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Latest Forum Edition—Fall 2024
President's Message: Shrinking in the Library
by Barb Fecteau
Barb Fecteau is the LMS at Beverly High School. She enjoys crochet and swimming, but rarely at the same time. She teaches in the school library program at Salem State University.
Like any great work by a writer who forgot about their due date until the last minute, but is unwilling to cross the chatGPT Rubicon, I will begin with a definition of the topic. According to Oxford languages, shrink's most popular meaning as a verb means to make or become smaller in amount. It can also mean to back away, especially because of fear or disgust. As a noun, it can refer to a clinical psychologist, psychiatrist, or psychotherapist. I will be discussing two of these three below—and, to keep the suspense from killing you, I will assure you that I will not be backing away in fear or disgust.
Editor's Column—Heading to MASC
by Luke Steere
Luke is the librarian at Wilson Middle School in Natick.
The Massachusetts Association of School Committees has invited MSLA to present at their annual conference in Hyannis. It is held in November, and MSLA President-Elect Reba Tierney and I will be attending, speaking on behalf of the organization and focusing on four main pillars:
- The need for a full-time librarian in every school
- Local and recent book challenges and the issues that surround them
- The need for policy that allows for the community to challenge curriculum materials through an approved process
- Celebrations of what has been working in these areas
Building a Select Collection for an Underserved Community
by Claudia Palframan
Claudia is the librarian at Dupont Middle School in Chicopee.
A school library serves and supports the staff and students of that school—its community—but in my school, the library failed in this mission with our students who are in the Autism Spectrum Disorder program (ASD). I sought to change that. Our school has an intensive needs, moderate needs and a transition program (TAPS). These programs have grown over the last few years. The students in the transitional program have traditionally come to the library with their social studies classes, or, occasionally, with the TAPS staff. Conversations with the staff of the intensive and moderate needs programs indicated that their students would like to have more opportunities to come to the library and select books. We do have SORA, but the ASD staff would prefer that their students have only a small amount of screen time while in school.
Connecting Research and School Librarianship: On information literacy
by Deeth Ellis
Deeth is the Head Librarian at Boston Latin School in Boston and a Doctoral Candidate, School of Library Science, Simmons University.
This is the second article in the series for The Forum, "Connecting Research and School Librarianship." The two articles presented here examine information literacy (IL) skills in college students and the extent to which IL taught in high school prepares students for college studies.
While reading these articles, you might consider the following questions:
- What connections do you make to your practice?
- Does the research raise any concerns?
- What questions do you have after reading?
Picture Books: The Early Reader Gets the Worm
by Jenny Arch
Jenny Arch is the Children's Services Librarian at the South Hadley (MA) Public Library.
Picture books, we know, are full of rich vocabulary, because they’re intended for adults to read to or with children. Early readers (sometimes called Easy Readers or Leveled Readers) are often the next step for kids who are beginning to read independently. They are not all necessarily “decodables”—that’s a whole separate column—but they tend to feature a controlled vocabulary, sight words, generous margins and white space between lines, and illustrations; they may have short chapters or be all one story.
It’s a special challenge for authors to come up with stories as fascinating, funny, and engaging in the early reader format due to the constraints on vocabulary and length, but there are plenty who hit it out of the park. Let’s have a look at some of these success stories:
Medium Matters-Comics in the Classroom: An Interview with Carol Tilley
by Liza Halley
Liza Halley is the Library Teacher at Plympton Elementary School in Waltham. She has loved graphic novels since reading Bone and Amulet with her son. She reads every graphic novel she can find, and is a big fan of Monstress, Hellboy, and Saga. She is a founder of the Boston Kids Comic Fest.
Carol Tilley, comics scholar, library educator, and youth advocate, serves on the faculty of the School of Information Sciences (formerly, the Graduate School of Library and Information Science) at theUniversity of Illinois, where she teaches courses in comics reader’s advisory, media literacy, and youth services librarianship. At Illinois, Tilley is affiliated with the Center for Children’s Books (which is part of the School of Information Sciences), the Center for Writing Studies, and Gender and Women’s Studies. Her scholarship focuses on the intersection of young people, comics, and libraries, particularly in the United States during the mid-twentieth century. Tilley's comics research has been featured in the New York Times, BoingBoing, WNYC's Takeaway, and other media outlets. A frequent speaker at academic conferences as well as popular comics events, Tilley has served as an Eisner Award judge (2016) and president of the Comics Studies Society (2018-2019). You can learn more about Carol Tilley on her website.
New Librarian Q&A with Gwen Blumberg
Gwen is the K-8 School Librarian at Lincoln School, Lincoln Public Schools.
How did you come to librarianship?
In my professional career, I've been a classroom teacher for first, fourth, and fifth grades, a literacy interventionist, a literacy coach, an adjunct professor, a practicum supervisor, and most recently a district-level literacy leader. I've always been deeply interested and invested in helping kids develop rich reading lives and empowering them to consume, create, and share books and stories to help them understand themselves, others, and their world. A few years ago, I started thinking about what I'd like to do as the "next chapter" of my career. I've always loved libraries and the idea of returning to a student-facing role in one building was very appealing... so I started taking classes and attended my first MSLA conference last spring. There I decided I absolutely wanted to make a career pivot. That same spring, I was hired to fill a position for the next school year, made available by a retirement.
