Toolkit

• Make presentations to businesses and service groups about the changing
role of today’s school libraries.
• Ask a service group to adopt your library as a fundraising project or to
provide volunteer assistance.
• Ask local businesses for sponsorships to replace lost books or expand
existing resources. Call it the YES Read Fund (Yes Everyone Should
Read Fund). Spanish speaking schools could call it the LEER fund (Let
Everyone Experience Reading). “Leer” is the Spanish verb “to read.” Be
sure to promote the businesses that contribute to the fund.
• Collaborate with the children’s or young adult public librarian to develop
summer reading and other programs.
• Partner with your public library to get public library cards in the hands of
100 percent of your students. In the spring invite the public librarian to
speak with students about summer programs available at the public library
and help students sign up online for a public library card.
Advocacy Planning
Others can’t advocate for the school library program if they don’t know about what
you do! You will need to educate and inform your stakeholders about what you do
every day to impact student achievement. Advocacy begins with reaching out to
understand constituent needs and form partnerships, but an advocacy plan goes far
beyond building relationships.
Five Step Planning Model
Outlined as an Action Plan in AASL’s A Planning Guide for Empowering Learners,
Audrey Church, a professor of library science at Longwood University in Virginia
(and 2015–2016 AASL President-Elect), applied a five-step planning model to two
goals: (1) encourage greater use of databases; and (2) inform K–12 educators of
the importance of strong school library programs and the contributions of school
librarians. To see Audrey’s example Action Plans, click here.
AASL’s Five Step Planning Model begins with a goal.
Once the goal is identified the five steps are:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Determine your objectives.
Determine your target groups.
Determine your strategies.
Determine your communication tools.
Evaluate.
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