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Many libraries and archives have recently released statements about harmful material in their collections and the descriptions of these collections. However, these types of statements are not required for any professional accreditation or membership, nor are there specific guidelines to follow. This study collected and analyzed statements from members of ARL (Association of Research Libraries) and CARL (Canadian Association of Research Libraries), measuring their prevalence and identifying common elements. The findings and discussion can be used as a resource by those hoping to create or amend a statement, and for the larger library community to take stock on this topic.

This study examines cooperative collection development (CCD) for area studies and foreign language collections at Association of Research Libraries (ARL) libraries, based on a 2020 survey. Respondents provided details about cooperative collection initiatives (CCIs) at their libraries and their attitudes toward CCD. Most respondents had a favorable opinion of CCD, citing access to a broader collection of materials and cost savings as primary reasons. Challenges include the work and time involved in managing CCIs. This composite picture of how libraries build collaborative collections and the perceived benefits and challenges of CCD will inform librarians and administrators alike as they consider how best to build area studies and foreign language collections.

In 2019 the American Association of School Librarians adopted a strategic plan with three goals, including "AASL advances research that informs school librarian practice." Members of the 2020 Community of Scholars Committee undertook this study to pilot an annual aggregation and systematic review of research related to school librarian practice. The AASL Strategic Plan (2019) also included five core values: learning; innovation; equity, diversity, and inclusion; intellectual freedom; and collaboration. This review also explores how published research in 2019 reflects the core values. A scoping literature review and the search string "school libr*" were employed to provide a broad sweep of potential studies. Fifty-nine studies were identified as "in scope" and were categorized using the AASL core values. Of the 59 articles published, 24 applied to the core value of learning; 14 to innovation; nine to collaboration; three to intellectual freedom; two to equity, diversity, and inclusion; and seven to a category of "other." Subsequent systematic annual reviews of published research in the field should serve to not only document patterns and trends but also to provide guidance or inspiration to practitioners and to the faculty who prepare practitioners.

The Master's degree is a necessary step for any library and information science professional who wants to advance in the field. This requires potential students to go through the graduate school application process, which often includes additional requirements set by the School of Information (or equivalent college). Application requirements offer some way to potentially measure the likelihood of success should institutions choose to admit certain students. However, it is not a perfect process. There is also considerable overlap in the requirements expected from LIS programs accredited by the American Library Association. These differences are assessed after a careful examination of the admissions webpage of each program.

The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) recently released standards to guide the practice of school librarians. The "National School Library Standards for Learners, School Librarians, and School Libraries" (2018) were put forward as a single text with integrated frameworks. One year later, the "ALA/AASL/CAEP School Librarian Preparation Standards" (2019) were adopted to inform the preparation of school librarians. Using a one-way crosswalk analysis, this study explores the alignment of the "AASL Standards Framework for School Librarians" from the AASL Standards with the "ALA/AASL/CAEP Preparation Standards" to determine consistencies in expectations as well as identify noted gaps. Findings will assist educators of school librarians to develop meaningful coursework and pre-service experiences.

Pennsylvania school librarians have ongoing professional learning opportunities to build compelling and inclusive experiences for learners in their libraries and within the school community. From learning the basics about the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) Integrated Standards Frameworks to building innovative curriculum and communication methods, Pennsylvania school librarians are engaging with the community to exemplify how school libraries are transformational. According to Allison Mackley, AASL's "National School Library Standards" provided school librarians with inspiration. The standards did not look anything like the previous versions. The integrated frameworks were crafted so cleverly that educators of school librarians, administrators, educators, and others would have to re-create their vision of school librarians when applied to the school library culture and environment. In this article, she describes the events how the Pennsylvania School Librarians Association (PLSA) formatted and implemented the Standards to fit the state's school librarians' needs.

In 2021, the Oklahoma School Librarians (OKSL) won the ABC-CLIO Leadership Grant. The OKSL division of the Oklahoma Library Association has always been a small division, but as budget shortfalls and teacher shortages ramped up in the early 2010s, as the author states, they reached a crisis point. According to the author, they were losing school librarians in Oklahoma at an alarming rate. The author states they worked together to present free workshops across the state for school librarians. OKSL was still struggling to recruit leadership but now had built a network of current school librarians who were taking part in the workshops and conference sessions. Partnering with the University of Oklahoma School of Library and Information Studies (OUSLIS), the author sent a survey of needs of both recent graduates and current school librarians that centered on the six shared foundations. The author has made huge strides with some of their objectives. OUSLIS and OKSL have developed a strong relationship with the University College of Education, and have an amazing group of school librarians who present to preservice teachers each year on what school librarians do.

