Thank you for everything you are doing to serve your school communities. You are spending countless hours working to make sure your students have access to the technology they need and access to reading material that meets their interests. You’re figuring out how to adapt your lessons and collaborate with teachers in a virtual environment. You’re supporting your teachers by curating digital resources for their instruction and by fielding a never-ending stream of tech support questions. You are vital to your school’s mission, and we are inspired daily by your collective efforts.

We hope these updates will help provide additional guidance and support for your work.

Revised Quarantine Times for Library Books

We know that many of you are following the REALM Project studies that are being conducted to help provide guidance for the reopening of libraries, archives, and museums. As new studies are released, we consult with WCPSS Health Services regarding our guidance in the Responsive Library Services document. In our most recent consultation, Kelly Creech, as advised by Wake County Emergency Operations, recommended that we revise our guidelines to align with the quarantine times used by Wake County Public Libraries. The Responsive Library Services document has been updated to note a 72 hour quarantine for returned materials, instead of a minimum of 24 hours.

Many of you have already chosen to implement a 72 hour quarantine. For those who have designed their processes around a 24 hour quarantine, we recognize the inconvenience of having to revise your procedures. However, we hope you see value in our frequent review of our guidance in order to ensure everyone’s safety. Please reach out if you have questions or concerns.

Bookshare

All school library media coordinators were recently added to the district’s Bookshare account as sponsors. This allows you to be able to assign books in Bookshare to eligible students at your school. Before exploring Bookshare, please read the information on the Bookshare page on the Library Media Services site, and register for and complete the brief Bookshare for School Library Media Coordinators training in Canvas.

Wakemedia Shared Drive Highlights

Tip for copying resources from the Shared Drive: If you see something someone has shared in the Wakemedia Shared Drive, we encourage you to make a copy so that you can adapt it for your own use. If you make a copy by right-clicking on the thumbnail of the file, the copy is automatically added to the current folder in the Wakemedia Shared Drive. This will result in multiple copies of the same file, and might make the drive too cluttered over time.

If you want to make a copy, open the file, and then select File/Make a Copy. This allows you to rename the file and choose where you want to save it. That way, you can save it to your own drive, rather than to the Wakemedia Drive.

Coming soon...School Library Media Coordinator PLT Guide

We are working on compiling resources to help school librarians connect with a PLT, and will release a PLT guide in the October Wakemedia Monthly. If you lead a PLT for school librarians and haven’t received an email from Susan Bock, please reach out to her at sbock@wcpss.net. She is working to compile a list of all existing PLT groups in the district and doesn’t want to leave anyone out! The PLT Guide will contain a list of existing PLTs and how to join, instructions for creating a new PLT, and resources to support effective PLT groups. Stay tuned!

Office Hours

Library Media Services will offer virtual office hours this fall.

Kendra: Tuesday/Thursday 8am-9am

Susan: Tuesday/Thursday 8am-9am

Just drop into one of our Google Meets during the designated times if you need to chat!