Does Your School Have a Teacher Librarian? A new CSLA Film and a playlist

The wonderful librarians the California School Library Association just released the film, Does Your School Have a Teacher Librarian?
Featuring the voices of administrators, classroom teachers, academics, and, most powerfully, learners, the 10-minute film describes libraries as active, collaborative, creative safe spaces and librarians’ connections to the individual interests and passions of kids and their value as teachers, technology leaders, collaborators, innovators and professional developers in a state where it is (sadly) not common to find a librarian in your school.

Jane Lofton, teacher librarian at Mira Costa (CA) High School and past CSLA President, shares the back story and offers some guidance for other organizations interested in similar projects:

It was hearing Craig Seasholes and the WLMA team share about their film (Teacher Librarians at the Heart of the Student Learning) at the AASL Affiliate Assembly in Seattle in January, 2013 while I as CSLA President that inspired me to suggest that California School Library Association create this new film. The film was a labor of love by our talented member and producer, Karen Morgenstern.
While I know the film’s statistics are specific to California, please do watch it and share it far and wide where ever you can. And, note that we issued it with a Creative Commons License, so you are free to use any parts of it that work in your own state.
Our California School Library Foundation, had some money Follett had donated for an advocacy effort a while back. We were going to do a campaign of bus ads starting in San Francisco. That campaign plan never worked out, so that money was available. When I heard the WMLA people talking about their film (which had recently been released), I thought, “let’s make a California version.” I learned that Karen had background in the film industry, and, after getting board support, I asked if she would take it on. Karen and I met with Craig Seasholes during the AASL conference last year to get ideas. He recommended having a company do it for us, as WLMA had. Karen found a talented high school media arts teacher, James Gleason, who, with one of his students, TerryKhai Ngo, filmed and edited the project. She also found two musicians, Lilly Aycud and Marc Stuart, who wrote original music
To keep the cost down, we followed Craig’s advice and did almost all the interviews (except the teachers and students) during one conference – our annual conference in San Diego last February. The school shots were done at four schools.
Our next step is figuring out how best to market the film and get our stakeholders – administrators, teachers, parents, politicians, etc. – to see it. Obviously, sharing it far and wide in the school library world nationally will be valuable to let our colleagues know about what it is like in California, but then we want their help with strategies for getting our own stakeholders to listen and understand what our students need and are being deprived of in most of our California public schools.

Teacher Librarians at the Heart of the Student Learning, launched by Craig Seasholes of WLMA, is the film that inspired Jane.

Principals Know: School Librarians are the Heart of the School was crowd-sourced by Dr. Judi Moreillon and Dr. Teresa Starrett using funds provided by the Texas Library Association, Demco, and the Dean’s Research Funds (College of Professional Education, Texas Woman’s University).
I am gathering these recent advocacy films and several other together in a  School Library Advocacy Playlist, please feel free to add suggestions or write to join me as a collaborator.

Filed under: advocacy, CSLA, films