by Karen Bonanno

Promotion is about saying who you are, what you do, for whom, when and how.

It tends to be a one-way communication that includes activities to promote the school library and teacher-librarian to the school community members. Informational brochures, bookmarks, posters, newsletters, library signage, presenting a report at a staff meeting, hosting Book Week and storytelling activities, presenting at a conference, lobbying a government agent, or writing an article, inform the target audience. Your target audience could be school administrators, classroom teachers, students or parents.

Promoting your school library should be part of an overall advocacy plan. This plan needs to have a long-term focus with a consistent message about your school library and its professional staff. Your purpose is to influence the perceptions of your audience by demonstrating how the school library, its services, programs and teacher-librarian contribute to the school as an information literate learning community.

What is it that you want to promote about your school library?

Here are some suggestions for school library programs. The contribution of:

• a literature-based program to the development of literacy levels.
• an information literacy or digital proficiency program to the progressive skills development of teachers and students.
• An awareness campaign for ethical behaviour in a socially networked world for the cyber safety of students.

Wrapped around all of this is your role as a teacher-librarian through the effective and efficient planning and delivery so that it will benefit the learners in your school community. It’s important that the school library is seen as a space and place for learning, inquiry, discovery, creativity and innovative thinking.

Whatever it is that you wish to promote, the important part is being successful in changing the perceptions people have of school libraries and teacher-librarians. You want them to believe that school libraries and teacher-librarians make a difference to student learning. So, seek out some testimonials, stories and references to support this. You want them to know and feel that unique learning opportunities abound in the school library. Source some research-based evidence that learning does take place in the school library. Maybe you need to gather this from within your own school.

Begin with a reason and then take the responsibility to promote your school library on a consistent and persistent basis so you have some buy-in from your school community.

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