Two weeks before the lockdown was put in place I started a new position as a library manager (safe to say it's been a very strange start to a job). I manage a library in a secondary school with a sixth form an a small junior school (40 pupils) attached. It's my first time working in a school library and I would be enormously grateful for any advice from other library managers about what's helped them to succeed in their role, or things that they wish someone had told them when they started the job.
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Over the next few weeks and months of uncertainty, the Great School Libraries campaign group wanted to do something useful. With schools closing and many now find themselves at home supporting their children's learning. We wanted to offer a place to ask a question if you are a parent looking for resources, a school librarian trying to support your local school community or a teacher we want to be here for you.
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Our team are happy to share their expertise and will try to answer as many questions as we can to help point you in the right direction. If you post a question below we will answer as soon as we can. Please create a title that will help others understand the information you need. Thank you
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For now I would say keep supporting what the school are doing remotely as nobody knows what the situation will be like in the new school year or even when students will go back full-time. You can use this time to increase your book knowledge, read around school libraries and best practice, jot down some thoughts and ideas you find that you might like to instigate, investigate your existing stock and note down any gaps, create promotional material to use when you get back for reading initiatives, etc. Once you're back in the library I would suggest focusing on making the library available to students and seeing how things were done before you were appointed. The temptation will be to make changes but it's worth seeing what already works before you do, that way you can also assess what isn't working or what needs improvement and possibly what you can do about it. But I would also say start as you mean to go on … students (like most children) try and push the rules. I've always found with any new job that I have to be quite strict to begin with, then once students know what the rules are and that I won't tolerate any silliness, bad behaviour, etc. I am able to relax them and be more flexible. However, what I would say here is that there will be an increase in mental health issues and poor wellbeing among many students after lockdown so the library is likely to play a much larger pastoral role to begin with - make sure you talk to the pastoral team about how you can support this, including providing appropriate resources. Once you decide you want to put projects and initiatives in place, you'll need to prioritise - you won't be able to do everything at once and the likelihood is that you'll bounce from one job to another with nothing really being completed. Talk over your ideas with your line manager to get their support, look at the school development plan and think about how you can support the school's aims and targets - you'll get more support if you can show you are supporting these and making an impact. I would also say don't just focus on library management tasks. These are important but often invisible - it's the activities such as displays, library lessons, collaboration with teaching staff, book groups, assembly talks, competitions, etc. that are seen.
Join School Librarian Network (SLN) on groups.io https://groups.io/g/SLN/topics hope that link is right I am on my phone. Go to Head of Department meeting and introduce yourself
You are likely to be using similar ICT to teachers so learn how to use them plus learn school sanction policy. See how the library is used by students (difficult right now) before making drastic changes and see what they also want. Make sure you know all online sources school has and have trainI got on your Library Managember System. The SLA has a mentor scheme - use it - it will give you a point of contact.
Also see if there is an area librarians meeting - go and learn lots from them too
if you get stuck just ask us!
Wow, that is a tough way to start! Hopefully, you will get lots of responses but I thought I would point you in the direction of three services who are there to help you.
CILIP School Library Group and their resources can be found here
SLA School Library Association who can be found here
SLSUK Schools Library Service who can be found here
My one piece of advice would be to make sure you integrate yourself with the teaching staff from the start. Find out who is responsible for teaching and learning in your school and make sure they have a clear link to the library via the curriculum.