NYCSLA/HVLA Cookie Exchange

Last month public school and independent school librarians came together to share cookies and ideas in another successful collaboration between NYCSLA and HVLA. NYCSLA (New York City School Librarians’ Association) is primarily comprised of public school librarians, so this was a great opportunity for independent and public school librarians to connect with one another and share. As we noshed on delicious homemade cookies in Jennifer DeGrace’s beautiful space at The High School for Environmental Studies, we also got to hear from some fantastic librarians.

Cheryl Wolf of The Neighborhood School and STAR Academy presented on using reading passports to promote diverse reading in her library. Inspired by Gene Luen Yang’s Reading Without Walls initiative, the passports encourage students to read beyond their comfort zones and explore new areas of her collection. She enlisted the help of a graphic designer parent to create beautiful passports.  Ellen Bayer of Flushing High School shared her experience promoting her resources using Smore. Smore is an easy to use and visually appealing newsletter creator. Every month she creates two newsletters, one for faculty to share resources and PD opportunities, and another for students to make book recommendations. Smore also provides analytics to help you ensure your message is reaching your target audience. At an annual cost of $79, Bayer has found that it’s more than worth the expense.

Melissa Ahart of MS 51 shared her super fun method for promoting summer reading— throw a summer check out party! With decorations, dynamic displays, and free tote bags obtained from publishers, Ahart’s students get stocked up for the summer. She also creates a libguide with public library lists to bolster interest and to make recommendations to students. Next year Ahart’s hoping to allow incoming students to borrow books for the summer as well.

This was a very casual, very delicious, and highly engaging meeting. I know I speak for other HVLA’ers that we look forward to more collaborations with NYCSLA!