Caring and Compassion in the Library

I've been reading and thinking a lot lately about the importance of libraries as a safe place of caring and compassion. According to Gayle Bogel, care of the whole person - mind, body, and spirit - should be part of a librarian's goal to empower and educate their students (48). If students enjoy coming to the library and feel safe there, they will be more likely to seek us out for all of their information needs, even needs that are not directly school-related.

Photo: Denisa Kadlecova on Flickr

Recently, I had the sad experience of helping some of my students deal with the tragic suicide of a fellow student. Initially, when my principal asked me to turn the library into a counseling center for the day, I was worried. I have no counseling background - what if I said the wrong thing? What if I made things worse? But as the day wore on and I patted the backs of more and more sobbing students, I realized that I wasn't the wrong person for the job. Becaue I teach classes across all grades and subject areas, I know more of our students than many of the teachers do. Because I interact with them on a daily basis during their study halls, asking them about their interests, helping with homework, and providing the odd calculator or band-aid, I have developed a relationship with them. And I realized just how important that relationship is to me. Those personal interactions are usually the highlight of my day. So on the day when my students were hurting and suffering, there was no place else I would rather have been. The library was the natural choice that day as a place where students could come together, grieve, share, heal, and be safe.

Another reason to be kind and compassionate in the library: kindness begets kindness. As Olga Nesi says, "When we are genuinely and consistently attentive, heedful, concerned, engaged, and interested, many of those around us respond in kind, and our gratification comes from the quality of our work and the extent to which we are able to achieve our goals (15)."  The library is not only a place for students to get help, it can also be a haven of sorts. Students are hit with a barrage of negative messages from their peers, and unfortunately sometimes their teachers, during the course of a school day. Imagine the power of a place where they can relax, and where bullying and negativity will not be tolerated. Other teachers certainly bring compassion and kindness to their students and lessons, but only librarians nurture a space that is available on a constant basis, where anyone in the school community can feel safe and welcome.

So, my fellow librarians, keep doing what you are doing. Keep nurturing and caring. As Buffy Hamilton puts it, "...nice DOES matter and elevating the library as a place of participation and shared ownership has value that cannot be quantified with any kind of reading level, test score, or mathematical data."


Bogel, Gayle. "Cura Personalis: The School Library through an Ignatian Lens." Knowledge Quest 40.4 (2012): 46-50. Print.

Hamilton, Buffy. "Keeping Our Focus on People, Relationships, and Hearts in the Library." The Unquiet Librarian. Web log. 18 May 2012. Web. 20 May 2012.

Nesi, Olga. "The Transformative Power of Care." Knowledge Quest 40.4 (2012): 8-15. Print.

NYLA-SSL 2012 Review

Syracuse students and alums at NYLA-SSL 2012

I was fortunate enough to attend the New York Library Association Section of School Libraries annual conference in Binghamton earlier this month. As always, there were many fantastic sessions, too many to choose from. Did I mention that I got to meet David Weisner and Joyce Valenza in one day? 

Here are a few of the highlights from the workshops I attended:

• According to Joyce Valenza, librarians should find our "sweet spots," where we can take ownership of certain content to enhance our effectiveness and be essential within the school community. Examples of "sweet spots" include digital citizenship, curation, intellectual property rights, search strategies, GIGO, networking, primary sources, and creativity. My new favorite quote from Joyce: "We have to be fierce. You can't be fierce in a holiday sweater."
• Speaking of Joyce Valenza, check out Curation, the Musical!
• According to three-time Caldecott winner David Weisner, he never knows what his stories will be until he starts drawing. He gets an idea then draws and draws and draws until the story reveals itself. And Flotsom was originally titled "Cheese" (because of the camera, not the dairy product).
• Consider creating an ePortfolio as a means of both promoting your program and assessing your practice.
• Don't wait until budgets are being slashed to present at your school board meeting! Make sure to wow them with technology and evidence of student successes. Advocacy is part of our job description. This session had lots of great ideas from Rose Luna, Margaux DelGuidice and Sara Kelly Johns.
• I'm very jealous of schools that use iPads for teaching! I learned about too many great apps to mention at Leslie Cataldo Savage and Lindsay Cesari's session on apps for the classroom (both 1:1 and 1:25).
• According to Olga Nesi, if we want to get our own library standards into the CC, we need to make a case for the skills we want to teach. Librarians should spend some time "unpacking" the Common Core standards. We should pick a few to focus on at first, lest we be overwhelmed.  This was a great hands-on workshop, and I'm looking forward to delving more deeply at the NYLA-SSL Summer Leadership Institute.
• Margi Preus, author of Heart of a Samuri, says that the tool most useful for the writer is the wastebasket. She lauded librarians for our encouragement of reading, saying that books develop empathy and help to nurture a caring world.

I wish I could have cloned myself that weekend, since I know I missed a lot of fantastic sessions, but in case you couldn't either, the conference handouts can be accessed here: http://conference2012.wikispaces.com/Workshop+Handouts. The Twitter hashtag for the conference was #SSL2012.