Successes & Other Ideas Worth Sharing by CHRISTY JAMES

RHS

2025-10-14 15:20:03 UTC

Email & shared Google Drive

monthly virtual PLCs

christy_james — 2025-10-14 15:22:03 UTC

weekly emails

christy_james — 2025-10-14 15:22:29 UTC

FMS

2025-10-14 15:22:50 UTC

Quarterly meetings at the District level; Secondary and Elementary leadership to help with on-boarding; Google resource list

RHS

2025-10-14 15:23:13 UTC

monthly in-person PLC meetings - I share updates as the lead librarian for secondary schools and this year our focus is on sharing strengths & topics with each other in mini presentations during our collaborative time

FMS

2025-10-14 15:23:41 UTC

District Quarterly meetings; Google resource list

Room 3

2025-10-14 15:24:01 UTC

consensus from group is email & shared documents ... 2 larger districts have monthly meetings

LibraryGoddess_SC — 2025-10-14 15:24:14 UTC

Email; monthly meetings; phone calls; messages in group chat.

scedtech — 2025-10-14 15:25:47 UTC

Monthly Meetings, Weekly Emails, Text Chats for Quick/Urgent Messages

LibraryGoddess_SC — 2025-10-14 15:27:00 UTC

On site visits; different curriculum area department heads attend

2025-10-14 15:27:32 UTC

Have district librarian collaboration days two times a year. All librarians have a full day to collaborate. Often bring in Follett for a 2 hour virtual PD, plan lessons, prepare for battle of the books, discuss legislation and so on...

carpool

2025-10-14 15:27:42 UTC

conversations while carpooling to professional development (shared from Room 3)

christy_james — 2025-10-14 15:27:50 UTC

Thursday Things- short 5 minute or less videos where a librarian shares something they do/product they use/ procedure the incorporate. All the videos are in one Slides presentation by date and by topic. They can nominate themselves or others to share

scedtech — 2025-10-14 15:27:57 UTC

Facebook, email texts are big communal exchanges when not in person.

Starbucks!

scedtech — 2025-10-14 15:30:41 UTC

Sometimes folks will meet up at our local Starbucks to work or gather together to work on projects.

2025-10-14 15:31:28 UTC

The consensus is that email is the primary mode of communication with a few scheduled meetings. One group meets for dinner where others meet for full day collaboration a couple of times a year.

Awareness

2025-10-14 15:32:10 UTC

Our group discussed how important it is to make sure teachers and principals know all the skills, resources, and opportunities librarians can offer both in classrooms and to provide insight on policy and practice.

Shared PD Resources

scedtech — 2025-10-14 15:34:12 UTC

Our librarians worked to create a joint PD document that we all use and refer to when doing school and district PD -- it's been a great way to share our library resources physically and digitally and helps lighten the work for everyone when sharing resources with teachers and staff.

2025-12-10 18:26:13 UTC

Georgetown - Worked with Follett for collection and curriculum mapping to prove they desperately needed funds. Received 1/2 million.

2025-12-10 18:28:07 UTC

Lex/Ric 5 - Worked with Follett to get extra funds as well. Was successful.

2025-12-10 18:29:27 UTC

Sumter - Asked our district office for funds for our annual Reading Rumble and they purchased 10 copies of each book (10 book) for all the elementary schools involved.

2025-12-10 18:32:17 UTC

Florence Dist 3 - Held a Bring-it-Back-a-thon to get lost books. Crates of books were returned. Some schools had over 200 books returned. No late fees for returning books.

2025-12-10 18:32:43 UTC

Flo 3 - Librarians no longer used for coverage.

2025-12-10 18:34:03 UTC

Richland Two used the data from the survey dashboard to create an infographic to compare our district funding with neighboring districts which was presented at a school board budget hearing. We only receive a district allocation every few years with principal discretion funding during other years which has led to great inquity of funding. Every school in Richland Two received approximately $14 per student in a special allocation for this year because of our school board presentation. We are gathering data this year to show how the allocation helped us improve our library collections using the state library standards.

2025-12-10 18:34:59 UTC

McCormick - I submit a yearly funding request that breaks down how much I need for each account (travel, books, supplies, misc)

2025-12-10 18:36:11 UTC

Georgetown Worked with Follett to show needs - came up with formula and was able to get funds for purchases. Follett even came to help shelve them.

2025-12-10 18:37:17 UTC

Two district's schools are fully staffed with certified librarians.

Breakout Room 1

2025-12-10 18:37:44 UTC

Very powerful to SHOW how librarians and assistants make an impact and can be collaborative partners / instructional leaders - joint presentations by librarians with teachers, videos that show what librarians do, etc.

Protocol for book challenges at Florence II

2025-12-10 18:38:01 UTC

Breakout 5

2025-12-10 18:38:17 UTC

York 4- Library Leads added for Secondary and Elementary Schools to serve as liaisons between librarians and District Office.

