Walking the Talk: Leadership Lessons as a Lilead Fellow

by Carolyn Foote, District Librarian at Eanes ISD and High School librarian at Westlake High School. She is a member of the current cohort of the Lilead Fellows, and an advocate for student voice, leading with technology, and flexible learning spaces. Her blogs can be found at futura.edublogs.org and thewhslibrary.edublogs.org.

What does leadership mean? For me, it means being willing to grow and learn new things and to leverage the experience I have. Part of being a leader is also recognizing when you need to tend to your own garden as well as supporting the growth of others. 



When I found the Lilead Fellows program, I was seeking something. After years of leading in a small district, I was both looking for growth for myself, and for fellowship of other leaders. Beyond that, I wanted to add more structure and background knowledge to my ad hoc leadership skills learned “on the job” and from local mentors. 


The Lilead Fellows (and other programs like it, like Texas’ wonderful Tall Texan program and the new TLA Executive Leadership Immersion Program) allows me to connected with other district lead librarians across the country and with mentors who were there to support my job embedded projects. And it was also an opportunity to formalize some of my knowledge about leading and put some language to some of it, to learn new strategies, and ultimately o become braver as a leader.

Doing a program like Lilead is different than attending conferences — it’s more akin to going back to school, but going with a team of colleagues through the entire program. And any program which lets you step back mid career or later in your career and lets you assess and learn new skills is a worthwhile endeavor. Participating in Lilead was meant as a rare gift to myself as a learner, I have to admit. So, whether or not this particular path interests you—find one that does—find a support group—an institute, a workshop—something that can help you reach new levels of your abilities and offers you support.

We’ve had some valuable experiences this year in the program. One of the most helpful things for me has been reading the book Strengths Finder (Rath, Gallup Press, 2007)  and assessing my own strengths. Strengths Finder was such a positive experience and doing it with other library leaders nationwide allowed us all to see the diversity of talents that different individuals bring to their library programs. How much better is it to build a learning network around you that complements your own strengths!. It’s also a great tool to bring to your own library team in your district or to do across teams that work together like librarians and instructional technology.

Another book that was impactful was Simon Sinek’s Start With Why (Portfolio/Penguin, 2013). We’ve spent a lot of time in Lilead Fellows talking about our “why” and honing our ability to state our why. Why are we librarians at all? What is the “why” behind our projects in our districts? Being able to articulate that is an effective part of being a campus leader. I should add that the benefits haven’t just from reading the book—the benefits are from spending time reflecting on your goals in an intentional way. Find a small book group, if you aren’t part of any other group, to read the book with and then share your “why” with as a way to hold yourself accountable to taking that reflective step.

As part of Lilead, we have also generated lists of our most important priorities so we could gauge if that’s where we were spending our time, have learned about things that hinder or help a change effort, have learned about how to design our messages effectively, and discussed how to communicate with our administrators more effectively.

The last book that has been very influential for me is one I discovered via an article we read. It’s John Kotter’s Leading Change (Harvard Business School Press, 2012). Kotter has written a lot about what prevents change from being successful and how to navigate a change effort that works. It’s been hugely helpful for me. There are things that trip up many librarians when trying to change things in a new school or to try something new, and his articles and books were really helpful guides in how to avoid those pitfalls.

While I’m thrilled that Texas has three members in the Lilead Fellows, there are many other leadership opportunities too. Whether you are a district leader or a librarian at an individual campus, take the time to grow your own leadership skills. Every moment we spend showing our staff that we are willing to step up as educational leaders, not just library leaders, are moments that we demonstrate the power of a librarian to our administrators.

Kotter, John P. Leading Change. Harvard Business School Press, 2012.

Rath, Tom. Strengthsfinder 2.0. Gallup Press, 2007.

Sinek, Simon. Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action. Portfolio/Penguin, 2013.







Libraries Transform - Especially when Speaking with One Voice

by Dorcas Hand, School Library Advocate, www.studentsneedlibrariesinHISD.org, ALA Councilor-at-Large, and TASLTalks Editor


(All images used with the permission of the ALA Office for Library Advocacy)

At ALA MidWinter 2018, I attended two preconferences and another hour session about the Libraries Transform advocacy platform – and I need to share my enthusiasm with Texas.


