#86 Health & Safety

A vital topic, in many ways.
It is important to keep yourself and your charges safe, whether they be staff, pupils or guests.
Be aware of the law (Health & Safety Summary) and of the school policy on health and safety. What’s the school’s policy on maximum numbers in the charge of any one individual member of [...]

#85 Line Manager

Who should line manage a school librarian?
Well, probably not anyone from the administrative side of things, as they have little to do with curricular issues, information science or literacy. That includes ‘Business Managers’ of any description.
Head of English? I don’t think so. The librarian is there to support the whole school curriculum, not just the [...]

#84 Discipline

An earlier post referred to a discipline policy, and how this should fit in with school policy.
Writing a discipline policy is fairly easy, particularly if you base it on the whole school policy. Keeping order in a busy school library is not so easy, and requires a great amount of patience, perseverance and a certain [...]

#83 Video Tutorials

Let’s be honest, pupils (or staff for that matter) don’t like big, hefty manuals or instruction sheets. They like to see lots of pictures and step by step instructions.
Or even better, a visual video guide. These are incredibly easy to create with free software such as Cam Studio. The software comes with its own detailed [...]

#82 Teacher Tube

Virtually everyone has heard of YouTube, (for better or worse), but less people appear to have heard of TeacherTube. As the name suggests, it’s YouTube for education professionals. It contains a vast amount of resources: instructional videos, presentations, lesson plans and much more.
It also contains a lot of high quality materials on the subjects of [...]

#81 Virtual Library

Your library catalogue is, in essence, a virtual library as anyone with access to a browser can see the titles you hold and what’s available in your space.
You can also make your actual library space available if you so choose. A nifty (and free) little tool like Mapwing enables you to upload pictures of your [...]

#80 Innovation

Innovation is a state of mind. Many librarians are innovative, and many are not. So what does ‘innovative’ mean?
For me, an innovative professional is one who is constantly looking at the services they provide, with a view to improving them. This might be with the use of new technologies, new ways of looking at services, [...]

#79 Working Space

Some librarians have the luxury of working from an office, whilst other members of staff slave at the desk face. Others are based at the desk, with an office to retreat to. Others live at the desk, full stop.
Whatever your circumstance (I’ve been in all of them) there are things you can do to alleviate [...]

#78 Pedagogy

Do you need to know what’s going on in the classroom? Do you need to know about current developments in the curriculum? Do you need to know about learning styles? Do you need to be aware of pupils with special educational needs and how to service their needs? Do you need to know how to [...]

#77 Qualifications

Many of the discussions on librarian mailing lists centre round salaries, qualifications and the connection between the two. There is no doubt that you will tend to get on better if you are fully qualified and chartered. This does not, of course, mean that you will necessarily be doing a better job.
It all really depends [...]