An online survey in Florida and New York of community college librarians with responsibility for information literacy instruction provides a snapshot of instructional objectives and practices, including librarians' beliefs about students' information literacy needs, strengths, and weaknesses. Survey results point to the influence of the Association of College and Research Libraries "Framework" in the community college context, the challenges librarians face as they work to implement it, and their successes in doing so. These data reveal opportunities to support and improve instruction and to prepare future librarians to work successfully in community college contexts.

This quantitative study investigates the diversity of the American Library Association's Michael L. Printz Award which is given for outstanding young adult literature titles. The award's website notes that it strives for diversity amongst the award winning or honored titles. This study uses quantitative analysis to determine if the committee's statement is valid along two categories: narrator's gender and narrator's ethnicity/race which served as the variables for the study. The study examined 91 book titles including the 18 award winning books and the 73 honorary titles in order to gain a broader understanding of the gender and racial/ethnic identities of the titles' narrators. Research was conducted using several book-centered websites to determine narrator's identities. The study includes implications for further research for youth literary awards committees, teachers and other educational stakeholders, with several organizations challenging the young adult literary world to diversify its titles, as well as recommendations for future researchers.

On August 30, 2019, the Vatican Library hosted a satellite IFLA conference on topics related to education for professionals, exactly 90 years after the first international conference was held in Rome, when the IFLA was officially named and its first statute was established. This paper was presented at the satellite conference to briefly summarize the major events of those memorable years and the Library's history as the background of this extraordinary season for world librarianship. In that period, the Vaticana was experiencing a moment of both institutional and professional prosperity, deeply connected with the events that led to the foundation of the IFLA; these were the same years in which Italy and the city of Rome, in the middle of the Fascist Regime, were hosting, in 1928 and 1929, respectively, the preparatory works and the First World Congress of Libraries and Bibliography, the major event that marks the foundation of the IFLA.

In the context of an evolving digitally-oriented library and/or information science (LIS) discipline and framed by Andrew Abbott's Chaos of Disciplines theory, this article presents an epistemological overview of evolving competency requirements for a global digital information environment and the implications of this for future LIS education. In doing so it draws from both an international case study of ongoing research by the IFLA BSLISE (Building Strong LIS Education) Working Group into the development of an international framework for the assessment of quality standards in LIS education and a national (South African) case study involving the compilation of an LIS competency index in a highly digitally oriented information environment. The Chaos of Disciplines theory was originally conceptualized to demonstrate the evolution of disciplines in the social sciences. Its core principles of the interstitial character of a discipline and fractal distinctions in time are employed as a heuristic tool to connect the empirical evidence from these two purposively selected case studies to the inherent nature of the LIS discipline and the implications of this for competency requirements for professional practice in a highly digitized global information environment and for future LIS education responding to these competency exigencies.

Since its beginning, IFLA has been concerned with education and training, creating guidelines and standards for educational quality. Ninety years after the first IFLA Conference, IFLA Satellite returned to the Vatican Library with the aim of stimulating a high-level conversation on the future of librarians. This article is a reflection on the IFLA's role in the past and in the present for education and training and the impact of IFLA Global Vision on the education of new professionals. The main results of the conversation during the Satellite are that librarians are no longer the ones who mediate in a passive role between the communities and the collection but have been transformed into active agents of the community and, within it, "facilitators" of knowledge. The mutability of the global world context means that competencies must be reviewed and adapted to new operative instruments. The IFLA Global Vision and a focus on strong value bases may help librarians outline a more solid mission. Among the new disciplines emergent in the LIS context, technology and informatics are fundamental. The competencies in education have emphasized also the fundamental knowledge of research methods and critical abilities in analyzing the results. Nevertheless, librarians are not only users of research; they actively contribute to research and need practical abilities in programming and realization of research projects. From what emerged during the Rome Satellite, LIS is being enriched by new technological, ethical, and social aspects that should be inserted into future curricula and will become part of the librarian's identity. The very rethinking of professional identity has in itself brought a transformation in the LIS discipline, in which the concepts of digital inclusion, social inclusion, and lifelong learning are central.

