A7 - Final Project Paper

 When I joined Franklin High School last October, the library was a mess, both literally and figuratively. The stacks were organized in an un-intuitive manner, circulation statistics were abysmal, and student awareness of the library as a place of learning was severely lacking. Students (and a lot of staff) honestly saw the library mostly as a place to hang out before and after school and a place for senior lunches. The space was fairly cold and unfriendly, and definitely suffered from an obvious lack of a librarian. 

In my first year, the library’s circulation nearly tripled, I reorganized the entire library and created a much more flexible, welcoming space. The impacts were quickly felt. Not only did circulation surge, but student engagement with the library increased notably. I received many, many compliments from students and staff about how different the library felt, and that it was a “Real library” now, instead of a giant space with lots of books. That being said, there’s massive room for improvement, which is the driver for this project.

I believe learning takes place when students feel safe and engaged. I think I did a good job with the former this year, but I’m hoping to drive significantly more student engagement this year through a multi-pronged approach. While I have the skills to be a techno-constructivist, I’m somewhere between that and a traditionalist, in that I think that we too often implement technology for the sake of the technology and don’t give enough thought to how that tech will help students learn and whether the tech is the best method of teaching/engaging the kids.

For my project, I will implement student book reviews using Follett Destiny Discover, which is the software we use to manage our library catalog. This is a system that I’ve never used, so there will be definite growth in my tech skills. 

This is important because giving students and staff access to create reviews serves multiple goals. It gives agency to students, allowing them to feel engaged and listened to. Their opinions will matter! In addition, students will be able to see what classmates and teachers think about the book as they’re looking for their next read. Doing so will empower them to make more informed decisions on their reading, which hopefully will create a more rich reading experience and encourage them to read even more!

I spent a good deal of time looking up options for this project. Several (such as WikiSpaces) seemed really promising, but are no longer functional. Others looked great, but cost money (LibGuides). There were a few promising free options, but I’m not willing to spend a ton of time and effort to build student reviews on a site that might become vaporware at some point. I did put out an inquiry to Follett’s other library management system (AccessIt), which supposedly has a much more flexible user interface, but haven’t heard back yet.

Destiny’s interface isn’t great, but it IS available and is a system we already pay for and use. The district has a budget problem, so paid solutions are simply not realistic. As mentioned before, I’m wary of long-term viability of free tools, so I’ll work with what I have.

Getting buy in will probably be an issue, especially at first. As mentioned before, the software isn’t super intuitive, and there obviously won’t be any reviews early on. There are a ton of ways to encourage the adoption of this system. I’ll create a tutorial and QR codes (perhaps using QRCode Monkey) for that tutorial and the student reviews and will pepper the library with the codes. I’ll use our smart board to put details and the QR codes up for regular viewing and might consider creating some neat, but basic, bookmarks with details and the codes, then I’ll put that bookmark in every book that’s borrowed. 

I’ll probably run some tutorials on how to use the system. My school will be implementing “Win Block” daily, where we have a flexible period of (I believe) 30 minutes every day wherein students can go see teachers for extra help or, conceivably, go to the library for mini-sessions on various topics. I’m already thinking about using this block EXTENSIVELY to make interesting sessions about various topics, including library content but also other topics or events (board game days, Jackbox game events, LGBTQ awareness, etc). 

If I can leverage the win blocks successfully, I think I’ll be able to drive a TON of engagement with the library. In this case, I can use the blocks to teach kids about the system, and perhaps drive a small book club to encourage reading.