Calendar & documentation

2025-12-10 18:39:07 UTC

Share your calendar with admin as well as your daily/weekly task list with admin so they can see what you are actually doing on a day-to-day basis.

RHS

2025-12-10 18:39:50 UTC

sharing budget data from neighboring districts was instrumental in getting ESSER funding

school library survey data will be shared with new superintendent to advocate for more equitable funding

2025-12-10 18:40:59 UTC

Our library supervisor arranged for all of the librarians in our district to visit all of the other libraries to see what they have and to get ideas of things to ask our principal for. We filled out a template of things we all liked and would like to have and she was going to share it with all of our admin.

Google Sites

2025-12-10 18:41:48 UTC

I created it as a Google Site several years ago with a landing page for district-wide information & separate pages for each library. I try to update mine (high school) yearly, but the elem/middle one is still a work in progress.

https://sites.google.com/mccormick.k12.sc.us/mcsdlibrarypoliciesprocedures/home

2025-12-10 18:42:25 UTC

Materials Selection Policy

christy_james — 2025-12-10 18:43:58 UTC

circulation procedures and recommendations

2025-12-10 18:44:24 UTC

We were careful on the wording to not box ourselves in, for example regarding Circulation Policies we put "may be checked out" instead of "must"

2025-12-10 18:44:28 UTC

Library Bill of Rights, Statement of Purpose

2025-12-10 18:44:58 UTC

Directory of media specialists and assistants with contact info by school.

District monthly meetings dates and links to agendas

Also, help documents for various applications, subscriptions etc provided by the district (Examples: Destiny beginning year and end of year procedures, Beanstack, NoodleTools, etc)

Connections to Standards

2025-12-10 18:45:04 UTC

SC Distinguished Standards for School Library Programs & Collections
SC ADEPT guidelines for school librarians
AASL National Library Standards

Plus, ALA best practices!

School Library Manual

2025-12-10 18:45:13 UTC

This is a manual I created for Columbia High in 2021

christy_james — 2025-12-10 18:45:17 UTC

relevant Board policies as well as process docs

christy_james — 2025-12-10 18:45:57 UTC

materials selection, procurement procedures

2025-12-10 18:46:48 UTC

Position Statements and Job Descriptions

School Library Manual Example

2025-12-10 18:48:25 UTC

Middle school example

Rock Hill Schools

2025-12-10 18:49:13 UTC

This is one we were working on when I was in Rock Hill. I'm not there anymore. Amy McMichael might have a more updated example.

Tenley

RHS

2025-12-10 18:49:24 UTC

Ours needs updated, but one thing included that I have not seen anyone else mention yet is end-of-year checklists for librarians. It is especially helpful for new librarians.

christy_james — 2026-04-21 13:09:22 UTC

EOY Inventy, Fees and Survey Information

2026-04-21 15:31:00 UTC

Technology EOY

2026-04-21 17:21:24 UTC

Unfortunately, Media Specialists in our district are responsible for 1 to 1 technology. Here is everything we did last year for End of Year collection of chromebooks and chargers.

End of Year Tasks

2026-04-21 17:26:41 UTC

Inventory to ensure student accounts are accurate

Notify book keeper of returned books

Order supplies for next year

State Survey

elizabeth_bryant1 — 2026-04-21 17:37:43 UTC

elizabeth_bryant1 — 2026-04-21 17:37:58 UTC

No tech at HS level- gift!

christy_james — 2026-04-21 17:38:06 UTC

Checklists for consistency

christy_james — 2026-04-21 17:38:40 UTC

elizabeth_bryant1 — 2026-04-21 17:38:40 UTC

Communicate and collaborate with district IT to find what is feasible and what to prioritize with end of year tasks

christy_james — 2026-04-21 17:39:58 UTC

2026-04-21 17:40:02 UTC

2026-04-21 17:40:03 UTC

This year at our last district librarian meeting we are going to walk through/ workshop answering the End of Year Survey together

christy_james — 2026-04-21 17:42:15 UTC

Adding SC Lead deadlines to checklists so everyone is aware- new, GBE, etc-- reminders to sign and verify

Celebrate Together!

scedtech — 2026-04-21 17:42:47 UTC

Gather with your librarians and library assistants off campus and just enjoy time together! We just meet at an outdoor restaurant after school on the next to last day. We also celebrate our retirees at this time.

christy_james — 2026-04-21 17:44:46 UTC

Meet in the library to help make the level of activity (and interruptions) real to admin

christy_james — 2026-04-21 17:46:56 UTC

provide assistance with library inventory if possible, especially for librarians on the schedule

christy_james — 2026-04-21 17:47:32 UTC

incentivize book return

Working Template

christy_james — 2026-04-21 18:07:02 UTC

Valerie & Christy presented this at SCASL 26