Cataloging: Where do I Start (reorganizing)?
by Gillian Bartoo
Gillian is the District Cataloging Manager for the Cambridge Public Schools.
“Where do I start?” That’s a question I get from librarians both new to and old friends with their libraries. “Where do I start?” is the question when it comes to any project that involves sorting through and organizing or reorganizing many, many items while at the same time circulating those items and/or teaching classes and performing all the other duties a school librarian performs.
Building a Community of Readers: High Rock's Title Trivia Book Contest
by Elizabeth Vaccaro
Elizabeth is the Librarian at High Rock School in Needham.
At High Rock School, an end-of-year highlight is the finals of our reading contest. The entire school gathers in the gym to cheer on their teams of readers with an enthusiasm that rivals field day. The contest takes a half hour and 100 questions. It is fast paced; teams often don’t let me finish reading the question before they buzz in to answer it. The answers are all book titles. It is a celebration of reading and readers.
President's Message: Shrinking in the Library by Barb Fecteau Barb Fecteau is the LMS at Beverly High School. She enjoys crochet and swimming, but rarely at the same time. She teaches in the school library program at Salem State University. Like any great work by a writer who forgot about their due date until the last minute, but is unwilling to cross the chatGPT Rubicon, I will begin with a definition of the topic. According to Oxford languages, shrink's most popular meaning as a verb means to make or become smaller in amount. It can also mean to back away, especially because of fear or disgust. As a noun, it can refer to a clinical psychologist, psychiatrist, or psychotherapist. I will be discussing two of these three below— and, to keep the suspense from killing you, I will assure you that I will not be backing away in fear or disgust. Are we shrinking? Many of us have seen our library spaces being hacked away little by little. Offices are turned over to other uses, more and more initiatives and programs alter our spaces year after year, and, of course, shelf space is always a concern. When it happens, sometimes, it can be extremely disheartening. In the 2020-21 school year, my library— and yes, I know, it is the school's library, not mine, but I am feeling particularly possessive at the moment, so let me have this one!—my library was taken over for classroom space. I covered all the bookshelves in cheap Dollar Store shower curtain liners to protect the books from…I don’t know…viruses? And then I hunkered down in my office for the duration. At the end of the year, when things went back to “normal” I was so pleased to have my space back… until the start of the following one, when I was informed that my stunning library classroom
(okay, my adequate library classroom) was being taken over by a trio of new Spanish teachers who did not have rooms of their own. You see where I am going. Shrinking this way and that! Shrinking until it was no longer mine! (Ahem— I mean, the library’s.) Then that spring I was approached by the head of the humanities department who looked at the secret back storage room off of my office and said, “Wow, you sure do have a lot of storage space back here. What do you do with all this storage space? We could surely use a nice room like this to store all the new, inclusive titles we just bought to finally update our curriculum from the parade of dead white guys…” and just let it dangle there in the air. It wasn’t a direct ask, but his query was clear.
How could I tell him that I needed a place to store the copies of National Geographic that someone was bound to need someday? I offered to share the space, with me keeping the cool wall shelves and cabinets for my processing supplies and giving up the big book cases that really didn’t hold much of anything. I was still able to fit those Nat Geos into my area, but my heart was heavy. Then came the final, horrible cut, the shrink shrink*. I was informed that two of the four study rooms were going to be taken over as offices for someone known as a "City Connects" person and a behavioral therapist. This one stung because I have never had a library aide and have grown used to being the queen of my domain. (I know, your surprise is palpable.) How was I going to share my space with two full time adult humans working less than 10 feet from me? You could put 50 teens in the library and I won’t blink an eye, I am friendly as can be to my colleagues who VISIT the library. But roommates? “No, no, a thousand times no!” I screamed on the inside. But as a team player, I couldn’t refuse. And anyway, if I had a dollar for every time I had knocked on the door to remind the kids that the blinds stayed UP and heard a terrified voice say, “Just a minute!” as the door swung open to two chairs being quickly pushed apart, I would have, well, at least enough for a beer and a plate of nachos. And even when they weren’t hiding out for romantic purposes, it was as likely to be a kid watching Netflix as working and I wouldn’t have to concern myself with keeping an eye on things. Plus, I was pleased that my admin was addressing the need for more mental health professionals in our building and if I had to suffer for the needs of my kids, so be it. So I said heaved a great sigh and acquiesced. But here’s the thing: I didn’t have to suffer. It ended up being kind of wonderful! Megan, the behavioral therapist, is a quiet calming presence. Twice I have come to her nearly in tears over something hurtful a colleague has said to me. It was the same colleague, she’s the worst, but also, as the great Ted Lasso says—
And Megan reminded me of that. Both times. City Connects is a great program out of Boston College that helps build a network of support for students and families to help kids be able to succeed. Carla was hired as the high school’s City Connects liaison. This is Carla -
She is like that all the time. (It’s a Crossfit thing. Don’t get her started talking about it.) She has added a sense of fun to the library that in my advancing and crabby years, has been a struggle for me to maintain alone. Having these two mental health professionals in the library has brought in kids who now feel a new sense of comfort. I have always tried to make the library feel like a safe space, and I think I have been fairly successful. Having these two has added an extra layer. And the kids have not missed the study rooms. As a matter of fact, the other two study rooms have calendars on them for outside therapists and student testing and now kids who really have a need for them will sign up so there is far less snogging. Having all those beautiful new books in my back room feels good  and it turns out that having the humanities department head spending more time in the library has been great for library related things. Even if he never remembers to turn off the lights when he leaves.  The Spanish teachers have all gotten their own rooms now and the classroom is back in my— I mean, the library’s— arsenal, but I miss them and the buzz of their classroom throughout the day. But in the intervening time, everyone has gotten used to how convenient it is to move the wheelie tables and make use of the foldy walls to make the exact classroom we need for each occasion right in the library!  I don’t mean for this to be one of those toxic-positivity-makes-lemonade stories, but I guess it kind of is, but the things I learned from these experiences have been valuable:
Now, if you want a story where I get mad and stay mad, ask me about the three times this week that I walked into the library office to find people hanging out there without asking if they could use my space. (The office is mine, MINE, MINE!!) I said (with an unseen fire of rage burning within me): “Oh, you must be looking for the faculty study room,” and firmly but kindly pointed them to the room that is literally seventeen steps away. (Yes, I counted.) 