This paper presents a study of the specific disciplinary competencies required of library programming professionals and the training pathways where they develop those skills. Most existing competency frameworks focus on general library service or audience, rather than the specializations required for public programming. Reflecting the emerging importance of programming to libraries' service model, this US research study demonstrates that excellence in programming requires a unique set of competencies not found in other areas of library practice. The evidence shows that most public-programming competencies are learned outside of MLIS training but could be introduced as an MLIS concentration or learned as professional development.

The overarching assessment of youth services rendered by Leslie Edmonds in 1987 remains largely true today: that its most influential force remains not research, or evidence, or constant professional improvement or addressing field-based challenges, but "superstition." Research in youth services pedagogy, likewise, offers a perpetually weak response to the field's many and growing challenges. Professional associations advance long and undifferentiated lists of aspirations uninformed by evidence-based research. And course syllabi do not sufficiently differentiate conventional practice from the delivery of evidence-based and measurable definitions of success. Taken together, the teaching of youth services librarianship remains mired essentially in superstition, without a practice rooted in defensible evidence and lacking a clearly understandable, unique, and measurable indicator of success.

One of the issues connected to the use of standards in independent schools is the varying approaches to an astonishing variety of school missions. Independent school administrators and teachers often see national standards to be the purview of the professionals they hire. As a result, teachers and department heads work to select standards that support the curriculum they feel fits their student body. Another obstacle to implementing standards in this environment centers on the age-old problem of administrators who do not understand the profession of librarianship. While most heads of school and division directors have been classroom teachers at some point in their careers, these same individuals--who also supervise librarians and library programs in independent schools--often do not have education degrees and are limited by their own personal idea of what constitutes an effective school library program and a professional school librarian. The author has used the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) Standards internally throughout her career to calibrate her information literacy program, but she wondered: Could the latest iteration of the standards--which include the application of each standard to not only learners, but also to the practice of school librarians and their programs and spaces--be an advocacy tool she could use with other members of her school community? However he did not understand the new AASL Standards herself until she attended a session on them at the 2018 American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference. After the session, she and her fellow school librarians decided to form a reading group to go over the standards. This article describes the reading group and the impact it had on their professional development.

In Maryland, national standards in any discipline are reviewed and revised with student and educator needs in mind. The approval process for all standards includes stakeholder review and revision followed by a public comment period. Comments are then considered and used to inform further revisions. Finally, guidance, supporting documents, curricular frameworks, and professional learning are developed to support the new standards. This article presents the process and steps of the new American Association of School Librarians (AASL) Standards in Maryland, through the alignment with content standards, to the input of district supervisors, and the preparation to present the standards to the Maryland Board of Education (MBOE). The intent of this article is to detail the steps and timeline that have been implemented at the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE), Office of Instructional Technology and School Library Media to submit the standards for review and acceptance by the state board of education.

The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) Standards are an invitation to explore the endless possibilities of "why." The standards provide permission to take risks, to step beyond the comfort of four walls to truly stretch and grow. The AASL Standards provide a common language for school library stakeholders that bring into focus the competencies of engaged, persistent, and adaptive learning communities. Statistics reveal that younger generations are using public libraries more than older generations. Partnering with the public library, by its very nature, will take you beyond the physical four walls of the school library, but it will also present unique challenges. It is encouraging to see public librarians and school librarians both so eager and excited to work together, and the American Association of School Librarians (AASL)/Association for Library Services to Children (ALSC)/Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) Public Library and School Library Collaboration toolkit provides many practical ideas that could be implemented along with some tips to help ensure successful collaboration. The article provides information where the toolkit can be down loaded, but the toolkit does not directly address "how" to apply the new AASL Standards to these partnerships. Public librarians serving children and youth might be aware that AASL released new standards, but the responsibility of applying the learner standards will most likely fall to the school librarian. This article advises school librarians to make time to explore the new standards in one of their initial meetings with public librarians. This article encourages school librarians to ask if their public library has a copy of the "National School Library Standards for Learners, School Librarians, and School Libraries." School librarians could help the public library get a copy or direct the public librarians to the resources on the AASL Standards website. Strong partnerships such as these will strengthen both library programs, foster a stronger community, and ultimately better prepare students for the future. The AASL Standards characterize learning as a complex and evolving journey marked by the cultivation of competencies. The school librarian is a notable leader on this journey. Learning experiences are enriched when the school librarian prioritizes learners' development of responsive strategies and the growth mindset to apply them to inquiries beyond the four walls of the classroom.

