Breakfast Thoughts PSLA 2012

Reflections after the first morning of my state library conference... Dear school librarians, please wake up.  We need to change. We all need to become powerlibrarians!  If we don't there is no need for us. What makes us think we can continue with library programs as usual when our students are using iPads before they come to school in Kindergarten? Why do we think we can continue with business as usual when our library classes are one of our student's least connected time of the day? Yes, we need to read to students but we also need to engage them with the media they do not know how to live without. Yes, I said they can not live without it because they never have known a reality where the world was not available in the palm of their hand. I am proud that we are having some technology sessions at PSLA 2012 but we need to do more. And despite the wonder that is Joyce Valenza who is my hero at the high school level, the change I am talking about has to now start with me at the elementary level! We who are on fixed library schedules and see students once a week need to start adding multimedia modalities into our curriculums and we have to do it now! We are behind the curve of our students! What can I do to start? It does not have to be a total shocking change, we have to get our feet wet fist and go in from there.  We can do it if we add one or two new mediums and modalities a year and before we know it we will have a vital, vibrant, viral library media center that is so integral to our school communities that there will be no way to cut us. Necessity is the mother of change. Right now it is necessary that we change!  Ask yourself the question I am asking myself, "What am I going to do in the library next week to engage the iPad generation?"