Megan and Carla were so proud of me! Footnotes * According to Dr. Brad Brenner, "shrink" is another term used to refer to mental health professionals, including therapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists. The word “shrink” comes from “head shrinkage,” which refers to the ancient practice of shrinking the head of a conquered enemy. Thus, “shrink” originated as a slang term that people used to refer to mental health professionals. The term is largely outdated and belongs to an era in which mental health treatment was a source of shame. So even though it helped me in trying to organize this article, I will not be using it in real life. Sources
Editor's Column -- Heading to MASC by Luke Steere Luke is the librarian at Wilson Middle School in Natick. The Massachusetts Association of School Committees has invited MSLA to present at their annual conference in Hyannis. It is held in November, and President Elect Reba Tierney and I will be attending, speaking on behalf of the organization and focusing on four main pillars:
If you have anything that speaks to one of these areas, please consider sharing. Reba and I want to enhance our presentation with reports from our membership. Consider, for example, a photo of a display, an anecdote about your success enabling a policy, or an interaction with your school committee to lukesteere@gmail.com. We will also be asking our wider membership in a message to the listserv. Because of the efforts of Outreach Director Deb Froggat, MSLA President Barb Fecteau, Past President Jen Varney, BPS Librarian Bonnie McBride, and others, partnership with MASC has become a strong advocacy plank. Our organizational connections grew even stronger at last year's executive board meeting at Worcester Public Library, where MASC was named as part of the 2024 - 2028 MSLA Strategic Plan. One of the three focus areas in the plan is Advocacy, aimed at "connecting local and state stakeholders in order to promote equitable student access to effective school library programs and intellectual freedom initiatives." MASC is an important group to forge connections with, in addition to our partnerships with the MBLC, MLA, MLS, DESE, and MTA. Your membership in MSLA makes these connections stronger. Collaborating is one of the most important things librarians do, so thank you for coming to the forum to engage with the exchange of ideas. As co-editors, Michelle Fontaine and I are excited to present our second season of the forum on WildApricot. Over the next school year, we will be uploading our forum archives with the help of Office Manager Emily Kristofek, Webmaster Ann Perham, and members of the executive board. Below you'll find a discussion on Information Literacy from Academic Columnist Deeth Ellis (who is finishing her multi-year run of academic columns to begin writing her dissertation) and Liza Halley's interview with Carol Tilley from the University of Illinois. Gillian Bartoo, the Cambridge Public Schools district cataloger, returns with a veritable return bin full of tips for getting started with reorganization, and guest columnist and Western Region Area Director Claudia Palframan builds a special collection. Plus, much more. Happy Fall!
Building a Select Collection for an Underserved Community
by Claudia Palframan Claudia is the librarian at Dupont Middle School in Chicopee. A school library serves and supports the staff and students of that school— its community— but in my school, the library failed in this mission with our students who are in the Autism Spectrum Disorder program (ASD). I sought to change that. Our school has an intensive needs, moderate needs and a transition program (TAPS). These programs have grown over the last few years. The students in the transitional program have traditionally come to the library with their social studies classes, or, occasionally, with the TAPS staff. Conversations with the staff of the intensive and moderate needs programs indicated that their students would like to have more opportunities to come to the library and select books. We do have SORA, but the ASD staff would prefer that their students have only a small amount of screen time while in school. The school library had a very limited amount of books that fit the needs of the intensive and moderate ASD students, and we quickly found that we needed to build a collection that met their requirements. While many of the students had low reading levels, they had high expectations for what the library could offer them. They were interested in the weather, history, animals— especially horses, some were bronies— adult fans of the My Little Pony franchise— and others had an interest in sports, games or art. Now that I knew what their interests were, I went to work finding the appropriate books. My requirements were that the books had low Lexile levels, high interest, and were appropriate for this particular group of middle school students with all their varied personalities and interests. Donations from a former teacher filled some of the needs. Selecting titles for this collection was a positive challenge. The traditional hi-lo books were not appropriate for this specific collection. Most books with low Lexile levels were also written for young students (K-2), so I spent a lot of time looking through catalogs, Titlewave, and browsing at the local book store. As I found appropriate titles, I added them to my order with a note that they were for the ASD collection. Due to budget cuts, my book order was not filled this fall, but after a discussion with the principal, focusing on the specific population, he was able to fund the purchase of the books. Moreover, this led to the purchase some other needed titles. He was also able to find money so I could fill my Demco order to process and display the books. I ordered colored label protectors for these books and more book easels— I never have enough for the displays I want to make! When the books came in, I processed the books and included a sublocation in the catalog for them. The books are shelved in their own area so the students in the program don’t get frustrated when searching for these books. The students in the ASD program will create the signage for the collection. I hope to increase collaborations through collections in other areas of the library. After this experience, here is what I would do differently:
We had one ASD class visit, and the excitement from the students and staff was wonderful to be part of. After the students signed out their books, they made themselves comfortable on the couches and read their books. I’m looking forward to library visits with the other students in the ASD programs. This is library joy! |
Connecting Research and School Librarianship: On information literacy
by Deeth Ellis
This is the second article in the series for The Forum, Connecting Research and School Librarianship. The two articles presented here examine information literacy (IL) skills in college students and the extent to which IL taught in high school prepares students for college studies.
