It's often said a child's lifelong love of reading begins at home. But declining literacy rates among the nation's public elementary school students suggests this maxim needs revision. For reading to become an everyday habit, it needs to be nurtured in a home of its own. Fortunately, there is space available inside most elementary schools. At just 5 percent of a school's total real estate, the school library is the most powerful and efficient way to reach 100 percent of the student body. But far too many of the nation's public school libraries lack even the most basic resources to support learning and encourage achievement. The nonprofit L!brary Initiative, created by the Robin Hood Foundation, has been working since 2001 to enhance student literacy and overall academic achievement by collaborating with school districts to design, build, equip, and staff new elementary school libraries. The L!brary Book takes readers behind the scenes of fifty groundbreaking library projects to show how widely varied fields and communities—corporate underwriters, children's book publishers, architects, graphic designers, product manufacturers, library associations, teachers, and students—can join forces to make a difference in the lives of children. Based on the premise that good library design can actually inspire learning, the L!brary Initiative brings together some of the world's leading architects to reimagine the elementary school libraries in New York City—the nation's largest public school system. Working on a pro bono basis, architecture firms—including 1100 Architects, Weiss/Manfredi Architects, Della Valle Bernheimer, Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, and Dean/Wolf Architects—have in just eight years built or transformed more than fifty libraries into vital resources for the whole school community. These libraries—both beautiful learning spaces and innovative architecture—feature a wide range of design solutions, including creative uses of space, color, lighting, and furniture. Author and former L!brary Initiative director Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi documents every project with beautiful photos as well as renderings and measured drawings. The L!brary Book concludes with the chapter How to Make a Library which shows how community organizers and architects can pursue similar initiatives in their own communities.

Librarians can be effective catalysts and vital connectors who facilitate successful partnerships that enrich students' lives—"radical collaborations" that have deep and far-reaching impact. Envisioning schools as learning organizations requires collaborating with the greater communities as an integral part of the school's dynamic. How can librarians be key players in realizing this concept of schools? This book addresses this essential question, as well as how librarians can serve as catalysts in reaching beyond the traditional school to form alliances and partnerships with a range of community organizations and agencies, and how these collaborations result in transformative learning experiences not only for the students but for the adults who work together as well. The authors provide examples of schools where librarians, library directors, and educators are joining together in these types of unique partnerships. Chapters are authored by library professionals, who describe what stimulates and motivates these partnerships and how they are collaboratively developed and sustained. This publication will be a catalyst that will inspire readers to grow similar alliances in their own schools and districts among public libraries, colleges, arts foundations, nonprofit cultural organizations, and STEM-related agencies.

Presenting strategies for improving academic library services for first-generation students, this timely book focuses on programs and services that will increase student academic engagement and success. Demographic data and secondary school graduation rates suggest that colleges and universities will enroll growing numbers of first-generation students over the next decade. Academic Library Services for First-Generation Students focuses on ways academic libraries can uniquely contribute to the successful transition to college and year-to-year retention of first-generation students. The practical recommendations in this book include a wide range of ideas for the design and modification of library services and facilities to be more inclusive of the needs of first-generation students. All of the recommendations are specifically aimed at addressing challenges faced by first-generation students. Topics covered range from study spaces and service points to information literacy instruction and campus partnerships. The book makes the case—both explicitly and implicitly—that academic libraries can help address known risk factors (e.g., by helping students build academic cultural competencies) and thereby improve success, persistence, and retention for first-generation students. Academic library professionals in both leadership roles and public service positions will benefit from the actionable strategies presented here.

This textbook, for school library administration courses, is written by a professor who has taught this course at least once a year for the past twenty years. Technology is interwoven throughout the book and not listed as a separate chapter or book section. This is because the school librarian of today—and certainly the school librarian of tomorrow—is working in an environment of web resources, multimedia, mixed methods, and varying programs and services. Major chapters cover the various roles of the school librarian, curricular standards and guidelines, policies and procedures, budgeting, facilities, personnel, services, programming, ethics, advocacy, and evaluation. Sample policies, procedures, and plans make this book valuable to both new and experienced school librarians.

Discover how your library—and its patrons—can benefit from internal partnerships, collaborations, and interactions Libraries Within Their Institutions: Creative Collaborations examines the ways librarians work within their own universities, municipalities, or government units to form partnerships that ensure the best possible service to their patrons. An excellent companion and complement to Libraries Beyond Their Institutions: Partnerships That Work (Haworth) from the same editors, this unique professional resource looks at the associations between libraries and faculty members, city governments, information technology departments, and research institutes. The book provides first-hand perspectives, assessments, and case studies from information professionals at several major universities, including Kent State, the University of Washington, Virginia Tech, and Purdue University. Libraries Within Their Institutions: Creative Collaborations demonstrates the need for interaction and cooperation between libraries and non-library organizations—on campus and off. This unique book examines the elements of effective collaborations for libraries, including partnerships with campus teaching centers; helping faculty design their courses to enhance instruction; long-term perspectives in library-faculty cooperation; the creation of “collaboratories,” collaborative facilities based in libraries; and the development of campus-wide fluency in all areas of information technology and literacy. Libraries Within Their Institutions: Creative Collaborations provides practical information on: campus-wide committees that promote a general education information literacy requirement integrating ACRL core competencies for information literacy into course content using an Assessment Cycle to document the library’s contributions toward students’ success and institutional outcomes partnerships that have shaped the ARL Statistics and Measurement Program using information commons, and teaching and learning centers to develop collaborative services digital preservation of electronic theses and dissertations (ETD) team-taught courses in scientific writing joint-use libraries collaboration in collection management drawing teaching faculty into collaborative relationships collaborating with teaching faculty to help students learn lifelong research skills Libraries Within Their Institutions: Creative Collaborations is an invaluable resource for librarians working in academic, school, special, and public settings, and for library science faculty and students.

Features New York's most celebrated architects

In this practical guidebook, experienced librarians—a public librarian and a school librarian—share advice and ideas for extending resources, containing costs, and leveraging capabilities between school and public libraries, offering insights and strategies to overcome today's economic challenges. The current economic crisis has had a drastic impact on both public and school libraries. As budgets shrink, resources become scarcer, and the job of the librarian becomes harder. The conundrum of doing more with less challenges even the most seasoned professionals whose institutions face service cutbacks, disappointed patrons, and possible job eliminations or closures. This book asserts that a collaboration between school and public libraries can effectively serve the needs of two populations—teens and the community at large—while minimizing the cost to do so. Better Serving Teens through School Library–Public Library Collaborations offers thought-provoking advice and ideas for practical use in real-world libraries. The authors provide step-by-step guidance for those who wish to start, strengthen, or extend a partnership with colleagues at a sister library, covering topics ranging from teen advisory boards and collaborative programs to homework help and professional development. Veterans in the field, as well as beginners, can utilize the wealth of tools within—including worksheets, timelines, and checklists—to leverage the capabilities of other agencies tp fortify both their own and their institutions' value.