21st Century Skills for Library
School Library Month (Links to an external site.) has been going since 1985, and is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. It is, of course, a PR exercise for school libraries, but PR put in a more positive way is advocacy. See the AASL’s What Is Advocacy? (Links to an external site.) and Ann Lamb’s Advocacy: The Teacher Librarian as Advocate (Links to an external site.) for more information. But what does this have to do with 21st Century skills and services? As the Colorado Association of School Librarians puts it in their advocacy website, Survive and Thrive! (Links to an external site.):
We believe that School Librarians are uniquely qualified to teach to and assist in the implementation of the new standards; they are 21st Century skills experts.
Your task for this Guided Inquiry will be to develop the outline of an advocacy plan for your library that promotes the 21st century services that your library provides. This means, among other things, that you will have to develop a definition for the phrase “21st century services” so that you can know what you’re promoting!