Collaborating with other staff and sections to deliver a children's session

PD Activity

Write an article

Topic

Collaboration

Detailed description of activity undertaken

I wrote an article about my experience working in collaboration with my colleagues to deliver several children’s programs in an academic library. Originally my intention was to submit my article to ALIA’s newsletter, InCite. However, I discovered my colleague had written an article about the same topic and had already submitted to InCite. Luckily I was able to post it to my library’s blog instead. The classes I conducted were for Year 9 and Year 11 students from a variety of schools local to the Wagga Wagga region. The themes of the classes were Digital Citizenship and Effective Internet Research.

What did you learn?

I learnt about the importance of collaboration when providing children’s services. I had never run a library program for children, though I have had previous experience teaching children when I was studying teaching and through previous employment teaching chess to three to five year olds during school holidays. Lucas (2013) stresses the importance of collaboration with outside stakeholders when conducting children’s services, but acknowledges the capacity of academic librarians to support such services is limited. I liaised with the University’s Future Moves section and secured a 30 minute session. Children’s sessions are not a priority in an academic library but I knew it was important to do the session properly and make it worthwhile. I solved this issue through collaboration with my colleagues from another campus who kindly allowed me to use their lesson plans.

How was the activity relevant to your professional practice as a librarian for children or young adults?

This activity was relevant because it provided me a platform from which to collaborate with my colleagues and another section of the University to provide a valuable information literacy session to local school children. Smith (2014) notes that young adults from regional areas are less likely to go to university, have higher rates of attrition and are more likely to take longer to graduate (p.161). Future Moves is designed to encourage regional students to attend the University by building a rapport with them from primary to high school. It is in the Library’s best interests to collaborate with Future Moves, both to encourage local enrolments and because of the nature of librarianship; a professional librarian is whatever his or her patrons require, in this case an academic librarian became a children’s librarian.

Were any gaps in your knowledge revealed? How might you fill those gaps?

The short timeframe and my lack of experience in creating a children’s program caused me to reach out to my colleagues. Reading and using their programs, which included some redevelopment with their approval, helped me to better understand the lesson planning process. I read relevant syllabi from the NSW Board of Studies Curriculum, revisited the stages of childhood development, and browsed information literacy guidelines to ensure I was providing an age-appropriate session to the children.

References

Lucas, F. (2013). Many spokes, same hub: facilitating collaboration among library and early-childhood services to improve outcomes for children. Australian Library Journal, 62(3), 196-203. doi: 10.1080/00049670.2013.848008

Smith, D. (2014). Collaboration between rural school and public youth services librarians. New Library World, 115(3/4), 160-174. doi: 10.1108/NLW-01-2014-0014