11 ways to increase your staff

Sent to LM_Net. Reposted here with permission of the author. - Doug

... I get the impression that most school library media centers are understaffed and as a result their services shrink. Like a locomotive, the library media center facility can and should be a driving force within the school.

Here are some suggestions on how to increase staff:

1. Strive to make the high school library media center the true hub and center of the school by:
   a) move the Xerox machine into your domain
   b) provide a comfortable facility exclusively for faculty ( an interdepartmental area with a coffee machine, computers and a large table)
   c) Increase the noise level tolerance a little and make the library as welcoming as possible to all

2. Make the library media center the "center of all media" both in the area of impression (books, magazines, etc) and expression (media production - PowerPoint, video editing)

3. Establish a center of the center - that is to say, within your library media center at its center, create a stage or platform that is well lit and has convenient amplification and make it available for more special programs (music, author visits, celebrations, etc)

4. NEVER allow your library to be reduced to a computer lab. That is the doom of any real library media center. The main floor should never have fixed immovable computers - rather a central seating area.

5. Keep the stacks arranged so that there is one main central seating area

6. Provide "live" opportunities for students to keep up on the current news, preferably from an international perspective from a television source like BBC - avoid the glib and commercialized channels

7. Find ways to become an integral arm of school administration - work closely with them.

8. If we consider ourselves just librarians, we are doomed - we are library media specialists and we need to provide a FULL spectrum of library media center services to the school - that includes providing
information, keeping an updated and interesting web site, include all media and communication forms under one room, and extend your reach through broadcast

9. Keep excellent relations with the home school associations

10. Provide special opportunities for all students

11. Never shrink your services, rather always try to increase them

David Di Gregorio
ddigregorio (a) tenafly.k12.nj.us  <http://www.librarymedia.net/>
Supervisor Library Media Services
Tenafly  (NJ) High School's Lalor Library Media Center

Very practical suggestions from a practicing media specialist. And of course, I would add, put in a coffee shop for students. Thanks, David, for sharing this with the Blue Skunk Readers. - Doug

When your job is on the line

I just posted this to our state library/tech Ning:

Hi folks,

I hate to sound like the voice of gloom and doom, but I am very worried about the economic news over the past week. With the state of Minnesota expecting a record budget deficit of over 5 billion dollars, it looks highly, highly unlikely that schools will receive any funding increases for next year, if not during the next biennium. And since inflation (health insurance, heating, SpEd services, etc,) continues to rise, budget cuts are in store for most districts.

OK, people, NOW is the time to start strategizing the ways to minimize the impact of budget reductions on your library/tech programs. Once administration makes its recommendations to the school board, it will be waaaaay too late to do much.

I've listed some ideas about what you can do in the document "When Your Job is on the Line".

Don't rely on MEMO or AASL to save your program! This is something only you can do.

Share any strategies you have for minimizing the impact of budget cuts here.

Doug

With 41 of the 50 U.S. states* projecting budget deficits for next year and with the entire world suffering economic woes, I thought this might be of use to more than just us Gophers.

Blue Skunk readers, what will you be doing to survive the budget axe?

* Our neighbors in North Dakota have a surplus. Now how did that happen?

Media special - itis

A fellow Minnesotan teased me a little about the name of ISTE's special interest group for library media specialists - SIGMS. He teased that MS was a disease, not a profession.

After reading this comment, I began wondering - might it be both? Do we suffer from media specialitis when one reads this on LM_Net:

In our district we have a policy which says that I keep the money tendered for lost books for 2 weeks and then turn the money in to the district treasurer.  I had a child return the lost book after that 2-week window.  So, I did not return his money.  Well, doesn't his mom call saying he should have the book back or his money back.  After counting down from 10, I said "okay" and gave him back the lousy $3.99. If it had been more, I would have had the district treasurer deal with
her.  But, for that piddly amount, I picked my battles.....BUT I walked right over to the child's classroom and told him and the classroom teacher that the library was not a bookstore!  And this is NOT going to happen again!

What a great deal - for only $3.99 this librarian bought at least $399 worth of ill will and bad feelings from a student, a parent and, BONUS, a classroom teacher. If the teacher complains to the principal, this might just be a bad PR home run.

Scott McLeod at Dangerously Irrelevant writes about his "not so friendly library," and reminds his readers:

Seth Godin reminds us that every interaction with a customer / client / patron / stakeholder / visitor is a marketing interaction. It’s an opportunity for us to build or erode our brand, a chance to increase or decrease the trust and goodwill of the people with whom we are interacting.

 "Cutting off one's nose to spite one's face" is a trite, but in this case apropos expression.

What are other symptoms of "media specialitis?"

 

 Yes, you can get this image on a t-shirt here. <http://www.strangersinparadise.com/>