While reading these articles, you might consider the following questions:
- What connections do you make to your practice?
- Does the research raise any concerns?
- What questions do you have after reading?
Valenza et al. use surveys to gather data from first-year college students and high school librarians in New Jersey. The purpose is to examine the relationship between students’ interactions with high school librarians (receiving lessons, access to resources, and general library services) with level of preparedness for college work. They found that students with higher levels of experience with their high school librarian outperformed others academically, but there is inconsistent access to school librarians. The first survey asks high school librarians about their role in their school and practice. One interesting detail is that “only six of the 11 reported reaching >50 % of their students each year” (p. 4). This suggests an inconsistency of librarian instruction within schools that have a school librarian, which Valenza et al. argue is an equity issue.
The college students responding to the second survey are grouped into novice and non-novice library users. They are asked about their experience with library resources and ask students to compare how research in college compares to high school. The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) framework are used to analyze students’ responses. Despite the fact that only three of the 11 school librarians intentionally integrated the ACRL framework into their instruction, students indicated they were familiar with strategies described in these frameworks. This suggests some alignment with AASL standards and the ACRL framework.
Non-novice and novice users indicated there were higher expectations, particularly for finding academic resources, using library websites, and synthesizing the information, in college. Novice users needed more time to complete assignments, felt standards in college were higher, including for technical proficiencies such as accurate citations. Students who had instruction led by school librarians also acknowledged being held to higher standards but felt prepared to complete college-level research more efficiently and effectively, citing their experiences in high school.
Dann et al. examine first year college students reading proficiency in relation to information literacy (IL) and academic achievement. Many college students demonstrate low IL skills, which is linked to lower academic achievement. The paper presents the findings from a study in Australia that examined how IL interventions, with a focus on reading and IL skills, change academic outcomes for students. This is important because the large number of first-years who are the first to attend college in their family or are from underrepresented groups and, therefore, are at a higher risk of not completing college.
Students participated in classes in librarians offered specific research-based interventions and reading strategies such as
“chunking, where scholarly articles were broken down into understandable and manageable sections; annotations, where students made annotations alongside scholarly articles for understanding, and collaboration, where students actively engaged in scholarship as conversation.” (p. 52)
The results show both an increase in students’ self-perception of their information literacy skills:
“I was able to practice pulling apart articles…I have learned how to paraphrase information.” (p. 63)
However, as students learned IL skills, they began to see the gaps in their proficiency, too:
“I will need to keep working on it… I struggle to find relevant sources and be able to access them… I now know I knew nothing when I started.” (p. 63)
There was another key, and maybe unsurprising, finding related to school librarians. Students who had instructional experiences with a school librarian were more likely to develop confidence in their college-level IL skills after their first year. Again, students who had received instruction from a school librarian were able to synthesize and integrate scholarly information into their assignments.
Both articles find students are better prepared when they have instructional experiences with school librarians. How can we increase consistent IL instruction in our schools? As school librarians, we see inconsistencies of instruction within our schools. There may be times we might work with one teacher on a lesson. By doing this, we organically develop rich, collaborative instruction, but we can end up with an inequitable model of library instruction. Perhaps this is a point to make to the principal or instructional leadership teams and post the question: How can we use the library program to ensure consistent and equitable access for all students to IL instruction in preparation for college and beyond?
Picture Books: The Early Reader Gets the Worm
by Jenny Arch
Jenny Arch is the Children's Services Librarian at the South Hadley (MA) Public Library.
Picture books, we know, are full of rich vocabulary, because they’re intended for adults to read to or with children. Early readers (sometimes called Easy Readers or Leveled Readers) are often the next step for kids who are beginning to read independently. They are not all necessarily “decodables”— that’s a whole separate column— but they tend to feature a controlled vocabulary, sight words, generous margins and white space between lines, and illustrations; they may have short chapters or be all one story.
It’s a special challenge for authors to come up with stories as fascinating, funny, and engaging in the early reader format due to the constraints on vocabulary and length, but there are plenty who hit it out of the park. Let’s have a look at some of these success stories:
Buddy Comedies
The Frog and Toad series by Arnold Lobel are the classic early readers. Kids feel a sense of accomplishment for reading a “chapter book,” and can take breaks between each story if they want or need to. Lobel’s four Frog and Toad books were published in the 1970s, with Frog and Toad Are Friends winning a Caldecott Honor, but they stand the test of time beautifully, dealing as they do with lost buttons, willpower (“Cookies”), and waiting for spring.
