Role of Library in the School

Current Research

  • Lance Curry's latest research of effectiveness of libraries in school. The Third Colorado Study (2010)
  • Study in video format on why high schools need to prepare students for demands of research so that they are successful in college Research Skills
  • Flip It Article by David Loertcher. The library as a learning commons. Flip This Library!

Librarian Guide 2012

Joyce Valenza's Library Guide

Trends and News

David Loertcher's Blog RSS Feed

School Libraries
  • Deeper Learning, Inquiry, and the Teacher Librarian Sep 7, 2016
     While teacher librarians would like to claim center stage when it comes to inquiry, many other experts and organizations besides AASL claim inquiry as their specialty. From our perspective, such initiatives often run on parallel tracks witho...
  • Metacognition and Inquiry Aug 11, 2016
    Minshift often publishes excellent summaries of research studies and this one about metacognition is no exception.  The author describes metacognition as thinking about thinking and traces its effectiveness, particularly by struggling learner...
  • OERs and the Library Learning Commons Aug 10, 2016
    OERs or Open Educational Resources are free materials that can be used by students for instructional purposes and many teachers are starting to replace textbooks with them. At the very least, these resources can be used to supplement textbooks tha...
  • Computer Algorithms and the Future of Jobs Aug 8, 2016
    A TED talk about advance of smart computer algoritms is worth watching several times by teachers and those whom they teach. it is at: http://www.ted.com/talks/anthony_goldbloom_the_jobs_we_ll_lose_to_machines_and_the_ones_we_won_t?utm_source=...
  • Syracuse researchers link higher test scores with certified librarians in schools Aug 8, 2016
    Quoted from: http://ischool.syr.edu/about/news.aspx?recid=506 Preliminary findings of research conducted by iSchool professor Ruth Small and graduate students in the Center for Digital Literacy (CDL) show a statistically significant increase in th...
  • The Virtual Learning Commons Jun 6, 2009
    For two semesters, my graduate students have been developing the virtual learning commons both collaboratively in small groups and individually for their own school if they were employed. It is now to build upon that expertise in a year-long devel...
  • Where are we in the education literature? Feb 19, 2009
    Over the past three years, I have reviewed hundreds of professional books in the area of school libraries and also in general education. At this point, I can count on one hand the number of times writers in education and technology mention the sch...
  • Reinventing the School Library May 19, 2008
    When Robin Williams and I wrote the book In Command little did I know that it would lead my reinvent the school library from the ground up. In that book, we looked at the idea of having every user build their own information space rather than the ...
  • Making Standards Useful Apr 4, 2008
    Making standards useful in the classroom by Robert J. Marzano (ASCD, 2008, 294p., ISBN: 9781416606482) Of the hundreds of speakers every year at the ASCD national convention, few draw bigger crowds than Robert Marzano. Known for his What Works ser...
  • School Libraries 2.0 Mar 20, 2008
    Title: How can librarians get back in the information game? The learning commons has been defined as a learning laboratory where books don’t get in the way. In the face of digitalization and the dominance of Google, the question is, “H...

UnQuiet Librarian RSS Feed

The Unquiet Librarian
  • The Unquiet Librarian: An Epilogue by Buffy J. Hamilton Jul 4, 2017
    Ten years ago today, I began The Unquiet Librarian blog.   It’s hard to believe a decade has passed, but the years have passed in the blink of an eye.  When I began blogging, I simply did it to have a space to reflect on my practic...
  • War Eagle Writers in the Research Sandbox, Part 2: Crafting Learner Ready Instruction, Scaffolding Writing, and What We Learned Together by Buffy J. Hamilton Jun 4, 2017
    In my previous post; I outlined the work we did to: brainstorm topics narrow our topics conduct pre-search use that pre-search to finalize a topic choice generate questions about our topic using the question lenses chart finalize our research ques...
  • Inquiring, Sharing, and Igniting Idea Sparks with 5 Corners by Buffy J. Hamilton Jun 4, 2017
    On our third and final day of our Lanier Schools Academy Institute, we participated in a fun and engaging activity that reminded me of the Harvey Daniels written conversation strategies.   Lanier High teacher Brooke Webb and LSTC Rhonda Strou...
  • My End of Year Self-Assessment, Part 1 by Buffy J. Hamilton May 31, 2017
    As part of the Georgia Teacher Keys Effectiveness System (TKES) , the common evaluation system designed for building teacher effectiveness and ensuring consistency and comparability throughout the state, we have an end of year conference with our ...
  • Sharing and Broadening Our Thinking With a Perspective Walk by Buffy J. Hamilton May 30, 2017
    Today was the first day of our three day 2017 Lanier School Academy Institute, a professional learning experience for returning and new to the Lanier cluster teachers.  This academy provides teachers of all grade levels and subject areas oppo...
  • War Eagle Writers in the Research Sandbox, Part 1: Selecting and Narrowing a Topic, Presearch, Evaluating Information, and Generating Research Questions by Buffy J. Hamilton May 28, 2017
     Please note that some handouts may not appear in their original format if you do not have certain fonts installed.  If you would like to know the fonts for a particular document, please contact me. Thank you! The research based writing ...
  • Resilience: The Most Undervalued Information Literacy Disposition by Buffy J. Hamilton May 16, 2017
    Disclaimer added 5/17/17:  Due to erroneous information being circulated by certain academic librarians, I would like to clarify this post was written with appropriate permissions.  If you have concerns, I would appreciate your being pro...
  • Joy.  Writers.  by Buffy J. Hamilton May 9, 2017
    Yesterday my 6th graders designed their learning contract for Cycle 2 of our Greenbelt Writing project.  Today every student in period 6-3 came in and got to work with no verbal prompting on their first writing piece–it was just rather ...
  • Nurturing Seeds of Writing Joy with Greenbelt Writing by Buffy J. Hamilton May 1, 2017
    A week ago, I sat down and read Ralph Fletcher’s new book, Joy Write, on a Sunday afternoon.   A wonderful synopsis of the book is posted over at Two Writing Teachers by Stacy Shubitz; for me, the book really crystallized the tension I ...
  • Crowdsourcing Our Knowledge With a Conversation Hotspots Gallery Walk by Buffy J. Hamilton Apr 9, 2017
    During the month of March, my period 6-3 (6th grade Writing Connections) selected drones as a topic they wanted to explore.  Over roughly 10 days, we read roughly 6-7 articles on the uses of drones; as we explored each article, we tracked the...

School Library Journal - Digital Content Blog






    Impact of Libraries Study
    Information Literacy May 2011