Future Ready Librarians® Framework
The Future Ready Librarians® Framework is built on the research-based gears of the Future Ready Schools Framework. Intentionally aligned to similar frameworks for school directors, district leaders, principals, and instructional coaches, the Future Ready Librarians® Framework describes specific ways in which Future Ready Librarians® can lead, teach, and support as part of a collaborative school leadership team.
Inspires and supports the reading lives of both students and teachers
Creates inclusive collections that acknowledge and celebrate diverse experiences and provide instructional opportunities to empower learners as effective users and creators of information and ideas.
Literacy is central to Future Ready Librarianship, leveraging the traditional role of libraries providing books, resources, and instruction to support student interests and inquiry through reading and research. Embracing digital resources as a complement to books and print materials, Future Ready Librarians seek to both build collections and a literacy culture for students to read, learn, and explore for pleasure and purpose. Recognizing students as knowledge constructors, Future Ready Librarians lead, teach, and support learners to not only consume but create information and ideas in a variety of ways. Finally, in addition to these core literacy functions, Future Ready Librarians embrace and empower both students and colleagues to learn information, digital, computational, and other adaptive literacies. Future Ready Librarians recognize that successful future ready learners will require a variety of skills and habits of mind, some of which may not be fully understood today.
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Nurturing Literacy and Community Connections through a StoryWalk®
Additional Resources:
- From Written to Digital: The New Literacy (Educause)
- Redefining Literacy in the 21st Century ( Medium/Bethany Oxford)
- How Do You Define 21st Century Learning? (Education Week)
- Ed Tech Remix: Knowledge Constructor
- Fostering Responsible Consumption of Online Information
Curates Digital Resources
Leads in the selection, integration, organization, and sharing of digital resources and tools to support transformational teaching and learning and develops the digital curation skills of others.
Curation through collection development is a unique skill set specific to librarianship which remains essential in 21st century schools. In addition to identifying, evaluating, and making available diverse library and learning resources, Future Ready Librarians provide technical expertise to guide and inform information management. With increased student and staff access to digital devices, services and open educational resources, Future Ready Librarians teach and build capacity in others to effectively become curators to meet school, classroom, or student needs. In doing so, Future Ready Librarians seek to help students become effective users and producers of information and ideas.
“Can We Get A Minute? A Conversation Around Policy To Protect School Libraries and Librarians
Nurture Collaborations through Advocacy and Community Partnerships
Finding Joy in the Library
Additional Resources:
- Why Curation Revolutionizes Education and Learning (Medium/Robin Good)
- To Boost Higher-Order Thinking, Try Curation (Cult of Pedagogy)
Curation and the School Librarian (School Library Journal)
Builds Instructional Partnerships
Partners with educators to design and implement evidence-based curricula and assessments that integrate elements of deeper learning, critical thinking, information literacy, digital citizenship, creativity, innovation, and the active use of technology.
As educational leaders, Future Ready Librarians recognize the need to work closely and effectively with fellow educators and school leaders to meet the needs of future ready learners. Seeing the library program as integrated with, not independent of classroom instruction and school learning goals, Future Ready Librarians engage with other educators to understand needs and outcomes and align instruction and resources to meet those needs. Beyond their own school and library, Future Ready Librarians leverage and connect district, regional, or national partners to build understanding, capacity, or opportunities to support identified learning outcomes.
Additional Resources:
- Where Pedagogy Meets Technology: Teacher Librarians Are the New Connectors in Schools (Washington Principal)
- #connectiondevelopment (Medium/ Mark Ray)
Empowers Students As Creators
Encourages and facilitates students to become increasingly self-directed as they create digital products of their learning that engage them in critical thinking, collaboration, and authentic real-world problem solving.
In support of student choice and agency, Future Ready Librarians design and implement library programs that extend beyond the consumption of content to support student and staff creation of information, ideas, and learning products. Future Ready Librarians make available resources and tools, create environments, and build capacity for students to engage in authentic inquiry and creation as part of personalized learning experiences. As advocates for student ownership of learning, Future Ready Librarians collaborate with and/or coach peers to incorporate tools and strategies including project-based learning, making, and authentic student creation and design. Ideally, Future Ready Librarians are seen by peers and administrators as leaders in empowering students as creators.
Additional Resources:
- How A Middle School Library Promotes Maker Learning For All Students |Digital Promise |May 2017
- Come For the Computers, Stay For the Books | Slate | June 2017
- Ed Tech Remix: Knowledge Constructor
Facilitates Personalized Professional Learning
Leads professional learning to cultivate broader understanding of the skills that comprise success in a digital age (e.g. critical thinking, information literacy, digital citizenship, technology).
Entrepreneurial and self-directed learners themselves, Future Ready Librarians lead, model, coach, and collaborate with fellow educators and leaders as part of dynamic professional learning cultures in schools and districts. As education and information leaders preparing students for a dynamic and digital future, Future Ready Librarians recognize the need to read, network, research, and learn as part of their own ongoing personalized professional learning. Embracing authentic learner choice and agency, Future Ready Librarians adopt best practices from the classroom into the design and delivery of learning opportunities for peers either on their own or in collaboration with other school and district partners.