In Kentucky the school library is regarded as the hub of the school community and integral to teaching and learning. The power of the school library lies in the programming, resources, services, and instruction it provides educators and learners to support learning. Stakeholders come to appreciate Kentucky's school libraries because of their experiences using the space, accessing materials, and learning-through-doing. With the release of the "National School Library Standards for Learners, School Librarians, and School Libraries" (AASL 2018), Kentucky school librarians are using the standards to transform the science of school librarianship and inspire the enhancement of school library practice. This article describes the role of Kentucky school libraries and the support networks undergirding the state's school librarians.

Amid the ongoing pandemic, school librarians across the country have been facing a different kind of battle, one that has been going on for years in some cases: the fight for every student to benefit from the instruction and carefully curated resources a certified school librarian can provide. Several states are working to introduce or retain legislation that requires a certified school librarian in every school building. States across the country have seen a decrease in certified school librarian staffing. In some districts, positions have been reduced dramatically or cut entirely despite research showing the benefits students, staff, and the entire school community receive from these specifically trained educators. State school library associations are working diligently with lawmakers, fellow state-level education organizations, and national-level partners to advocate on behalf of their students. This article are the stories from Arizona, Michigan, Nebraska, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania about their states' fights for the right of every student to receive the services provided by a certified school librarian.

A library supervisor for the Anchorage (Alaska) School District, credits five things with transforming her perspective throughout her school library career and helping her develop a clear vision and clearly articulated core values. Each of the five required her to move beyond her library and even beyond her district. The most critical opportunity she had was being invited to go into 80+ school libraries to help librarians do collection development and weeding. Another critical area was being involved in various positions with the Alaska Association of School Librarians while she was still in a school library position. A third transformative experience occurred when she was selected to participate in the Lilead Fellowship, the focus of which was transformational change. It provided a framework for thinking about library services and change that she implemented in her district. Through a connection she made while a Lilead Fellow, she had an opportunity to run for the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) Region 8 Director position on the AASL Board of Directors. Finally, she was given the opportunity to work with a group of her district librarians to revise the school librarian job description. She notes that those in the profession must always strive to rethink practices and priorities and remember that most of them were not trained in the type of librarianship that students need today--and they do not even know what type of librarianship students will need in ten years.

The National School Library Standards require school librarians to make equity a value that permeates the entire school library community. Creating displays to celebrate diversity is not enough. We cannot allow ourselves to approach diversity as a "social good," in which isolated programs serve marginalized students without challenging the overall structures of oppression (Watt 2015, 9). Instead, the AASL Standards challenge us to embrace the systemic value of diversity as we work to remedy structural barriers to equity. This focus on systemic equity is also in line with efforts to include school library communities, collections, and curricula in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). This 2015 reauthorization and expansion of long-standing education policy and civil rights law renew our focus on equitable opportunities for all students, and libraries are part of this vital work. The AASL Standards are organized into six Shared Foundations; the authors explore each through the lens of equity, providing a rationale for action and examples of school library practice.

