School Library Musings: Geeking Out at Library Conferences

Attending conferences can be one of the best ways to get energized and refocused. When folks who work in the same field—or have an interest in it—get together to share ideas, compare experiences, and plan together, they will often become friends. And after communicating via email, participating in social media, working together online, or otherwise only meeting up virtually, a few days of in-person gathering is a true delight.

Four recent days in St. Louis at the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) annual fall conference brought friends together and highlighted the best parts of being a school librarian—along with the concerns and conundrums faced every day in today’s chaotic environment.

What might parents and community members like to know about that is happening in school libraries across the country? Here are three of the top topics I ran across during my conference travels.

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1. AI

How do we deal with AI as more and more young people face the challenge of discerning the difference between fake or misleading information and facts? These are the same issues being faced in industry, government, and the home.

Right off the bat, schools that have a credentialed teacher-librarian on staff have a huge advantage. Through regularly scheduled school library classes, students learn how to identify where information comes from, how to determine its authority and reliability, and how to find sources that they can use to verify that authority and reliability.

Another advantage (and true joy) found in the school librarian and their library? It is a wonderful place to gain practice, with guidance from the classroom teacher alongside their coteacher, the librarian.

The large number of sessions devoted to AI at the AASL conference allowed for rich discussion and enabled participants to dig deeply into areas they needed to take back to their schools and other educational venues.

Librarians are already the experts on campus in research, searching, and information, and this new generation of information venues adds a new dimension that requires knowledge and practice.

Asking classroom teachers to become experts while keeping up with their own content can be overwhelming. Supporting instead, as a coteacher, a librarian who has attended conferences, taken coursework, and networked with other information professionals brings together the needed content and skill for student learning.

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2. Loss of Credentialed Librarians (and the Need for the Library TEAM) 

Research has shown for many years, across a multitude of state studies, that the presence of a school library team (a teacher-librarian supported by clerical staff) raises test scores.

This may sound unlikely to those outside the library world, but if you were to look more closely at the three topics in this post alone, you’ll see how efficient, cost-effective, and easy it would be to have that team in every school.

You’d have a knowledgeable teacher on site to work with every teacher colleague, designing classroom instruction and the practice to accompany it, while supporting their teaching content every day.

As an active participant in faculty meetings, the teacher-librarian can help create lessons, provide study materials, and give the instructional support that allows teachers to focus on content—with the librarian boosting the information literacy skills students need to deeply understand that content.

You’d have a library administrator overseeing the millions of dollars that make up a collection, including books, devices, databases, and more. And that’s just three of the many hats the librarian wears.

Don’t forget literacy. We learn how to read by reading. Access to materials for recreational reading (and the library programming to support that) brings joy to students —which in turn brings literacy growth.

You’d also have books getting checked in and out—the library clerical staff makes that magic happen. The team. It’s crucial.

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3. School Librarians as Builders

School librarians fill their collections with stories that help kids see themselves, learn about others, and imagine new possibilities — whether in locations real or imagined. At the same time, they are building bridges between readers and information, between ignorance and literacy.

The collections they build give students what they need to grow as readers, as thinkers, and as participants in society. At the conference, these discussions came up regularly : how to make sure every student sees themselves somewhere in the library, and how to keep them reading, exploring, and questioning. 

One key aspect highlighted was that building a collection, in school librarian service, protects families’ rights to make choices about what their child is reading. This means that families can determine the appropriate book for their own child, while allowing other parents in their community the same right to choose for theirs.

Sadly, we’re seeing more and more librarians face challenges or harassment for the titles on their shelves. These actions don’t just affect individuals — they limit access for all students. No matter where anyone stands on what kids “should” read, one truth remains: Librarians are here to support parents’ right to guide their own children’s reading, while also standing up for every student’s right to read freely.

There were so many stories circulating at the conference. Yes, the negative came out, but so did the positive—the ongoing support from parents, community members, administrators, and students who rallied in their schools and communities to uphold that right to read.

There is nothing better than a conference of librarians talking about books. Wander the convention center hallways and you’ll see groups hovering over the newest titles, excited to get them signed by authors also attending the conference.

Attendees talk, laugh, debate, engage with authors, publishers, vendors, and each other—celebrating reading while attending the sessions, visiting the exhibit hall, and especially sharing meals. It’s a delight. It’s educational. It’s nourishing. And it’s important to take that break.

Most important, however, is returning to the school site—walking back into the library, engaged and excited to implement new ideas and share new discoveries with site administration, colleagues, parents, and most of all, with students. We highly recommend it!

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