It's Not Your Grandmother's Library: #LibraryHourbyHour

Strong, instructionally-focused school library programs are not shush-y places. They are loud, vibrant, and dynamic. Their librarians barely sit down during the course of a day -- juggling a whole range of classes, tasks, meetings, and responsibilities. And still, the perception persists that libraries are quiet and still. How do we break this stereotype? How do we provide evidence of the work we do each and every day? One answer is #LibraryHourbyHour.

---

Last Thursday, I noticed a tweet from @CKElemLibrary that I had to explore further:

As I scrolled through @CKElemLibrary's feed, I realized that throughout her day, Caroline Hanson, librarian at Cora Kelly Elementary School in Alexandria, VA, shared time-stamped tweets with photos of everything happening in her school library. It was an extraordinary way to demonstrate the impact that her library program makes on the students and teachers at her school each and every day. And it's a powerful advocacy tool to share with stakeholders when we need them to truly understand the work we are doing in school libraries. You really should check out the complete @CKElemLibrary feed to see Caroline’s strong library program, but here are a few screenshots of her day:

* * *

Immediately taken in by this idea, I had to jump in. The following day, I tweeted our very own @KilmerLibrary #LibraryHourbyHour. A few selected tweets:

At end of the day, I collected one image from each tweet and gathered them into a collage (using a Canva grid) as a snapshot of #LibraryHourbyHour. It's then easy to post the collage on Instagram, use it in library reports, send it to staff, and more.

Let's Start a Movement

Caroline and I want to challenge all school librarians to share a day in the life of their program. Why? #LibraryHourbyHour is an easy way to showcase the strong and dynamic instruction that fuels our library programs.

• It is a tremendous advocacy tool in an age when school libraries across the country are facing state budget cuts.
• It allows us to live the adage "show don't tell" -- we can stand on our soapboxes and yell about how vital library instruction is for our students and teachers until we lose our voices, but images like these take that argument to a much more effective level.
• It offers us the chance to share our programs with our librarian colleagues across the country and the world -- any avenue we can use to learn from each other and grow together is one we should travel.

I'm going to make it a goal to share the work we do in the Kilmer Library in this manner once every month. We'd like YOU to try it once. We've been using the hashtags #LibraryHourbyHour and #LibraryDayintheLife. Are you in? Let's start a movement.

-Gretchen

---

You might also like:

• Three Big Ideas for School Librarians (November 7, 2017)
• Librarians: Build Your Brand (May 23, 2017)
• You think you know what librarians do? Sorry, but chances are...you're wrong (October 22, 2016)