The publication in 2015 of new international school library guidelines was the culmination of a two-year process involving a wide network of contributors. The process was guided by the Joint Committee of the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) School Libraries Section and the International Association of School Librarianship (IASL). The new guidelines remain grounded in and consistent with principles expressed in the 1999 IFLA/UNESCO School Library Manifesto. The "IFLA School Library Guidelines," 2nd edition, interpret in practical terms those foundational principles and reflect current research, practice, and conditions of 21st-century school librarianship. The second edition of the "IFLA School Library Guidelines" meant to apply to school libraries of many different kinds, and the importance of local context is addressed frequently throughout the document. All school libraries, regardless of context or placement in developed or developing countries, exist on a continuum of practice. Regardless of the context, ultimately school libraries embody the basic concept expressed in the "IFLA/UNESCO School Library Manifesto" of "teaching and learning for all." The guidelines have no force of law, only the force of persuasion or inspiration, and they need to be implemented nationally and locally through legislation and through professional practice. It is possible that the international guidelines will inspire the development of national or regional standards and/or legislation where none exists at present. "The IFLA School Library Guidelines" will need to be updated in the future. As the current educational environment continues to evolve, school libraries will evolve to address the challenges of educating current and future generations. The leaders within IFLA and IASL have a well established pattern of collaboration and a shared commitment to keeping our guidelines relevant to our rapidly changing learning environments: These school library guidelines envision a world of inclusion, equity of opportunity and social justice. They will be implemented in the context of the 21st century, characterized by change, mobility, and interconnection across different levels and sectors. (IFLA 2015, 13)

Schools and school libraries are becoming more diverse. What cultural barriers do you face in your position? Have you come across challenges in how you handle cultural situations with students, teachers, or administrators? If so, have you considered skills that can help you facilitate conversations more effectively? How would you rate your organization's effectiveness managing cultural situations? This article discusses how the use of cultural intelligence can address these concerns and help make school library professionals more effective. We each have a cultural intelligence level (CQ) that measures how successful we are when dealing with cultural settings. Cultural intelligence is the capability to adapt and function effectively in new cultural situations. The cultural intelligence model as illustrated by the Cultural Intelligence Center (2017) contains four factors that you can apply in your own work: (1) drive; (2) knowledge; (3) action; and (4) strategy. Using all four factors is essential to employing cultural intelligence effectively. This article discusses how standards, guidelines, and statements within the school library profession offer some insights about cultural competency and its role in learning.

Catalyst: Another newspaper article ("Ranks of School Librarians Dwindle in HISD, Statewide" in the October 7, 2013, "Houston Chronicle") detailing another decision by a Houston Independent School District (HISD) campus principal to eliminate the librarian (Mellon 2013). In response to this article, Dorcas Hand, an experienced school librarian not employed by the district, argues that these librarians are strong practitioners who are losing their jobs because a new principal has been told this will be the easiest way to balance the budget. This principal needs a better understanding! The goal? To find like minded-folks to work together and identify the root causes of the elimination of so many school librarians in HISD, and work for change. This article details each step Hand and Debbie Hall (a retired HISD librarian who also worked at the district level in the HISD Department of Library Services) took to make this change a reality including the progress they achieved, strategic directions they took, broad-based support they gained (and how), and their plans for the future. [This article was written with Debbie Hall.]

The passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) offered a significant opportunity for school librarians; it also created opportunities to partner with school librarians on their efforts to be included in their states' educational plans. This three-part article explores the development and rollout of the American Association of School Librarians' (AASLs') ESSA State Workshops; how these workshops spurred additional state advocacy efforts from the California School Library Association (CSLA); and the AASL Vision for Implementing ESSA Task Force's continuing efforts to track state ESSA plans and provide advocacy tools and resources for school librarians.

Cultivating partnerships is a crucial advocacy strategy for school library associations building support for the work they do. School librarians cannot do their work in isolation, so it makes sense for their associations to reach out to other associations whose members work with or could potentially support school libraries and school library staff. In California, partnership-building is especially important, since there is a dire shortage of school librarians. The California School Library Association (CSLA) is fortunate to have a strong, long-standing partnership with CUE (formerly Computer-Using Educators). CUE is the West Coast affiliate of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). In 2014, the two associations agreed to have CSLA host a day-long Information Literacy Summit within the CUE Annual Conference. This now-annual summit has provided a number of benefits for both associations. This article provides a snapshot of how the summit is organized and the benefits of the summit.

As the sun rises over the horizon each day, we rarely get the opportunity to consider how the new day contributes to the month that forms part of a season that culminates in the year. A year's progress guides and shapes the development of all growing things. Though not necessarily in a tidy twelve-month cycle, while developing the new standards the AASL Standards and Guidelines Editorial Board worked day by day, assembling components gradually. With the new standards just about to dawn, let's take a moment to reflect on the seasons that have yielded the new standards. This article also contains a sidebar entitled "Implementation Task Force: A Broad Timeline" by Mary Keeling.

