The athletic department and the school library at Mayde Creek High School in Texas have been collaborating to build literacy and leadership skills among the athletes on the varsity football team, and both the boys' and girls' varsity basketball teams through collaborative leadership book studies that are also sports-focused. Because of the success…

How can relationship building and demonstrating impact on learning be done? As professionals, school librarians must seek out opportunities to lead or work with others in the area of programming. Much can be done in the library space but when the programs occur outside the school library, a librarian's willingness to be adaptable is leveraged and…

Learning in makerspaces involves doing, playing, thinking, experimenting, creating, collaborating, mentoring, inquiring, problem-solving, producing, inventing, designing, building, and sharing (Loertscher, Preddy, and Derry 2013). Whatever the character of a makerspace, all makerspaces have the same goal: to actively engage students in open-ended…

The Colorado Study (Lance, Wellborn, and Hamilton-Pennell 1993) and its many replications in other states have demonstrated that when educators and learners had access to a qualified school librarian in the context of a thoughtfully built, adequately resourced, technology rich, and widely accessible school library, learners tended to flourish on…

Students look to their school library to find new books, seek information, creatively solve problems, and use technology. School libraries play an essential role in students' academic growth and development of lifelong learning skills. All of the wonderful resources and services that school libraries provide are easily accessible to the population…

The joint-use library is a place where people of all ages, interests, and income levels can find items of interest at no personal cost. The mission of A. H. Meadows Public and High School Library in Midlothian, Texas, is to offer what other public libraries provide: educational and entertainment resources to a community. Yet, the staff also wants…

This article describes how Nancy Jo Lambert, a school librarian, implemented a flexible library schedule at elementary schools in which she worked collaboratively with classroom teachers. After observing students removing bookmarks from the middle of their books in order to turn the books in by the due date or because their fixed library schedule…

Synergy may be defined as the collaboration between two or more parties to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate parts. That is exactly what happened in Denton, Texas, when all types of librarians collaborated on a community reading initiative. In 2007 Denton Reads--a One Book, One Community organization--was formed with…

Collaboration and coteaching with classroom teachers and campus specialists are the cornerstones of a successful school library program. Whereas collaboration is the process of planning a lesson or unit of instruction, coteaching suggests a much deeper level of collaboration--one in which both the teacher and campus specialist (be it school…

In the Northwest Independent School District (ISD) located in north Texas, collaboration is "not" optional; it is expected from all teachers. The driving force behind this effort is the district's vision: "the best and most sought-after school district where every student is future ready: Ready for college, Ready for the global…