In the December issue of The Media Center Messenger, my article was about an experience my grandchildren and I had at a public library. The point of sharing that experience was not to cast aspersions on the public library branch or the library system as a whole. I shared that experience to highlight the importance of being mindful of customer service in all our libraries. Several people who read that article felt as if I were publicly attacking that library and they took exception to my article. For that I am truly sorry and deeply regret that I wrote the article in such a way that the readers misconstrued the purpose of the article. Obviously the article was not as well-written as I thought or as I had hoped.

     My grandchildren and I have visited that particular library branch and others in that library system and the children were treated with kindness, respect, and enthusiasm. Both girls love visiting the library. For the five-year old, a school field trip to the public library is one of her favorite outings.

     It was never my intention in that article to draw attention to any one library nor was it to vilify a particular library or the people who work there. In sharing that experience I sought to highlight the universal problem of lapses in customer service. We have all experienced such lapses, perhaps at the grocery store, at a doctor’s office, at a library, at a school. I have often written about the need to be mindful of the public face we present when patrons—students, teachers, parents, community members—visit our school library. How children are treated in any library situation colors their perception about libraries in general and will oftentimes affect how they view and/or use libraries when they become adults. Unfortunately, many library media specialists are working for administrators who do not understand or appreciate the importance of a school library, which, in many instances, may come from negative experiences in libraries during their growing-up years.

     At this point I can only say mea culpa, mea culpa, or in today’s vernacular, “my bad.” I have written a letter of apology to the director of the library system. I hope that this one instance will not color the many accomplishments made during the last ten years on behalf of school libraries in South Carolina or negatively affect any future initiative undertaken to advance our school libraries.

For the past year I have been working on a video project in partnership with South Carolina ETV called A Literary Tour of South Carolina, based on the South Carolina Literary Map created by the South Carolina Center for the Book. To be included in our series an author must be from South Carolina or have significant ties to South Carolina. The authors we’ve contact about our series have been overwhelmingly enthusiastic about participating. We’ll finish the interviews with this season’s authors this month and then we’ll begin the editing process. We plan to have the series ready for broadcast to South Carolina public schools for the 2008-2009 school year.

Our vision for A Literary Tour of South Carolina was to create a master teacher series for  use in the classroom as part of teaching the writing process. How wonderful will it be for students to hear about the writing process and get tips and suggestions from such authors as Dorothea Benton Frank, Sue Monk Kidd, Mary Alice Monroe, Joyce Hansen, Dorie Sanders, William Price Fox, and Jack Bass, just to mention of the few of the authors in our series? To hear these authors talk about their craft of writing is priceless and will make a terrific addition to the classroom curriculum for teaching writing.

Today we visited Rock Hill to talk with a newly published author (her book will be out March 8), Misty Massey. What a delightful time we had and what a wonderful interview she gave us. Since our series is primarily for public school students, especially those in middle and high school, I was thrilled to have Misty a part of our series. She currently works as a paraprofessional in a middle school library; her comments, advice, and suggestions were right on for our target audience. Misty certainly added a new dimension to our series which includes many veteran authors.

Special thanks to all the authors who are a part of our series. Check back for information about the companion website for A Literary Tour of South Carolina.

We began this school year with new ELA standards for all grades. The same standards apply to all grades with increasingly difficult indicators scaffolding from Kindergarten to 12th grade. Even though library media specialists were not on the committees to write these new standards, an exploration of the standards shows several direct connections between the ELA classroom and the school library media center. Standards 1 and 2 relate to reading literary and informational texts both in print and nonprint formats. Standard 6 is the research and inquiry standard and, while these standards are directed toward the classroom teachers, this standard spells out exactly what library media specialists do (or should be doing) on a daily basis.If you will envision a two-piece puzzle with one piece labeled “Teachers-Content” and the other piece labeled “Library Media Specialist-Process,” you begin to understand the importance of the collaborative process between these two groups of educators. The ELA Standard 6 is all about process. (For a brief explanation of these standards and an illustration of this two-piece puzzle, go to http://martha.alewine.googlepages.com and click on the link for the LMS Annual Start-Up Meeting link on the right-hand side of the page.) Libary media specialists should embrace these standards and use them to open a dialogue with their classroom teachers to talk about how library media specialists can help teach these new standards. Standard 6 has implications for all the content areas and not just English/Language Arts.