For a more contemporary pair of personalities, we turn to Mo Willems’ Elephant and Piggie. These books are popular for good reason— they are funny and emotionally true— and because all of the text is dialogue in speech bubbles, they are great for reading aloud in pairs, with one reader speaking Piggie’s lines and another speaking Gerald’s.
Brothers Charlie and Mouse (Laurel Snyder, illus. Emily Hughes) are ensconced in a cozy family setting with just the right amount of mischief and love; in the fourth Charlie and Mouse book, they go camping, and their imaginary kittens get the zoomies. Class pet mice Fergus and Zeke (Kate Messner, illus. Heather Ross) observe Miss Maxwell’s class and tag along on adventures, finding ways to participate in Field Day, the 100th Day of School, and the Science Fair. Matthew Cordell’s Cornbread and Poppy show that characters with opposite personalities can still be friends, if they make an effort to understand each other and compromise sometimes.
Inclusivity
In Meet Yasmin (Saadia Faruqi, illus. Hatem Ali) exuberant Yasmin is part of a loving Muslim family. They use some Urdu words (there’s a glossary), and Yasmin inhabits many identities, from artist to scientist, allowing kids to embrace those things too.
Routine-loving Henry (Henry, Like Always, Jenn Bailey, illus. Mika Song) usually likes room ten and Mrs. Tanaka, but is upset at the news that there will be a parade. Henry, his teacher, and his classmates work toward a solution together in five short chapters; the text does not use contractions.
Gigi and Ojiji (Melissa Iwai) shows Gigi excited for her grandfather to come from Japan to live with them, but needs her mom to explain some of the cultural differences to bridge the initial gap between them. There are four of these loving, intergenerational tales so far, with the most recent being Perfect Paper Cranes (2024).
Humor
How can you resist a grumpy cat named Flubby? J.E. Morris introduced this character in Flubby Is Not A Good Pet, which echoes the themes in picture books Matilda’s Cat by Emily Gravett, Sparky! by Jenny Offill, and Bad Dog by Mike Boldt. Sometimes the grump is part of the charm, and kids can empathize with not wanting to do what’s expected.
They say three’s a crowd, but in the case of Ame Dyckman’s silly roommates Bat, Cat, and Rat, that’s a good thing. The Cozy Home (illus. Mark Teague) includes “three and a half stories” of the three main characters moving in together, playing jokes on each other, and - when Cat realizes the other two can’t read - reading together.
Fans of Penelope Rex (We Don’t Eat Our Classmates) know that Ryan T. Higgins is a very funny author/illustrator, and in What About Worms?! he brings his talent to early readers. Tiger isn’t afraid of anything - except worms. A funny misunderstanding, and the inclusion of the worms’ perspective, shows that learning about the things that scare us can reduce our fears.
Starting with the cover, See the Cat: Three Stories About a Dog (David LaRochelle, illus. Mike Wohnoutka) explores the humor in juxtaposition: when the words say one thing, but the pictures show another. Readers also see the dog arguing with the narrator, raising interesting questions about who is telling the story.
Graphic Novels
With the explosion of graphic novels over the past decade, younger readers have not been left out. There are a good batch of early reader graphic novels, including the ever-popular Narwhal & Jelly series by Ben Clanton, Pizza & Taco by Stephen Shaskan, and the pun-filled Pea, Bee, and Jay by Brian Smith. Inventive picture book author/illustrator Corey R. Tabor offers Sir Ladybug (featuring Snail’s bigger-on-the-inside shell) for early readers, and Elise Gravel presents Arlo & Pips, filled with plenty of corvid (crow) facts.
Luckily for emerging readers— and those of us who put books in their hands— it’s not all “See Spot run” anymore. Students can continue to build their identities as readers with books that are creative, funny, tender, sweet, silly, and engaging.
Medium Matters—Comics in the Classroom: An Interview with Carol Tilley
by Liza Halley
Liza Halley is the Library Teacher at Plympton Elementary School in Waltham. She has loved graphic novels since reading Bone and Amulet with her son. She reads every graphic novel she can find, and is a big fan of Monstress, Hellboy, and Saga. She is a founder of the Boston Kids Comic Fest.
Carol Tilley, comics scholar, library educator, and youth advocate, serves on the faculty of the School of Information Sciences (formerly, the Graduate School of Library and Information Science) at the University of Illinois, where she teaches courses in comics reader’s advisory, media literacy, and youth services librarianship. At Illinois, Tilley is affiliated with the Center for Children’s Books (which is part of the School of Information Sciences), the Center for Writing Studies, and Gender and Women’s Studies. Her scholarship focuses on the intersection of young people, comics, and libraries, particularly in the United States during the mid-twentieth century. Tilley's comics research has been featured in the New York Times, BoingBoing, WNYC's Takeaway, and other media outlets. A frequent speaker at academic conferences as well as popular comics events, Tilley has served as an Eisner Award judge (2016) and president of the Comics Studies Society (2018-2019). You can learn more about Carol Tilley on her website.
I recently connected with Carol Tilley to ask her, from her perspective as an academic, what she wishes classroom teachers and library teachers knew or thought more about when it comes to teaching with comics in the classroom. What follows are excerpts from the one-hour interview. You can find the complete interview here.
Halley: If you could offer any advice or tools for teachers right now (a library teacher or a classroom teacher in K-to-12) in terms of incorporating comics in the classroom, what would you say are the most important things for teachers to think about?