Since the publication of the Association of College and Research Libraries' (ACRL) "Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education," librarians have grappled with the purposes, impact, and meaning of this teaching document for their daily instructional practice, for curriculum development, and for institutional and programmatic assessment goals. A strength of the "Framework" is its emphasis on context, an emphasis aligned with the goals of critical pedagogy and one that acknowledges investment in specific community needs. This article reflects on an attempt to contextualize the "Framework" for an information literacy program concerned with social justice and student agency by connecting it with the American Library Association's (ALA) Core Values of Librarianship. Specifically, the authors mapped the Core Values of Librarianship, such as democracy, diversity, the public good, and social responsibility, to the ACRL Framework as a means to put into instructional practice our values as librarians.

The American Association of School Librarians and its members have always been champions of intellectual freedom. It is a core value of school librarians and has been--and remains--an integral part of AASL's culture. Intellectual freedom is deeply embedded in AASL's standards, position statements, member-focused publications, conferences, award criteria, and leaders. In this article, the author discusses the issues school librarians are facing when it comes to intellectual freedom, including challenges to their resources and internet filtering. A chart is presented with examples of AASL's strong support for intellectual freedom.

2016 celebrates the sixty-fifth anniversary of the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) as a full-fledged division of the American Library Association (ALA). In this article, the author discusses celebrating the past and transforming the future. At the 2015 AASL National Conference the 65th Anniversary Giving Campaign was launched. The campaign that started at the 2015 conference will run through the 2017 AASL National Conference. During those two years, AASL will raise money as a way to celebrate the sixty-five-year history and use those funds to transform the future. The author presents the Student Bridge Scholarship and the AASL Induction Program, along with reasons to donate to support the scholarship and program.

J. Linda Williams was coordinator of school library services for Anne Arundel County Public Schools prior to her retirement. She served as AASL President 2005-2006 and is also a past president of the Maryland Association of School Librarians. Looking back on her 2005-2006 term as AASL President, Williams writes that she feels that particular year brought things into focus for AASL and school library programs and laid the foundation on which AASL built for the next ten years. School librarians had always faced critical issues and they often seem to be the same ones. It is slowly, very slowly if at all, that they made headway. Librarians had achieved small successes, but not nationally and not sustainably. Almost twenty years after the publication of "Information Power: Guidelines for School Library Media Program" (ALA 1988) and almost ten years after the second edition, "Information Power: Building Partnerships for Learning" (ALA 1998), many of the same issues in addition to new ones were still on the agenda. Standards and guidelines were not widely accepted by the educational community, and the role of school librarians was often misunderstood or given no credibility. While there were critical challenges at the time, they do not seem so significant compared to some of the challenges faced today. ALA has made its presence known and forged partnerships with the other divisions, roundtables, and ALA leaders gaining their support and an understanding for ALA concerns. Williams closes by saying that to ensure that the school library remains an integral part of the educational process, school librarians must work collaboratively with teachers and administrators. She advocates school librarians continuing to take action to further stakeholders' understanding of school librarians' roles, and actively advocating for their profession within their school communities, as well as at the state and national level.

Five initiatives launched during Cyndi Phillip's term as American Association of School Librarians (AASL) President (2006-2007) continue to have an impact on school librarians ten years later. They include the rewriting of AASL's learning standards, introduction of the SKILLS Act, the presentation of the Crystal Apple Award to Scholastic Library Publishing for their first "School Libraries Work" reports, revitalizing School Library Month, and establishing the AASL Best Websites for teaching and Learning Committee. AASL is a vibrant and evolving association that works to meet the needs of its members in the present as well as into the future. Reflecting on how the above five activities from Philips' presidential year have evolved and remained relevant through the past ten years, Philips writes that she is amazed, and excited to see what the next ten years will bring.

As the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) celebrates sixty-five years in 2016 as a division of the American Library Association (ALA), it is wholly appropriate to examine the life of the organization contemplating what the future holds for school librarians. It is important to understand the past and abiding certainty and steadfast adherence to a set of guiding principles, core values, and beliefs. This adherence to core values also explains why AASL is the standard-bearer and undisputed leader in the ongoing commitment to excellence in school librarianship and school library programs. This article presents and discusses: (1) What Are Professional Core Values?; (2) Core Values of Librarianship; and (3) Roots and Pioneers.

