School library infographics: research and advocacy

However compelling the research is, it can be hard to make the case with a 30-page study, or even a executive summary.

Sometimes you need the visually attractive, embeddable, tweetable version of the elevator speech.

Over the past couple of months we’ve seen a research translated and chunked in the form of infographics.  We’ve also seen a few infographics that visually convey the school library advocacy message.

The Library Research Service recently shared an infographic presenting meta-view–highlights of many years and many states of LRS school library impact studies that connect school libraries with student achievement and improved reading.  With simple graphics, the poster also illustrates specific school library characteristics associated with achievement.

The LRS infographic is available optimized for online viewing or for printing

Last month, the New Jersey Association of School Librarians (NJASL), announced the release of School Libraries: a Lesson in Student Success.

The infographic leverages the findings of the NJ Study of School Libraries: One Common Goal: Student Learning, conducted by Rutgers University’s Center for International Scholarship in School Libraries (CISSL), including additional data from the American Library Association (ALA) 2012 Report on the State of America’s Libraries.

The data presented on this poster clearly illustrate learners’ need for the information literacy skills instruction provided by certified school library media specialists in well-funded school libraries.

CISSL’s compelling research is also presented in this educational video.

Pat Massey, NJASL PR Committee Chair and Past President, shared the rationale for the infographic:

The NJ Study and numerous other national studies prove beyond a doubt that certified school librarians and well-funded school library programs have a positive impact on student achievement. However, parents, school board members, administrators, teachers,legislators and others outside the library community are often unaware of just how valuable school librarians and strong school library programs are to preparing students for college and careers. NJASL developed the infographic to facilitate the dissemination of these facts since our students’ futures depend on it.

Here are a few less formal advocacy visualizations:

Paige Jaeger, Coordinator for School Library Services at New York’s WSWHE Boses, created this infographic sharing the NYLA SSL slogan, Many reasons you need your librarian.

Last year, with Gwyneth Jones’ design help, I pulled together a list of some of the things I teach about most days in this poster that appeared in May/June 2012 LMC.

The Times They are a Changin’, Jennifer LaGarde’s crowd-sourced Thinglink poster, was inspired by Carl Harvey’s What Should an Administrator Expect a School Library Media Specialist to Be?  The interactive poster aims to blow the bifocals off the librarian stereotype with its infodot links to videos, documents, lesson plans, images and more.

Filed under: infographics, research, school libraries