Teachers want their students to have access to the books they need to fall in love with reading, which means having classroom and school libraries stocked with a wide variety of books. But as English teachers are well aware, Texas leads the nation in book challenges and bans. This article defines and describes the different forms of censorship and…

Hurricane Harvey dealt a devastating blow to the Pasadena Independent School District (PISD) community when it made landfall August 25, 2017, one week into the PISD 2017-2018 school year. Hurricane Harvey affected all PISD stakeholders and all campuses to some extent, displacing more than 2,000 district families and tripling the number of homeless…

Recent resistance to teaching students about the history of racial power and privilege dynamics in the United States has been accompanied by a parallel resistance to LGBTQ+ studies and resources in K-12 classrooms, libraries, and extracurricular spaces. There is a very practical benefit to trusting teachers to craft lessons that integrate LGBTQ+…

Using concepts such as Design Thinking to create inquiry-based, hands-on learning opportunities centered on student ideation and creation, Lewisville Independent School District (LISD) in North Texas reimagined the role of library instruction through implementation of a Mobile Transformation Lab. The purpose of this lab is to serve the more than…

How can relationship building and demonstrating impact on learning be done? As professionals, school librarians must seek out opportunities to lead or work with others in the area of programming. Much can be done in the library space but when the programs occur outside the school library, a librarian's willingness to be adaptable is leveraged and…

Evidence-based library and information practice (EBLIP) provides school librarians a systematic means of building, assessing, and revising a library program, thus demonstrating a school library program's worth to the larger school community. Through survey research collecting both qualitative and quantitative data, 111 public school librarians in…

Three years ago, when K-12 schools started thinking seriously about creating digital libraries, the Mesquite Independent School District (TX) bought several Sony eReaders, loaded them with books, and circulated them to students. This initial attempt was not a rousing success. After the Mesquite ISD pulled the plug on its disastrous e-reader…

This report explains the key role that school librarians and libraries should play in state- and district-wide efforts to transition to digital learning, or the effective use of technology to improve teaching and learning. The report calls for district and school leaders, policymakers, and boards of education to support, encourage, and fund the…

Beginning in March of 2020, public school educators at all levels were thrown into a situation in which they were required to drastically alter pedagogical approaches to teaching and learning. The move from classroom-based instruction to a virtual platform, whether synchronous or not, was too often done on-the-fly and with less than optimal…

Synergy may be defined as the collaboration between two or more parties to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate parts. That is exactly what happened in Denton, Texas, when all types of librarians collaborated on a community reading initiative. In 2007 Denton Reads--a One Book, One Community organization--was formed with…

This study investigated how school and public librarians can become better disseminators of health information and improve health information literacy in small and rural communities in a selected research area. We used the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas as our study area, composed of the economically depressed Cameron, Hidalgo, Starr, and…

This publication provides a compilation of Texas statutes relating to libraries and topics of interest to librarians through the 74th Legislature, 1995. In addition to laws in which the words "library,""books,""Texas State Library,""Library and Archives Commission," and "director and librarian"…

Provides an overview of library automation and connectivity projects in Texas that are proceeding with awareness of ethnic, economic, and technological diversity. Topics include a statewide electronic library that incorporates government information and Internet access; school library shared resources; academic library resource sharing; multitype…

The mission of today's school library media center is to help prepare students to enter the information age of the 21st century. To carry out this mission, library media specialists, administrators, and teachers must ensure that students can effectively locate, access, interpret, evaluate, and communicate information. The school library media…

Compiled to provide a central reference point for all legislative information pertaining to libraries in the State of Texas, this publication includes all pertinent legislation as amended through the 71st Legislature, 1989, Regular Session. This update of the 1980 edition has been expanded to include statutes pertaining to the school and academic…