Reaching the "leadership zone" happens when librarians tap into the extraordinary skills lying within to overcome obstacles and transform sometimes-difficult situations into meaningful outcomes. Maturing into an experienced leader who stays in the leadership zone requires knowledge, training, and practice. This article provides tactical leadership tips to assist in developing school librarians as leaders who have the mental focus to guide their school library programs through today's changing environment. The following tips are presented: (1) Stay Connected to Your National Professional Association; (2) Articulate a Library Program Vision That Defines the Future; (3) Model the Skills and Practices of Effective Management; (4) Empower Others; and (5) Sharpen Job Skills.

The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) as an American Library Association division is sixty-five years young in 2016. This article describes the AASL as a division of the American Library Association (ALA). The author presents: (1) Early Days in ALA; (2) AASL as a Division; (3) AASL's Future; and (4) Commemorating the Past by Paying It Forward.

This paper is based on two studies conducted in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 2008 and in Kampala, Uganda, in 2014. The basic research question addressed in both studies was: "What are the experiences in the lives of upper elementary-aged children that foster an intrinsic motivation to seek information?" The secondary question was: "How do the experiences of students from a collectivist culture (Kampala, Uganda) who are intrinsically motivated to seek information compare and contrast with the experiences of similarly aged students from an individualistic culture (Colorado Springs, Colorado, U.S.A.)?" The focus of this paper is to explore the dispositions of both sets of informants using a theoretical framework consisting of the educative dispositions of an Effective Learner--independence, creativity, self-motivation, and resilience (Bertram and Pascal 2002)--as correlated with the dispositions listed in the American Association of School Librarians' "Standards for the 21st-Century Learner" (2007). The findings were that both sets of informants exhibited an affinity for play and a tendency toward creativity, and that the Ugandan students were more inclined toward competence-building activities than their Colorado Springs counterparts, who generally exhibited noncompetitive dispositions. Furthermore, resilience was a disposition revealed by students in the Ugandan study.

Reference librarians are exposed to the literature of different disciplines in a number of ways including advanced degrees, on the job training, and intellectual inquisitiveness. As students, many reference librarians were also exposed to library science programs offering coursework specializing in information sources and research within other disciplines. A brief study of current library science programs in the United States reveals that approximately half of these programs offer specialized reference coursework in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. Comparing these results to a previous study, one finds that humanities and social sciences courses have proportionately diminished while medical and health sciences courses have increased. These changes have implications for LIS educators preparing students for reference work.

An Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) funded National Forum Planning Grant "Envisioning Our Information Future and How to Educate for It" brought together a diverse group of stakeholders to lay the framework for re-visioning LIS education. This article describes three take-aways from the 2015 forum: encourage wide recruitment; build bridges; and adapt for the future. Actions underway to address each of these are described. The forum was the beginning of the re-visioning process. The principal investigators are currently engaged with various constituencies to obtain feedback on the actions and to gain insights into directions for curriculum redesign. LIS educators are encouraged to collaborate to make the vision a reality.

This article is an exploration of ways in which LIS educators can consider culture, heritage, and identity as a framework for becoming participatory agents of their teaching practices in the LIS classroom. To support this framework, this discussion introduces the research methodology, practitioner inquiry, as a meaningful approach to studying pedagogical practice and identity in the LIS classroom as a means to LIS educators becoming more self-reflective and aware of the impacts of their own identity construction in their teaching. In this article I am affirming the case for a diversity stance within the North American LIS curriculum. I am also posing additional questions and challenges about LIS identity construction and professional practice as we teach and learn in the classroom.

The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) Standards for the 21st-Century Learner mandate that students are equipped with the skills they need to pursue lifelong learning. The Common Core State Standards, Next Generation Science Standards, and C3 Framework for Social Studies Standards all advocate for genuine student inquiry, and the best thinkers in education are demanding that students take a more active role in their education to make them competitive in the global economy. One practice that can prepare students for a lifetime of engaged learning is asking questions. In this article, the authors discuss what makes questioning a literacy, how questioning and critical thinking are related, and how questioning is fostered in students.

