Site was starting to look tired and uninspiring.

We had two options:
1. Convert to LibGuides
2. Rebuild our Library site

Because we had invested so much time in building up our Pathfinders and CMD on our own site which is free, as opposed to the ongoing costs associated with a subscription to LibGuides, we decided on Option 2!

Our Pathfinders are helpful guides that have been prepared for students by the Library team to assist with assignment tasks. They provide a pathway to help students navigate the research process by providing links to reputable and authoritative websites, recommended readings contained in the CMD, and helpful hints on how to search our library catalogue and databases.

Our CMD or Course Materials Database contains electronic copies of recommended readings selected by teachers. The readings on the CMD can include:

• Journal articles
• Book chapters
• Book excerpts 
• Web pages
• Web articles

Full bibliographic details are provided on the front page of each​ CMD article.


On the front page of our new Library site we decided to group these two types of resources together under the heading of "Assignments." It took a year of planning and valuable input from our ICT Officer - Design to create a new interface which uses 12 icons to take users to the following areas.

1. Oliver Library Catalogue
2. Other Library Catalogues
3. Digital Footprint
4. ClickView online
5. Assignments
6. Databases and E-Resources
7. Referencing
8. Research Tools
9. Reading @ MSM
10. Overdrive
11. Library Blogs
12. About Us

This mammoth project was co-ordinated by our Library Technician with input from all members of the Library Team. We have had very positive feedback about the new Library Site since its launch, from both staff and students. It is now a professional looking Content Management site which allows us to easily curate, manage and share resources with our users.