Silent Book Club: An Easy Way to Provide Virtual Services During Crisis (or Really anytime!)

   During the COVID-19 Crisis, we have certainly had to shift our instructional practices to meet the needs of our learning community in these crazy times! My initial interest in Silent Book Clubs came from hearing from my colleague Ginny Poepsel (vpoepsel@sdale.org) in Springdale that a student had requested a time/space online to just be in the presence of others to read.  

   After reading Cassandra Barnett's message to the Arkansas Association of Instructional Media about the Silent Book Club a few days later, I decided to give it a try.  The first session of the Lakeside Silent Book Club was held on Zoom during a week when our virtual book club was to meet with the author of the book we were reading.  When the author cancelled, I decided to give the Silent Book Club a try.

   I promoted the event on the LJHS Library social media through some posts including a media found below:

Silent Book Club Promo

How It Went

   For our initial Silent Book Club, we had four participants.  Although no student participants attended, four staff members attended.  Probably the most awkward thing about the Silent Book Club, was understanding the norms.  Since it was a "silent" book club, it was a bit unclear for the participants when, if at all, it was okay to talk.   I opened the meeting by asking participants to hold up the book they were reading on screen so other participants could see what was being read.  

    To accommodate the silence, we ended up using Zoom's chat feature to share briefly about the books we were reading.  One positive of the experience was that there was a definite reading "flow" that took place.  Our meeting was originally scheduled from 2-3pm, however each member of the group was so engaged in their book, that I did not end the meeting until almost 3:15.  (Likely if I had not said anything, I think the meeting could have gone on even longer!)

Future Implementation 

    Even though no students attended, I would still say that the goal of providing a safe space to read online was met.  I think if I had advertised the meeting more and as students get used to this opportunity as a regularly scheduled library event, its popularity will continue to grow. 

    As I look towards the uncertainty of the fall, whether we continue with virtual instruction or will be back in face to face school, I would definitely be interested in holding Silent Book Club meetings in the future.  Try it out virtually, or in your physical library space and please let me know how it goes!

Contact me on social media:  @GoldenEagleLMC

                                                @Brian_librarian

Bjohnson3@sdale.org

Raising the Next Generation of Librarians

    This past spring,  I had a unique opportunity.  One of my middle school colleagues contacted me about having one of her 7th grade students come over and shadow me.  He has an interest in being a librarian for his career.  I jumped at this chance to have a student shadow me.

     This opportunity got me thinking about what we are doing to help raise up the next generation of librarians.  In this day and age when education programs are seeing fewer students enroll and by extension the number of candidates for teaching positions is shrinking (especially in areas of science math and technology) it is even more paramount.  What will that mean for a specialized field such as school librarianship? Will there be enough qualified candidates to continue the important work of 21st century librarianship we have begun?

    The 7th grader was on my campus for about 2 hours in the middle of the morning.  I made it my goal to show him as many different aspects of the job of a school librarian as I could in that short time in order to paint as clear of a picture as I could of what it means to be a 21st Century school librarian.  He got to see how to collaborate, connect, administrate, publicize, and learn in the context of the LJHS library program.

     The morning opened with a Skype with a class of high school students from Transylvania, Romania.  The topics discussed ranged from how students in Eastern Europe view the influx of Syrian refugees into Europe, to current presidential candidates in the United States and our cultural similarities.

     I also worked with this student to teach him some basics of coding in Snap and he practiced writing a program to make the one of the Finch robots we have on loan this year move across the carpet in several directions.


     We also visited with teachers in the hall and in their classrooms about upcoming collaborations.  We talked with the home economics teacher about judging the Cupcake Wars contest she invited me to participate in and discussed an upcoming lesson with one of the 8th grade science teachers where they will be writing code in the library to move a Finch robot through  student created mazes.

     So how exactly to we raise up the next generation of school librarians?  I think it means employing some of the methods we already use to publicize our programs with our constituents.

Here are a few practical steps:

Present.
Present our profession to future administrators and instructional facilitators in the college classes/workshops so many of us teach at night.

Model.
Promote/publicize our careers as librarians to our students-what do they see us modeling?  Is it just flashy programming? Do they see us thinking outside of the box?  Do they see us succeeding and failing at times with new ideas and technologies?

Stay in Touch.
I gave this student my email address and encouraged him to send me questions he has about entering the field, and to set up another time to shadow me in the library.

Cultivate Potential.
When we see potential in our students and teachers as future media specialists, we need to tell them!  Think back to why you became a librarian.  Did it have something to do with a particularly inspiring experience in the library, or the relationship you had with a librarian growing up, or in the building(s) you taught in before becoming a librarian?  Let us all be that same inspiration to our students going forward!

     When we take these conscious steps, we will already be moving in the right direction to raise up the next generation of librarians!

Contact me:

Follow me on Twitter:@brian_librarian

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Contact me by email: bjohnson3@sdale.org