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Birds do it. Bees do it. Microbes do it, and people do it. Throughout nature, organisms cooperate. Humans are undeniably attracted by the idea of cooperation. For thousands of years, we have been seeking explanations for its occurrence in other organisms, often imposing our own motivations and ethics in an effort to explain what we see.

The post Why cooperate? appeared first on OUPblog.

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April is School Library Month! Here are some easy strategies for public librarians seeking to build productive partnerships with their school colleagues.

Get in touch with your local school librarians! Sometimes, this can be the most difficult aspect of cross-agency collaboration. I’ve noticed that, especially with regard to youth services librarians in larger, more bureaucratic public library systems, outreach specialists may try to follow a chain of command, asking for the building principal or even the superintendent for access to the school librarians. In many cases, those administrators may either not realize that the public library wants to help, rather than place demands, on school staff, and they often have a lot on their plate anyway. Reaching out to school librarians directly can be more effective, or better yet, ask a school librarian you have worked with in the past to connect you.

Give local school librarians and teachers some extra privileges. One easy way to support the educators in your community: create a special patron class in your automation system, with an increased checkout limit. Nashville Public Libraries are on the cutting edge of this, with their Limitless Libraries program. They even have the high school and middle school libraries as routing stops! If your library doesn’t allow holds against on-shelf materials, you might consider a different policy for teachers. No teacher or school librarian wants to swing by the public library at the end of the day to find the audio version of Fahrenheit 451 has been nabbed since they looked it up in the OPAC that morning.

Extend checkouts or waive fines for teachers or librarians who checkout materials for others. It can be difficult for school librarians to get materials they checked out back from others, especially when they are being used instructionally. When I go to the public library to fulfill a teacher or student’s request, and then get tagged with punitive fines, it can be quite discouraging. Once, I paid enough overdue fines (out of my own pocket) on a VHS copy of the Audie Murphy’s World War II biopic To Hell and Back to buy multiples for my own collection.

Create a school librarian and teacher-focused version of your newsletter, paying special attention to highlight the events and additions to your collections with instructional application.

Involve school librarians in your applications for grant projects. This will strengthen your case for funding, and give the school librarians some ownership in what is going on in your building, too.

Acknowledge school librarian realities. Get school librarians in the field to come to your in-services or staff days to share their concerns. It might be supporting common core, it might be teaching social studies and science concepts left out of the standardized-testing intensive curriculum, it might be in-depth reference support and ILL for projects like National History Day or senior capstone projects. Lead times in schools are often more abbreviated than in public library settings, and there can be a domino effect when a teacher springs a last-minute project tying in to holidays or events. When a teacher comes in looking for The Lorax the day before Earth Day, don't laugh -- have some other suggestions, both print and digital, handy.

Wendy Stephens is a member of the AASL/ALSC/YALSA Interdivisional School-Public Library Cooperation Committee.

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Today, September 15th-ish is INTERNATIONAL DOT DAY!  DOT Day celebrates Creativity, Courage & Collaboration! .. Peter H. Reynolds wrote a picture book called The Dot! After teacher Terry Shay showed The Dot to his classroom on September 15, 2009.  From there DOT Day was born! From Peter H. Reynolds: Imagine the power and potential of a …

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I am on somewhat of a vacation, taking my eldest daughter off to college for the first time. What does this have to do with children’s lit, you ask? Well, there are many children’s books that are often given as gifts on these occasions – many are the children who have received copies of Dr. Suess’, Oh, the Places You’ll Go (1990 Random House), upon graduating high school. Perhaps Neil Gaiman’s, Instructions, (2010 Harper Collins), is on your list of timely and apropos graduation gift books as well, or Peter H. Reynolds’, The North Star (2009 Candlewick).

Here’s a new one, however, that may have escaped your notice -

A Place to Call Home

While it is not a story of individual possibility or achievement (it features seven hamster siblings), it is a humorous and touching story of exploration which begins like this,

What is this? 

It is a small, dark hole.
It is also a home. A nice, warm, safe home. The trouble is, if you grow up in a small, dark, hole, even if you start out tiny, there comes a time when you’ve grown too big, and then you to go …

out into the world.

(cue the humor)

From this point, the comical watercolor illustrations feature the hand-lettered, word bubble conversations of the hamsters. Armed with a paper towel tube, two plastic gloves, a faucet, an old boot and a lampshade, the hapless hamsters start out into the wild world - crossing the sea (the dog’s spilled water bowl), the desert (a ripped basement sandbag), and other perils, including the aforementioned dog. The illustrations are so funny, but it is the final double-spread photograph that pulls the book together and gives it a sense of poignancy.

This is a book that one might enjoy for its hilarious artwork or its message of cooperation and bravery; but for me and for my daughter, leaving her small hole and heading out on her own, it’s a perfect fable for a new journey into that great big world.

Now, where are those tissues? (sniff, sniff)

Publishers Weekly review

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