In a climate of increased interest in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), school libraries have unique opportunities to grow collections and cultivate partnerships in the sciences. At the federal level and in many states, STEM initiatives encourage hands-on exposure to technologies and open the door for student-led discovery of…

Elementary school libraries are not often thought of as suitable spaces for learning commons because most elementary school libraries operate on a fixed schedule, allowing only one class at a time to use the space. Elementary school libraries are too often the drop-off location for a specific class during the classroom teacher's planning period.…

A makerspace is a physical place in the library where informal, collaborative learning can happen through hands-on creation, using any combination of technology, industrial arts, and fine arts that is not readily available for home use. The underlying goal of a makerspace is to encourage innovation and creativity through the use of technology-to…

The purpose of this article is to highlight a critical approach for practice, youth participatory action research, that can be used to invite rural youth to collaborate with school administrators, educators, and community leaders to identify and examine challenges, while building upon the strengths of a school and community to address challenges.…

Although still a relatively new technology with less than 10 years of history, YouTube's extensive reach and integration in mainstream society as well as lifelong learning habits of online users cannot be understated. This article examines how the YouTube collection at the University of British Columbia Library's Irving K. Barber Learning Centre…

Library teachers can no longer do business as usual--their students' deep learning is at risk! Expanding current collection of books, CDs, and DVDs is progress, but library teachers cannot allow their facilities to become warehouses for information resources. Their library learning commons should be a place buzzing with the hustle and bustle of…

"Do what's best for kids!" The author's former principal said this often when they discussed media program needs. Media specialists can make media centers places where students and teachers want to be. This article looks at everyday, attainable, common sense best practices. These everyday best practices require time, energy, new ways of thinking,…

The fact that people now live in a world of abundant portable electronic devices is important to any organization that maintains a web presence, including libraries. No longer tied to a desktop, the patrons' netbooks, tablets, ebook readers, and, of course, cellphones all become potential tools for remote access to library content. About a year…

Media centers have been transformed from warehouses for books and equipment into the hub of the learning community. Media specialists keep the hub functioning properly. If school library media specialists are doing their job well, they are making a difference in the ways teachers teach and in the ways students learn. On any given day, a media…

The American Library Association says that the arrangement of library facilities should motivate students to use the materials to learn. Believing that changing the library facility can bring about important changes in the program, this author shares how she became a "decorator" and changed the library media center in an elementary K-6 school. The…

It is the school library's responsibility to provide the tools necessary for students to utilize online resources effectively and efficiently. This education should also account for the increasing need for instruction regarding cyber ethics, particularly with the rise of cyberbullying. The teacher librarian is in the unique position to organize…

Today media centers provide students the opportunity to learn and explore subjects of their interest in depth. The media center is the largest classroom in the school providing service to every student and every teacher in all curricular areas. The library should be a place to encourage students' interests and a place to broaden their horizons by…

One never gets a second chance to make a first impression. During these tough economic times it's important to promote the school library media center's program and collection as integral parts of the learning process. The changing landscape of librarianship demands a wide selection of approaches to promote library resources. Ideas, strategies,…

In this article, the authors present the outcomes of a project they implemented to increase library use by their adolescent males, a population at their school that avoided the library like the plague. They conducted a survey to know what their male students wished they would find in their media center. Their students suggested manga as a genre,…

As a strategy to promote the Arapahoe Community College Library's collections and services, the Library undertook to brand itself as a math resource center. In promoting one area of expertise, math was selected to help address the problem of a large portion of high school graduates' inability to work at college-level math. A "Math…