Making the Connection: Bringing Academic and High School Librarians Together

Academic librarians often provide instruction to first-year students with little contextual understanding of the preparation students received in high school. To gain this understanding while supporting recruitment efforts and providing a community service, Kent Library at Southeast Missouri State University created a free professional development workshop to network and improve collaboration between academic librarians and high school library staff. The library has hosted three annual High School Librarian Professional Development Workshops. The workshop began as a result of the university president’s visits to local high schools. Many of these visits occurred in high school libraries whose librarians expressed an interest in connecting with academic librarians. Prompted by local high school librarians’ suggestions, Kent Librarians developed a workshop. Rather than a one-directional event in which academic librarians provide workshops, training, or resources for high school students and their librarians, this annual event focused on discussion, collaboration, and breaking down professional barriers. Students, faculty, academic and high school librarians were invited to participate in discussions and share their experiences.

The workshop’s goal has been to provide academic and high school librarians an opportunity to improve collaboration and gain skills to support students as they transition from high school to college. After each workshop, feedback was incorporated to improve future workshops including adjustments to the schedule and ideas to select future topics. Commonalities around lesson planning and topics emerged while differences in professional standards were better understood. As budgets continue to tighten and the pandemic has increased isolation, the opportunity to network, dialogue, and collaborate has become imperative for professional success.

This presentation will inspire you with past successes and equip you to strengthen collaborations between high school and academic librarians. Identify resources in a tool kit to plan a collaborative event that includes ways to invite attendees, identify presenters, and communicate about the event. Learn about some of the breakout sessions (e.g., Fake News and Information Literacy; Free Government Resources; Cataloguing for the Non-Cataloger, Video, & Audio; and Primary Sources from the Archives), keynote presentations, panel discussions, and feedback-based adjustments to this annual event. Dialog about challenges, missed opportunities, and successes, including how to connect with other academic librarians who previously hosted a similar event. In addition, discover ways academic librarians can gain administrative support for this event by using it to help recruit and retain students.