Blog #2—Curate

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 Hey, Readers! This is the second in a four-part series focusing on school librarians. Three years ago, the American Library Association published its shared foundations in the National School Library Standards for Learners, School Librarians, and School Libraries (2018). The handbook focuses on six foundations that “dynamically combine to allow school librarians and learners to personalize their growth” (American Association of School Librarians (AASL, 2018, p. 16.) The six foundations are as follows (p. 16): 


  • Inquire

  • Include

  • Collaborate

  • Curate

  • Explore

  • Engage


I was privileged to sit down with two librarians who each discussed two of the foundations at length. Our conversations were enlightening and inspiring to me as a pre-service librarian. I know they will help others, too, in their quest to marry theory with practice.


This conversation is a follow up to installment #1 on the foundation Inquire that I had with Leigh J., who is a fabulous middle school librarian in South Carolina. Leigh is a master at finding materials, sharing them with students and other teachers, and designing opportunities for her students to explore sources, so she was happy to discuss this Curate foundation with me. Here are the highlights.


Questions were as follows, with Leigh’s thoughts and my reflections



  1. What are some examples of the ways in which you are implementing these competencies in your library program?


Leigh does extensive teaching in her school, so she discussed a variety of ways that she asked the students to find “evidence to support their claim.” She has students brainstorm answers to the question “What is this really showing us?” In this way, she elicits diverse perspectives from her students and then can guide them to deeper learning. 


As in our “Inquire” discussion, questioning is also a key competency of the “Curate” foundation. “Fostering the questioning and assessing of validity and accuracy of information” (AASL, 2018, p. 94) is something good librarians do. Teaching students to dig deeper into the motives, bias, or historical background of situations is key. Since she works in a middle school, Leigh is purposeful to give students a handful of sites that have been vetted for good information. As students learn to navigate these sources, they will be ready later for the wider internet sources since they will have been brought up on what a “valid” and “credible” source looks like. The district has adopted the T.R.A.P method of assessing credibility, so she is sure to employ that in helping students curate resources in their search for information.


  1. What are some of the resources in your library program that you are using to implement these competencies?


Leigh steers students to SC Discus and print books, but has also curated a variety of other resources that she uses to enhance learning. She may guide students toward Discovery Education, for instance, or to the Library of Congress, where she has created collections for students to view. From these sources, she can develop text sets that can help students create meaning from material.


We are lucky in the digital age to have so much information online. I recognize that this is both a blessing and a curse. The vast information can be a firehose or a faucet, depending on how a librarian organizes it. Leigh knows that her middle-grade students need a slower drip of information in order to digest it fully. Culling websites and resources ahead of time allows her to manage which sites students may find most helpful and fruitful. As a seasoned librarian, she had honed her ability to know which source will give the greatest impact. That is something to emulate.



  1. Do any of the competencies that you are implementing include collaboration with classroom teachers? If so, please provide examples.


Leigh talked at length about her classroom collaborations. The day I visited her library, she was putting the finishing touches on a unit she was collaborating on with the social studies teachers. This is the first year they have had to teach North American geography, so she created a fantastic Google Earth presentation that had students looking at the zoomed-out big picture and then a zoomed-in street view of a variety of places of interest in North America. They started at their school and then were to create lines from there to places like the Appalachian Trail, for instance. North America is a very large area, so having an expert choose some of the most fascinating places to “visit” virtually would certainly give the students a taste of what the geography had to offer without completely overwhelming them or getting them off track. 


I can see the benefit of having a game plan ahead of time to offer students a conscripted piece of the puzzle. Otherwise, they would forever wander through the depths of the information, and only few would come out the other end with relevant data if they did not have a decent road map to follow. That is the secret of a librarian’s trade: offering relevant, quality, and inspiring places to explore without putting students into overwhelm. Curation helps that tremendously.

 

  1. What are some of the challenges that you face when trying to implement these competencies?


As with the other Inquire foundation, Curation takes time, which is at a premium for a busy librarian. Leigh mentioned that teaching kids to think is not an easy task. It takes repetition and time. Since she is not with the students every day, she can only offer them her expertise when she is collaborating with a teacher or when they come see her in the library. As middle school students lead busy lives, and their social calendar fills up, she must be continually on the hunt for resources that will draw them into her space of influence.


Finding engaging resources is a full-time job, and it is not getting easier. With the internet as a vast and useful resource, the amount of engaging and educational materials is overwhelming. Knowing what to try out and what will have the most impact takes expertise and planning. It also takes trust in reviews, as one person simply cannot look at everything. Leigh does an amazing job planning lessons with engaging content. With experience and inspiration, she is leading the way for the students at her school.


  1. Are there any other comments that you would like to make regarding the Shared Foundation / Competencies and Domains that we have discussed today?


Leigh was sure to mention that she attends conferences and even went to a learning event at the Library of Congress. She is always looking to hone her craft, and professional development is certainly helpful in doing this.


I can see the benefit of attending opportunities to hear other librarians speak about what they are doing in their libraries. The amount of sharing that goes on in this profession is commendable, and certainly together we are better for each other and our students.


**The next installment in this series will feature a fantastic high school librarian, Kim B, who is also a Rockstar collaborator and wealth of information. Stay tuned!

 

References

ALA Editions, an imprint of the American Library Association. (2018). National school 

library standards for learners, school librarians, and school libraries. 

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