School libraries remain a hallmark of society. They are places where all students are welcome to use the abundant resources available to them to research topics for class study or explore ideas about which they are curious. At some school libraries it is also a place where students meet with military recruiters, sit for college interviews,…

This article details the context and design considerations for an online course accompanying a field-based practicum for a school librarian certification program at a regional university in Texas. These strategies could be helpful to other library science educators designing learning experiences that support fieldwork. We conclude by discussing…

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…

What better way to drive home your vision of future ready libraries than to redesign your library spaces? But across a district, too often, school librarians are tackling this task on their own. Creating a district-wide plan for modernizing school libraries helps a district approach the problem strategically. The Eanes (TX) Independent School…

The joint-use library is a place where people of all ages, interests, and income levels can find items of interest at no personal cost. The mission of A. H. Meadows Public and High School Library in Midlothian, Texas, is to offer what other public libraries provide: educational and entertainment resources to a community. Yet, the staff also wants…

The Colorado Study (Lance, Wellborn, and Hamilton-Pennell 1993) and its many replications in other states have demonstrated that when educators and learners had access to a qualified school librarian in the context of a thoughtfully built, adequately resourced, technology rich, and widely accessible school library, learners tended to flourish on…

Students look to their school library to find new books, seek information, creatively solve problems, and use technology. School libraries play an essential role in students' academic growth and development of lifelong learning skills. All of the wonderful resources and services that school libraries provide are easily accessible to the population…

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…

The athletic department and the school library at Mayde Creek High School in Texas have been collaborating to build literacy and leadership skills among the athletes on the varsity football team, and both the boys' and girls' varsity basketball teams through collaborative leadership book studies that are also sports-focused. Because of the success…

Learning in makerspaces involves doing, playing, thinking, experimenting, creating, collaborating, mentoring, inquiring, problem-solving, producing, inventing, designing, building, and sharing (Loertscher, Preddy, and Derry 2013). Whatever the character of a makerspace, all makerspaces have the same goal: to actively engage students in open-ended…

In this article, Summer Creek High School (Harris County, Texas) librarian, Louise Lankau shares a formula for successfully integrating technology via the school library and reaching every department and teacher in a school of 2,500 students and 170 teachers. The challenge is that the teaching staff at Summer Creek increases each year to…

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…

A makerspace is a place where makers can envision a project, find an expert, and create something. Libraries have always held programming during which patrons were able to come in and create. The makerspace at the Lamar Middle School in Flower Mound, Texas, is available for students every day, so that they can daily create and play with innovative…