Libraries Transform offers us a chance to offer a single set of messages that support all libraries, with specific details about our individual situations. The LibrariesTransform Two Year Report offers a few case studies from different places and types of libraries – more stories appear on the website. Once you are trained in using the resources, you’ll have some other specific examples. And there is no charge for these tools. To anyone.

And the collected Because statements are really clever as posters or bookmarks or digital badges – like Let Students Discover Their Passions as they think, create, share and grow.
This also refers to the new AASL National School Library Standards.
Or this reference to how school libraries work with public libraries to keep our students moving forward - not to mention some districts that send bookmobiles around in the summer.

The Friday Bootcamps were inspirational – and I am now an official trainer, able to spread this word to any of you who would like to learn. Bootcamp is a 2-3 hour session about taking your message to your community easily, with stories to illustrate your points. Maybe you have stories, but the Office of Library Advocacy has compiled some you might use/adapt as well. More stories are here, too.

There are four key messages that work for all libraries.

 So, Libraries Transform Lives might refer to that student you have worked to connect to the perfect book and now is an avid reader. That translates to improved literacy scores.

Libraries Transform Communities might refer to the district bookmobile that shows up through the summer in areas where there are no libraries, working against summer slide and again supporting stronger literacy skills and scores.

Librarians are passionate supporters of lifelong learning could focus on the materials available to support the personal enthusiasms of students and even staff, the ones that inspire them to learn on their own. Students who learn to do that are better prepared for life and citizenship.

Libraries are a smart Investment. Yes, we are the only teacher in the school who is trained to work with every student and every teacher, providing both literacy skill support and broader academic resources.

But those examples are intentionally vague – because YOU, the boots on the ground, have the specifics that will gain best traction in your community. PLEASE take advantage of this resource.

I understand that ALA feels a long way off for many Texas school librarians, but programs like this are available regardless of membership. Libraries Transform also demonstrates the breadth of work ALA accomplishes in behalf of all kinds of libraries across the US. I saw many TASL leaders here in Denver, also learning about better ways to help TASL membership progress.

I went. I learned. I'm ready to help you use this advocacy resource. I even have the tshirt. You can too! Access does mean opportunity - to students who need libraries, and to librarians who need advocacy resources.





A Spectrum to Explain Staffing Choices for School Libraries

By Dorcas Hand, School Library Advocate; Co-Chair Students Need Libraries in HISD; Editor, TASLTalks blog


http://txasla.org/

Three years ago, Terry Roper of Region 10 presented to the annual TASLA (TX Association of School Library Administrators) the idea of a Hiring Toolkit designed by us to offer school administrators in Texas guidance as they hire librarians. We at the meeting loved the idea – and the School Administrator Toolkit: A Guide to Hiring School Librarians was born. A year or so later at TLA annual conference, Terry offered a session to publicize the website; the presentation included brainstorming about what might be added to make it better. One idea that has sat in my brain ever since was an illustrated spectrum of the skills that librarians offer that others cannot. This idea is easier described than accomplished, as is demonstrated by the years of simmering in the back of my mind it took to get started. And then the need for other eyes and ideas to strengthen it. Thank you to Brooke King for stepping up last summer to flesh out the list of skills and sort them into Areas of Expertise, and then to offer further edits as we worked along to now. Thank you to Debbie Hall and Suzanne Lyons for insights as I’ve massaged and massaged over the fall. And to Donna Kearley who had barely come up for air from the state Standards writing effort before I asked for her thoughts – which brought me some great improvements in language. We struggled with whether green should be on the left as the starting point – or the right as the ending point. And what to do about the places where a non-librarian might be able to do the job. Today, I am pleased to offer to everyone the results of these labors.

First, there are two formats: the full-page form looks better on screen where the live links can jump a reader to the right section. The booklet is better in print, half-page size ready for a building principal to thumb through. These are posted in PDF for public access together in a Google folder. Listing the many skills of school librarians is not easy! This effort may well take other forms in the future – Mary Woodard suggested a Venn diagram, so we’ll see how that might work as further support for our case. And I plan to do a crosswalk to the new TX Standards for School Libraries as well as the 2017 AASL National Standards for School Libraries. But first, just this basic document. If you have further suggestions of how to improve the work toward a second edition, please be in touch.

Meanwhile, everyone should make heavy use of this project with your own principal, your district leadership, and anyone else who is interested.