Tilley: Don't be afraid to learn alongside your students. If you are a comics reader already, great. If you know nothing about comics, figure it out together. I think that that kind of modeling, when teachers are able to demonstrate that they are not fully confident in a particular domain, I think it's actually reassuring to learners.
The second thing I would say is, comics are not monolithic and neither are readers. While many young people may really enjoy comics, and there may be a comic for nearly every young person out there, there also may not be. Comics are not a panacea for everything that ails a classroom or a library. We still have to think about the kids who are in front of us; what their interests and experiences and expectations are. Think about how we want to engage them, or if we want to engage them with comics. Comics created and marketed specifically for the educational market may not be the best starting points. They absolutely fill a need - especially for nonfiction comics for young people - but aren't always the best choice for engaging readers.
Halley: Can you elaborate a little bit. When you say that comics are not a panacea for everything do you have examples in mind?
Tilley: I think sometimes when teachers get excited about comics, and librarians for that matter, I think the excitement or the enthusiasm is often because people think circulation is going to increase magically or student engagement is going to increase magically and it may, but you still have to be thoughtful about the comics you select for your classroom or for your library. You still have to keep your community in mind. You still have to keep your students’ experiences with comics, prior experiences with comics, in mind.
Just like with any other book or type of media, you really have to think of what you want comics to accomplish. A lot of teachers tend to gravitate towards the same comics and this happens at the undergraduate level too where it might be something like Maus or Persepolis or Fun Home, and I have students who come in and they've been assigned those comics two or three times in different classes.
Halley: I was reading on your website that your teaching philosophy includes connecting students to the real world. I'm wondering if there are examples of that with comics that you could share with teachers that maybe would inspire them to do that in some way.
Tilley: If teachers have an existing project where maybe a student is interviewing a family member or trying to learn more about the history of where they live, there's no reason not to think about comics as a format for their product for what they've learned. I think any time you can help students share their voices, their ideas, their imaginations with people outside the school community the better off we all are. The more they get out of it.
Students are more engaged in learning and reading and making meaning when they have an audience beyond the classroom. There's something powerful about knowing that the work they're doing is going to be in someone else's hands; it has this less artificial feeling to it. Not only does it create a product for an external audience, I think it helps with engagement. It also really helps with thinking in terms of audience for writing so you get out of the artificial five-paragraph essay model that still gets used too much in schools.
Halley: I love that. It's like everyone should be required to read Scott McCloud’s work Understanding Comics. Tell me about a comic you've read recently that you love that rocked your world.
Tilley: One of the the comics that really stood out to me recently was Inside the Mind of Sherlock
Holmes by Cyril Lerion. It's an amazing adaptation, so it's got a source text but the visuals in this are just phenomenal. There are these pages that are so intricate that take the figure of Sherlock's head and place the panels inside of it, and it's done for very intentional effect. The way the panels are laid out is incredible and so meaningfully made. It drew me in so much, and it's one that invites lingering over the single page or a two page spread. It keeps revealing more as you spend more time with it.
I really loved Darren Bell's The Talk. Anyone who works with young people should read that. For slightly younger readers I really enjoyed the book Mabuhay! by Zachary Sterling. The book has a lot of heart. I like the integration of Filipino folklore and the focus on family. There's a series of mini comics called Stick Figure Shakespeare that is a great example, I think, of what you can do with minimal drawing skills because she has a whole set of adaptations of Shakespeare in not many pages. That kind of basic principle of adaptation I think could work in a lot of settings, you can do it collaboratively, individually or whatever, adapting something that you read for class or even doing the the multilayer thing where you have instead of a book report it's a comic where the student puts themselves into the comic sort of talking about the experience of reading a particular book.
Halley: Is there anything else you just really wish teachers would think about right now?
Tilley: Trust kids. There's a blog post on my website - it's probably the most recent one up there - called It's 1948 Again. Whether it's comics or some other medium or text format, kids genuinely take what they need at the moment that they're reading something, and they leave the rest for when they need it later.
Here we are after a century plus of prejudice and fears around comics starting back from say 1906 or so to the present: they're not real reading, they're going to dull kids' joy of real books, that they're going to teach kids bad manners, whatever. I hope maybe we can progress beyond that. We've made inroads. I hope to see more.
New Librarian Q&A with Gwen Blumberg
Gwen is the K-8 School Librarian at Lincoln School, Lincoln Public Schools.
How did you come to librarianship?
In my professional career, I've been a classroom teacher for first, fourth, and fifth grades, a literacy interventionist, a literacy coach, an adjunct professor, a practicum supervisor, and most recently a district-level literacy leader. I've always been deeply interested and invested in helping kids develop rich reading lives and empowering them to consume, create, and share books and stories to help them understand themselves, others, and their world. A few years ago, I started thinking about what I'd like to do as the "next chapter" of my career. I've always loved libraries and the idea of returning to a student-facing role in one building was very appealing... so I started taking classes and attended my first MSLA conference last spring. There I decided I absolutely wanted to make a career pivot. That same spring, I was hired to fill a position for the next school year, made available by a retirement.
How would you explain the importance of your role to a nonlibrarian?