To address the growing problem of misinformation, librarians often focus on approaches tied to the frame "Authority Is Constructed and Contextual" from the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. The Framework, however, encompasses a much wider range of skills, abilities, knowledge practices, and dispositions that can be used to recognize and avoid misinformation in today's complex media environment. This article does a close reading of the Framework to examine how librarians can apply it more fully when teaching research strategies, especially source evaluation. The authors propose that librarians take a holistic approach to the misinformation problem and promote critical thinking by incorporating concepts and dispositions from every frame in their instruction.

The gender wage gap impacts millions of women throughout the US and world, with women in the US making on average 82 percent of men's salaries (US Census Bureau, 2018). In research libraries, a field dominated by women, this has historically been true as well, with men rising to top positions at a higher rate and making more money than women in the same positions. Over the decades following the implementation of Affirmative Action, the number of women in administrative positions in research libraries has increased dramatically. This article explores the issue of women's salaries in research libraries in five job tiers. The five job tiers group library positions based on power dynamic, with the first tier including positions that run academic libraries, through the fifth tier, which includes front-line positions. An analysis of data from the Association of Research Libraries from 1976 through 2016 demonstrates that, though women have made progress in obtaining higher-level positions, salary disparities continue to exist between men and women at all levels.

Promoting an institutional repository (IR) to both faculty and end-users can be challenging. We surveyed academic libraries with an IR in Texas, and asked both library administrators and IR managers about their efforts to promote and grow their IR in both size and downloads. In addition, we studied the websites of Association of Research Libraries and Texas academic libraries to see how other institutions place links to their IRs on the websites and name them in different ways to draw attention. We probed and discuss findings regarding active marketing to faculty in order to grow the IR size, and passive promotion efforts such as linking on the library website, custom branding to help people find and remember the IR, and so on. We found that most marketing was geared toward faculty, and a minimal amount of active marketing efforts were made to the end-users.

This modified case study examines how the members of the British Columbia Teacher-Librarians' Association (BCTLA), a Provincial Specialist Association (PSA) of the British Columbia Teachers' Federation (BCTF), work together to advocate for strong school library programs headed by a credentialed school librarian. Since 2002, despite nullification of a collective bargaining agreement that mandated a ratio of school librarians to students, the province has maintained 70 percent of its school librarian positions. The researcher found that the BCTF provides the structure and megaphone for advocacy, while the members of BCTLA are responsible for the "boots on the ground" advocacy. Members of BCTLA are passionate about the role of school librarians despite significant challenges. Two-way communication between BCTF and BCTLA is vital. Additionally, a strong personal connection exists among BCTLA members. However, despite consistent advocacy efforts made by BCTLA and BCTF, the organizations face an uphill battle in terms of having their efforts impact policy. Librarian interest groups can use the structure of the union to promote school library issues. If a union is not available, school librarians can use influence-building techniques and professional associations to effectively advocate for strong school libraries. Union activity in support of school libraries offers a promising opportunity for library advocates.

2016 marks an important milestone for the American Association of School Librarians (AASL). Despite the ever-changing and always-challenging economic, political, and societal landscape, for nearly sixty-five years the association has grown and prospered within the structure of the American Library Association (ALA) and remains "the only national professional membership organization focused on school librarians and the school library community" (AASL, 2014c). This article provides an overview of the history of AASL by discussing the following: (1) Humble Beginnings; (2) Continuing Education: National Conference, Fall Forum; (3) Standards and GuidSchool Librarielines; (4) Publications; (5) Awards; (6) Certification of School Librarians; (7) National Board for Professional Teaching Standards; (8) Partners; (9) Affiliate Assembly; (10) Community and Communications; (11) Research; and (12) Advocacy, Legislation, and Influence. Though AASL has accomplished much in the past sixty-five years, important work remains.

School librarians regularly face difficult intellectual freedom questions. Is it a good idea to put grade- or reading-level labels on the outside of books or use labels to determine what students should read? Do children have First Amendment rights? The ALA "Intellectual Freedom Manual" provides answers and guidance. The "Intellectual Freedom Manual" has been an essential resource for decades. Over time, it grew considerably in size and scope, containing official ALA policy statements on intellectual freedom and essays about the history of those statements. Based on feedback from librarians, the ninth edition has been revised and reorganized. This article describes what is included in the new edition, how it is arranged, and how school librarians can put it to use.