Part of teaching process skills (information literacy or 21st Century learning skills) is the use of a problem-solving model or a research model. I have written one for South Carolina that is directly aligned with Standard 6. This South Carolina model is called The Simple Four. Information about this new problem-solving model is available at the web site listed above. Just look for the link for the Simple Four on the right-hand side of the page.

Another new resource available for library media specialists this year is the SC School Library Core Resource Collection Lists. These core collection lists are divided by grade level (i.e., elementary, middle, and high) and by levels according to Achieving Exemplary School Libraries (i.e., emerging, proficient, and exemplary). These lists are not title-specific but address the curricular areas. Standards are also included for technology that should be available in and through the school library media center. These core collection standards are available on the web site listed above. They should be consulted as school libraries plan purchases using the funds available from the $1 million appropriated for school libraries by the SC General Assembly.

The District Library Supervisors Roundtable met today for the fall meeting for the 2007-2008 school year. Thirty supervisors/coordinators gathered at the SCASA Building in Columbia to engage in discussion, networking, and getting updates on some very important topics.

We heard about the new ADEPT GBE guidelines. I was very pleased to see the R & D section that asks a practicing educator (classroom-based teacher, library media specialist, school guidance counselor, speech-language therapist) to engage in action research or informed reflective practice. This concept is something that we’ve been recommending for school library media specialists to do for the past three years. Besides giving a media specialist data to help him or her make informed decisions about activities and instructional practices in the media center, this practice will provide some real world data about what’s happening in South Carolina school libraries that directly affects student learning and student achievement. This real world data when used in conjunction with the facts and figures data from the LMS Annual Survey should give all our stakeholders and decision-makers a good picture of what’s happening in our school libraries, why they are important, and what we need to do to provide even greater support for these major instructional areas in our schools.

I am excited at the prospect of action research in our school libraries. However, I am very realistic in thinking about the huge task we have to ensure that all continuing-contract library media specialists know and understand how to write realistic goals and engage in the reflective practice of action research. Sounds like topics for future staff development sessions in districts around the state as well as for conference presentations.

The group also heard about the 2007 ELA standards and the support documents that are being written for these new standards. Of the six standards, 3 of them directly relate to what library media specialists should be teaching in and through the library media center. Standards 1 and 2 spell out what students should be doing in reading for recreation (literary texts) and for information (informational texts). Standard 6 is the standard for research and communication. This standard could be used by library media specialists to open a dialogue not only with ELA teachers but other teachers to ensure that the information literacy (process) skills are integrated into the classroom curriculum.

One topic of concern for this group was how to get greater attendance at these meetings. Of the 86 school districts, I have a contact in only 60. Of these 60 districts only 30 were represented today. Hopefully as this Roundtable moves forward and makes connection with other such groups (e.g., Instructional Leaders, Superintendents) we will see greater emphasis on having a district library supervisor/coordinator.

The group also discussed the South Carolina Lexile Framework. One supervisor has created a beginning framework so we only need to supply him with additional titles to make this framework truly one for South Carolina. We want to make sure that we have South Carolina authors (children and adult authors) and South Carolina topics are represented on this framework. Once we have all the information Metametrics will format the framework for us.

A chairperson was selected and I’ll be working with her to set the agenda, lineup special speakers, arrange for lunch, etc., for future meetings. I get to be the library media specialist for this Roundtable. We decided that the winter meeting should be in January after the mid-winter break. In the time between formal meetings, members of this Roundtable will use the district library supervisors listserv for information sharing and receiving updates.