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Public Library Roles for Collaboration on Social Studies CBAs

School personnel or Teacher Librarians as instigators of grant

Timeframe:

•       March 23, 2009 — Tentative date for grant cycle opening
•       Friday, May 8, 2009, 4 p.m. — Application deadline; applications postmarked or delivered after this date will not be accepted.
•       June 22, 2009 — Anticipated date for grant awards; all applicants notified
•       June 22–August 24, 2009 — Contract development and execution
•       August 24, 2009–August 13, 2010 — Project implementation.
•       Thursday, September 30, 2010 — Final report due. Final reimbursement claim due

Public libraries seek to serve all people and school age K-12 students often use public libraries for assistance and resources for school work. The Social Studies CBAs are the type of schoolwork that uses resources and where assistance is welcomed.

Because of funding decisions and the lack of school libraries and teacher librarians within the state funding of the Basic Education Formula, some schools have no school library or librarian or reduced library hours or librarian time. Some schools have no clerical assistance and some only have clerical assistants in the library. While other schools have full-time well-prepared school teacher librarians who are already assisting students on this project.

All types of situations can benefit from additional resources and expertise for this "unfunded mandate" from the state that requires high quality resources beyond the textbook with no additional state funding.

Public librarians are encouraged to use this grant to assist students in research for social studies topics no matter what situation you have in your local schools. All students are expected to achieve and the examples of the type of work and questions to answer are readily available on the OSPI Socials Studies web site. This training site can give you an overview of CBAs and the Common Steps with Washington Library Media Association (WLMA) providing 21 pathfinders for Civic CBA topics in elementary, middle and high school grades.

Active teacher librarians through WLMA have been collecting successful topics and techniques since 2004 and their information is valuable for your planning http://wlma.org/cbas .
Here is a timeline of library involvement so far. WLMA already has posted 21 pathfinders of resources for 21 Civics CBA topics from elementary to middle to high school. The site also has successful web tools for the Common Steps of the CBA which is similar to the research process. Students are expected to question, think, read and analyze, sift through information, prepare a persuasive viewpoint or opinion, and summarize the information with notation of their sources (often in-text citation or a bibliography).

Public libraries are especially suited to helping students because:

• They are open beyond school hours, often in the evening or on weekends.
• They have trained adults who assist people with information questions.
• They are skilled in conducting reference interviews.
• They are interested in and often have sources for local history.
• They understand the difference between primary sources (original documents) and secondary sources that interpret or explain.
• They understand the value of citing your sources and knowing the pertinent information of the source.
• They have access to subscription databases and understand the Statewide Database Licensing project and its access to materials.
• They have the tools and skills to evaluate Internet sources, particularly free web sites.
• They have computers that may not have the extensive filtering of web resources in some of our public schools
• They understand their community and frequently have contacts in local schools.
• They have a history of collaboration with schools and school teacher librarians.
• They have an interest and history in helping people succeed in learning through information.

Each library and staff member should create a project that is workable for your unique culture and situation, however, because of the statewide nature of the student learning and accessible, posted requirements, it is easier to brainstorm together and build similar projects. Two of the most important findingd from other public library and school projects is that the language between the two agencies is diverse, so clarity is needed and that you should double your first idea of how much time to spend planning together. A beginning brainstorming list is available here .

A checklist for key steps for a successful grant is available.

Lessons Learned from the Connecting Learners to Libraries Project (2004-06) on Collaboration with public libraries and public schools.
In their grant report narratives and post-project interviews, many grant recipients made observations of where they encountered obstacles and challenges, and where they would have done things differently.  Lessons learned from their experiences include:

• Keep your primary focus on the initial purpose and scope of the grant project; don’t attempt to expand beyond your means.
• Keep your eye on short-term accomplishments with a high return in terms of participation and student engagement.  Remember that you only have a small amount of money to work with and a relatively short time frame.
• Consider how to sustain the work you’ve accomplished in terms of maintaining a collaborative relationship, seeking support for planning future projects, and re-using resources of materials that you prepared for this project.  In several cases, nurturing a collaborative relationship was just as important for the long run as the project itself.
• Time to meet is often difficult to schedule; make meeting time effective by setting an agenda or a checklist of things to discuss.
• Transportation and safety considerations for minors require planning and approval from school authorities; many public librarians may be unfamiliar with the processes involved in planning school visits.
• Investment in the work is correlated with understanding of the benefits of this work by all.  Librarians need to make sure that all staff members in both institutions know what the project is trying to achieve.

Several successful techniques for implementing small scale, grass-roots projects were repeatedly observed in the grant narratives and interviews.  First, working collaboratively is not necessarily expensive nor requires excessive amounts of time.  Successful grant recipients kept their project simple with immediate results.  Planning to account for travel time, rigid schedules, and getting organized at the beginning avoided problems later on.
The shared knowledge of state standards and learning needs of students allows for a deeper, more empathetic understanding about the challenges involved in working with the student population.  Concerns over the AYP (Annual Yearly Progress) reports as well as annual state mandated testing need to be considered for all projects.  Explaining how the outcomes of the project contribute to improved skills for meeting these standards generates more support for the project.
Future grant recipients should observe the following recommendations:

• Keep it simple and keep it small.
• Keep it understandable for all invested parties.
• Money doesn’t always mean success.
• Time can be the enemy to successful collaborations as much as money.
• Collaboration is a skill you can learn; it doesn’t just happen.
• Communicate, communicate, communicate!

First, design a project that matches the needs of all parties yet is simple and straightforward.  The size of the project needs to be equivalent to the money and time needed to do it.  Interestingly, some of the projects accomplished much without lots of money; some were constrained more by time than money and actually returned portions of the small grant allocation.  The investment of the various parties in the project is important.  Know the partners to the grant work well, and realize that the value of the project will not be perceived identically by all working on it.  There are priorities and needs of all parties that will need exploring and understanding as they relate to the work of the project.
Most of all, the level of communication between the different agencies and the involved parties is paramount to the success of the project.  Something good can come out of the most basic understanding of each other’s challenges with this population and have significant impact on actions with this population.

The grant site has research findings about learning needs between schools and public libraries in this state by Dr. Matthew Sexton.

A current book that gives useful advice and gives sample days for youth librarians and teacher librarians is:

• Ziarnik, Natalie Reif. School & Public Libraries: Developing an Natural Alliance. Chicago: American Library Association. 2003.

Washington State Library Statewide Initiatives through LSTA funding have prior information that may help make a successful grant.

• Statewide Database Licensing has information and training sources for main databases (ProQuest, elibrary, Culturegrams, Ethnic Newswatch and Alternative Press)
• Washington Rural Heritage has digital historical photographs and collections from small Washington communities
• Connecting Learners with Libraries has summaries of collaborative projects between public libraries and schools. List of contacts and summaries of 2005-6 grants