“Can We Get A Minute? A Conversation Around Policy To Protect School Libraries and Librarians
Nurture Collaborations through Advocacy and Community Partnerships
Finding Joy in the Library
Additional Resources:
- What is Personalized Professional Learning? (EdCircuit)
- Sustaining a Culture of Learning for Educators (Medium by the Office of Educational Technology, U.S. Department of Education)
Ensures Equitable Digital Access
Provides and advocates for equitable access to collection tools using digital resources, programming, and services in support of the school district’s strategic vision.
Acknowledging inequity of access and opportunity in all schools and communities, Future Ready Librarians recognize their responsibility to strategically provide tools, services, and learning to students and staff in need. Future Ready Librarians invest in library resources and services which ensure all students have access to quality sources of information and ideas while learning information and media literacy as a lifelong future ready skill. As partners in promoting digital equity in their schools and systems, Future Ready Librarians lead and support programs which enable greater opportunity through device deployments, wireless access, and digital learning initiatives.
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November 8, 2023 3:00-4:00 PM
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Invests Strategically in Digital Resources
Leverages an understanding of school and community needs to identify and invest in digital resources such as books and ebooks to support student learning.
Future Ready Librarians recognize that access to and the effective use of quality resources is essential to student learning, both in the library program and beyond. Alongside books and other print resources, Future Ready Librarians ensure equitable access to digital tools, resources, and services aligned to classroom and school needs. With increased interest and access to open educational resources (OER), Future Ready Librarians lead, teach, and support students and peers in how to select, organize, and leverage openly-licensed learning tools alongside proprietary resources. Leveraging library and other budgets, Future Ready Librarians seek to understand and meet the evolving needs of future ready learners so that all students can access quality resources and use them effectively.
“Can We Get A Minute? A Conversation Around Policy To Protect School Libraries and Librarians
Nurture Collaborations through Advocacy and Community Partnerships
Finding Joy in the Library
Additional Resources:
Cultivates Community Partnerships
Cultivates partnerships within the school and local community (including families and caregivers, nonprofit organizations, government agencies, public and higher education libraries, businesses) to promote engagement and a community of readers.
Recognizing the power of professional and educational networks, Future Ready Librarians build, sustain, and leverage relationships and partnerships to strengthen the library program and learning opportunities for students beyond the library. Future Ready Librarians actively collaborate with school, district, and community partners acknowledging their roles as connectors serving all students and educators. With the library as a center of learning and collaboration in the school, the Future Ready Librarian builds connections with families, communities, and other partners to build mutually-beneficial partnerships which support student learning and wellness.
“Can We Get A Minute? A Conversation Around Policy To Protect School Libraries and Librarians
Nurture Collaborations through Advocacy and Community Partnerships
Finding Joy in the Library
Additional Resources:
Advocates for Student Privacy
Teaches and promotes student data privacy through their instruction and role as an educational leader.
With a history of supporting and protecting student privacy in their library programs, Future Ready Librarians model and guide educators and school leaders in ensuring data and information privacy in the classroom and beyond. As more digital services are being used in schools, Future Ready Librarians help develop best practices, professional development, and policies which not only meet legal standards but ensure student and family choice in privacy decision-making.
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Additional Resources:
- The Problem with Student Privacy, and How To Protect It (School Library Journal)
- Library Privacy Guidelines for Students in K-12 Schools (ALA)
- Student Privacy Case Studies (Electronic Frontier Foundation)
Designs Collaborative Spaces
Provides flexible spaces that promote inquiry, creativity, collaboration, and community.
Recognizing the school library as a unique and dynamic learning environment for all, Future Ready Librarians develop collections, spaces, and programs which foster curiosity and creativity. Students and teachers actively use the library space to extend classroom learning and enable agency in inquiry, creativity, and collaboration. Designed to both support and complement the needs of student learning, the library is defined by its use as much as by its collections.
UnDisruptED: Fantasy Ed Tech Football Draft (Season Finale)
Powering Up Cybersecurity at Home
How to Personalize the Experience (with Nicki Slaugh & Eric Sheninger)
Additional Resources:
Leads Beyond the Library
Participates in setting the school district’s vision and strategic plan for digital learning and fosters a culture of collaboration and innovation to empower teachers and learners.
As educational leaders, Future Ready Librarians work alongside colleagues, school, and district administrators to vision, plan, implement and sustain programs which support future ready learners. In addition to managing powerful school library programs, Future Ready Librarians work closely with school leaders and teams. They seek to align their goals and work with school and district strategic priorities and when possible participate in system-wide teams and projects. Future Ready Librarians are reflective in their practice and seek to build
UnDisruptED: Fantasy Ed Tech Football Draft (Season Finale)
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How to Personalize the Experience (with Nicki Slaugh & Eric Sheninger)
Additional Resources:
- Teacher Librarians: Mavens In a Digital Age (School Administrator)
- 10 Ways Administrators Should Be Collaborating With Their Librarians (eSchool News)
- The New Librarian: Leaders In a Digital Age (Digital Promise)
The Future Ready Librarians strand is supported by Follett.