I believe the school library should be the heart of every school, and the librarian's role is to keep that heart beating! There are two main parts to my role: a people part and a collection, or "things," part. The people part is about teaching and knowing students. This means connecting them with books and resources to support the learning they are doing at school as well as resources connected to topics of interest that shape their unique identities. It's also about teaching other critical life skills such as collaboration, critical thinking, and ways to communicate and share ideas with others. In addition to supporting students, the people part includes collaborating with other educators in my school to support the work they are doing in their classrooms, as well as communicating and collaborating with families. The "things part" focuses on thoughtfully curating a collection of books and other resources to meet the needs of all learners as well as designing a space that facilitates joyful learning.
What are you working on right now?
Right now I'm working on developing a long-term plan for how I want to reorganize the physical collection so it is more accessible to kids. I’m also doing some spot weeding to remove books that are old and/or falling apart which has the added benefit of helping me get to know the physical collection.
What is going well?
The kids are fantastic. I rearranged the entire floor plan of the library over the summer, and they absolutely love it. The students have made me feel like I'm on the reveal portion of a home improvement show... they are SO excited about it. I'm riding that good energy they have about the space, and I love watching how they interact with it. There's a really happy vibe in the library, and I'm very grateful to be spending my days with kids again.
What is the most challenging thing so far?
The most challenging thing so far is the "nonstopness" of the role. I LOVE that people -- kids and grown ups -- are constantly coming to the library, but on the flip side, there's not a lot of downtime to do "back office" kinds of tasks. I think I'll be able to better manage my time as I better know the role. I joke that right now I don't even know what I don't know. I'm learning something new every day.
What's the most unexpected thing about your new job?
The most unexpected (and wonderful) thing has been how generous the librarian community is. People are willing to share resources, expertise, and have invited me to come and visit their spaces. I look forward to the day when I can be a help and resource to new librarians.
What are you reading or watching right now?
I'm listening to as many middle grade novels as I can on my commute and as I clean the house/run errands to help me offer better recommendations to kids— I recently finished and loved Farther Than the Moon by Lindsay Lackey and Lasagna Means I Love You by Kate O'Shaughnessey. I just finished There's Always This Year by Hanif Abdurraquib, which has stunningly beautiful writing, and I am currently enjoying a lighter, fictional book about a high school called The Faculty Lounge by Jennifer Mathieu; I am 50 pages in! I'm watching KLEO on Netflix and love those nights when I'm not too tired to watch an episode!
What do you hope the MA School Library Association can do for you?
I had a really strong and close network of literacy leaders I was connected to in my last role, and I'm excited to network, connect, and share resources and ideas with my new professional colleagues. I'm already excited for the MSLA conference in the spring!
Building a Community of Readers: High Rock's Title Trivia Book Contest
by Elizabeth Vaccaro
Elizabeth is the Librarian at High Rock School in Needham.
At High Rock School, an end-of-year highlight is the finals of our reading contest. The entire school gathers in the gym to cheer on their teams of readers with an enthusiasm that rivals field day. The contest takes a half hour and 100 questions. It is fast paced; teams often don’t let me finish reading the question before they buzz in to answer it. The answers are all book titles. It is a celebration of reading and readers.
The cornerstone of this program is the book list, about 80 titles across all genres, made up of books recommended by the year’s reading community. The list and its permanent display in the library serve as an important source of book recommendations and a way to create a community around shared knowledge of books. When I have multiple students asking for recommendations at the same time, I start at this display shelf. All students create reading goals for themselves as part of their independent reading program, and they often use this list to help expand their reading choices beyond their favorite genre. Reluctant readers are more apt to take a chance on familiar books, and they can often find one on this shelf that they are willing to try. Teachers also use this list to choose an independent reading book so that they can connect with their students.High Rock is a sixth grade school of about 450 students who come from five elementary schools in Needham to begin their middle school experience. It has a robust independent reading program. Students have a dedicated time to read in school every day and are asked to read 20 minutes at home every night. All core subject teachers have a class that includes the independent reading block, not just the ELA teachers. One reason this reading contest works for the school is that it is a resource but not a requirement.
List building starts in September. First, the students in the Library Club give suggestions. Our Library Club is a school-sponsored club that meets after school twice a month. In September there are usually about 40 members. The previous year’s Library Club evaluated the list and offered input on which titles should stay on the list and which should be replaced. To the student recommendations I add books that these students may not have encountered yet, both sixth grade favorites and newly published titles. I add summer reading books that had good student reviews because familiar favorites add credibility to the list. Finally, I send the list to the adult readers at High Rock for further refinement; especially helpful is our band director, who is one of our most passionate readers.
High Rock’s contest has been running for about a decade. Here are the nuts and bolts that I have learned over the years that make it easy to run:
- Settle on five types of questions. Categories help organize the contest. I use First Lines, “A character Who . . .”, Unique Settings, Important Object (like the snowball in Because of Mr. Terupt), and Distinctive Quotes.
- Offer an online prequiz and qualification rounds. In order for the entire school to participate in the first round, I create an online, eight-question multiple-choice quiz and allow a two-day window for teachers to offer it in their classes. I run the second round during the students' lunch so that it doesn't interfere with classes. The second round determines the three students who will represent the cluster in the finals. For this round, I ask questions out loud, and students write the answers, referring to the title list as needed. Usually about twenty students in each cluster choose to accept the invitation, and the students with the most correct answers win.
