Curious about what a school librarian does during the day? As a former classroom teacher herself, Ms. Carr wasn't entirely sure until she started the job! 

Here is an incomplete list of some of the things I do as a School Librarian throughout the day/week/month/year, but you can check out this list for an even more comprehensive overview compiled by Massachusetts School Librarians):

• teach 3-5 library classes every day (on topics related to classroom curriculum, cultural theme of the month, media literacy, research, or another library skill) 

• arrival/bus dismissal duty

• collection development (searching for the best books to add to our library!)

• conducting book talks and class visits for book check outs 

• wrapping/cataloguing new books

• attending grade level planning meetings once/week

• attending Instructional Leadership Team meetings every other week

• co-leading the Specialist team meetings once/week

• organizing & running author's visits

• conducting & coordinating our after school Discovering Justice law program for 6th graders

• putting up student work or images of students reading around the school (ex: "caught reading a the Ellis!" signs) to encourage a visual culture of literacy

• running a Scholastic Book Fair for a week once/year

• providing curated lists of digital/physical texts for teachers upon request or in advance of a themed month (ex: Black History Month resources, Women's History Month resources, books about consent, etc)

• putting out communication through my weekly email to staff, posting on school-wide platforms for families with updates about the library/resources for our local library/city resources, etc (in Spanish and Haitian Creole as well)

• hosting Family Coffee Hours once/month in the library

• meeting weekly with our Family Liaison to support the district goal of "equitable literacy"

• designing our library website

• re-designing our school website

• putting out free books and maintaining that collection in the cafeteria

• partnering with the local children's librarian at the Egleston (we love Claire!) and other nonprofits for donations/programming

• building out/maintaining our library fish tank (and applying for grants for that)

• trouble shooting/maintaining our 3D printer

• popping in to classes to drop off a requested book to a teacher or collecting books from classes that need to return them but haven't had time to drop in to the library