Confident but Lacking Support: School Librarians and Students with Autism

School librarians work with students across their organizations, including those with disabilities such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, little is known about how prepared school librarians are to serve these students. Using a mixed-methods survey, this study sought to explore training school librarians have taken about ASD and students with disabilities, as well as the effects of training on librarian confidence and library services. Based on results, librarians who received training through their school district or professional development outside of coursework reported being more confident in supporting students with ASD in the school library.

Coding in School Libraries: Considering an Ethical Approach

This overview demonstrates the need for school librarians to consider supplementing coding instruction with ethical discussions. School librarians are increasingly incorporating coding into library instruction through play, tutorials, collaboration in content areas, and design thinking projects. To enhance students’ ethical decision making and empathy for others, school librarians can also incorporate ethical decision-making into coding activities. In this article, the authors explain why this is important, and present an ethical discussion model. These strategies may help school librarians work towards teaching social justice issues as part of coding programming.

Students Lead the Charge! Using Project-Based Learning with Pre-service Teachers to Redesign a Curriculum Resource Center

Project-based learning (PBL) allows students to identify and find solutions to real-world problems using inquiry-based learning. With the exception of Correll and Bornstein (2018), very little has been written about using PBL to redesign college and university Curriculum Resource Centers. The authors of this article used PBL in conjunction with the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Guidelines for Curriculum Materials Centers (CMCs) and the three themes for PBL success in higher education identified by Lee et al. (2014) to work with a small class of upper-level elementary education pre-service teachers to redesign an academic library Curriculum Resource Center.

Outreach services for teens: A starter guide

Book Review

An Embedded Librarian’s Experience Piloting a Subject-Specific OER Initiative

This case study will describe the labor and collaborative efforts to-date made by an embedded librarian to pilot an OER textbook creation and/or adoption program in her liaison area—a school of education serving approximately 850 graduate and 150 undergraduates at a private Catholic university on the West Coast. This case study will explore the initial project goals, successes (e.g., administrative support and graduate student enthusiasm), and challenges (e.g., faculty buy-in, unbalanced labor, OER creation support) encountered in this project. The study will also discuss the librarian’s professional development undertakings in effort to fill OER creation and platform knowledge gaps. Finally, the study will discuss the librarian’s next steps for this project in the upcoming academic year.

Enhancing teaching and learning: a leadership guide for school librarians, fourth edition

Book Review

‘Whose Line Is It Anyway?’ Using Improvisation to Hone Library Employees’ Customer Service Skills

Improvisation is an effective tool for developing actors’ skills. It is also a powerful tool for enhancing customer service skills in the contemporary academic, public, or special library environment. Interactions between library users and librarians / library staff can often be complicated and require excellent listening and communication skills. This article explores how improvisation training can help reinforce customer service skills while also enhancing team building, team cohesion, and interpersonal engagement skills for these library employees. Such exercises are not only enjoyable and entertaining for library employees, they also help develop essential skills which enhance their customer service interactions.

Teaching media literacy

Book Review

An introduction to collection development for school librarians

Book review