- Use technology where you can. Similar to using tech for the prequiz, for the finals, I use an app called Game Show Host. I pay a small fee to host, but students can add the app for free, and it turns their student iPads into buzzers. I use one type of question per round and have the Distinctive Quotes category earn double points. Last year, I had a super team of three students, each of whom had read every book on the list, and I learned that the quotes was the one section they could not prepare for. Because students can buzz in in the middle of a question, the pace is fast, but the app can handle this.
Our Title Trivia contest format can work for any school. The focus is on familiarity with a broad range of titles rather than a deep reading of a book. Teachers don’t need to devote their class time to support the contest, and they like having a list of new recommended books. Students who listen to classmates talk about books often do well, even if they haven’t read the books themselves. It is an honor to be selected for the second round, and students who don’t consider themselves readers get a boost in confidence when they win an invitation. It is a celebration of being a community of readers.
by Gillian Bartoo
Gillian Bartoo is the District Cataloging Manager for the Cambridge Public Schools.
“Where do I start?” That’s a question I get from librarians both new to and old friends with their libraries. “Where do I start?” is the question when it comes to any project that involves sorting through and organizing or reorganizing many, many items while at the same time circulating those items and/or teaching classes and performing all the other duties a school librarian performs.
Here are some pro collection management tips:
START SMALL “I need to inventory and weed and consolidate and standardize and genrefy and pull out the graphics and the early chapter books” may be the truth, but nobody has the time to do that to a whole library in one go, or even in one year. It’s such a big overwhelming project that you’ll never start. Decide what is the most urgent problem that needs fixing and go with that. Break it down into steps that will be complete each time you stop for the day so you won’t forget what to do when you pick it up again the next day (or the next year). This goes whether your plan is a one-day blitz or a one-shelf-a-week ongoing task.
USE MEASURABLE, MANAGEABLE GOALS I know it sounds like I am restating, but for inventories, weeds and big recatalog projects, I recommend continuing to break up large sublocations such as Dewey or Fiction into smaller chunks like you did with your test. Do this even if it looks like you will have a large span of open time. Smaller goals give you a sense of accomplishment and encourages you to keep going. If you have to stop because something has come up and you no longer have time, you’ve still completed a part that you no longer have to worry about for a few years. You can use the numbers from that section to extrapolate numbers and estimates for future projects or for library statistics.
INVENTORY & WEED Before any major project, I always advise a good inventory and weed first. Why? Mostly because you want to spend the least amount of effort you can on books that aren’t there or that you don’t want.
A WORD ABOUT YOUR CATALOG This is a very powerful tool for these projects. Your catalog can:
- help you reorganize collections and figure shelving footage for a redesign
- help you identify and remove missing items so you don’t waste time looking for them
- help you identify and group like items to make a more browsable collection
- generate statistics to help you do all of the above while giving you hard evidence to take to your administration for budgeting and staffing issues.
But, it can only help if it is up to date. For it to work right, what is in the catalog has to match what is on the shelf, not just in terms of numbers (titles and copies) but also where things are (sublocations) and how they are labeled (call numbers and shelving indicators). And the only way to get a catalog up to date with the shelves is to Inventory.
PLAN & TEST Think it all the way through by testing a small area such as Dewey 000-299, or letter A for Fiction or Picture Books. Then, go through all the steps:
- Inventory
- Weed the shelves
- Fix cataloging problems
- Delete the weeds from the catalog
Keep track of how long it took to perform each one of those steps as well as the whole test end-to-end, and record the kinds of problems you encounter. When the test section is completely done, you’ll have a good idea of how long it’s going to take to do that sublocation, how to break up the project and the steps, and the kinds of issues you’ll most likely encounter. Having these notes and numbers also gives you good data for your administration if you’re looking for paid extra hours or help, or to explain why you can’t get the library organized while also teaching a full schedule of classes.
CREATING (OR MERGING) SUB-COLLECTIONS It all needs to match up. Ideally, the location information in the catalog is a map of your library. If you’re moving some of your fiction collection into a “Popular Series” location in the library, you need to move or edit your data in the catalog. How will the patron know from looking in the catalog that Wimpy Kid isn’t shelved with the regular fiction? You also need to indicate this on the book itself. How will a volunteer parent know that Wimpy Kid doesn’t get shelved in the regular Fiction section? (PRO TIP: “Oh, we’ll just know which ones go there” is a very, very, bad idea.) Put a shelving indicator on that book: a colored sticker or label lock, a tag that says “Series”...whatever. Just make it look different than the regular Fiction.
DATA STANDARDIZATION Your fiction books have all sorts of different call numbers: F AAA , FIC AAA, JFic AAA, 813 AAAAAA. This is another “Oh, we’ll just know” thing that doesn’t work well. Put a standardization project on your list, but not until after you’ve inventoried and weeded. Again, don’t waste time and use up supplies on books you don’t want. Could you go one shelf at a time and inventory, weed, then recatalog? Sure. If that works for you. Know that recataloging can take forever if you need to put new call number tags on books. Even if you figure out how to batch change call numbers in your software and batch print new labels it will take forever. Do a test then break the job up into manageable chunks that fit your schedule.
I hope this helps you get started. If you take nothing else away from this, remember that the smaller, the better. Librarians don’t have swaths of free time to really get stuck into a project, and a half-finished huge project is a waste of time. Small can be ambitious too! Several little finished projects is an accomplishment. So, go out there and get it accomplished!
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