Librarian, assistive technology specialist, and author John O’Sullivan has written several books, has worked as a special education teacher, and joins us for this episode. As an avid reader of technology press, an integration specialist, and computer teacher, he brings skills honed at his job at Chelmsford High School to volunteer efforts for the MSLA and MassCUE. In the 1970s John was among the first special needs students to enter school under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). This experience influrnece his career path to becoming a provider of these services. Technology has evolved to such a point, John says, where assistive technology is a part of our everyday lives, but understanding how and why it can be integrated into a curriculum is a step librarians can take to become better community assets. His latest book Technology for English Language Learners opens with some of his own story followed by a run through of tech basics for teachers with ELL students in their classrooms. Relevant links are below:

Technology for English Language Learners 

Apple Books – https://books.apple.com/us/book/technology-for-english-language-learners/id6503222438 

Google Books – https://books.google.com/books/about/Technology_for_English_Language_Learners.html?id=gUYKEQAAQBAJ 

John’s UDL Technology website: https://udltechnology.com/ 

Teachers Awesome App Guide:

Apple Books - https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-teachers-awesome-app-guide/id854086263 

Google Books - https://books.google.com/books?id=UoVFAwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false 

How-to-Fix Chromebooks class: https://chs.chelmsfordschools.org/about-chelmsford-high-school/library/chromebook-repairs/ 

Learning Ally: https://learningally.org/solutions-for-home/college-adults 

The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE): https://iste.org/ 

MassCUE: https://www.masscue.org/ 

James Tynion IV: https://imagecomics.com/creators/james-tynion-iv 
Frank Miller: https://frankmillerink.com/

Bindy Fleischman, Massachusetts State Ambassador for the International Board on Books for Young People (iBBy) spoke with us this spring about her involvement with international children’s books. We discuss areas of translation, statelessness, illustration reading differently in different places, the publishing industry, and universal design for reading. Thanks for listening! Links, resources and topics below:

The inimitable Tressa Santillo joins us to talk about the #1 enrolled collective school digital book collection in New England (also #2 in the country, and #3 in the world)– the MA Commonwealth eBook Collection and its interface app, SORA. Join us for a talk about usability, applications for school libraries, the interface, how usage skyrocketed during COVID, curations, lending models and a lot more. Below are links and deadlines for adding this collection to your district:

MA Commonwealth eBook Collection Renewal is happening right now, enrolled school librarians should have received an email to renew.

Let Tressa know what the summer reading titles for your school will be so she can see if they are available to turn on for simultaneous use.

Enroll in the MA Commonwealth Collection, via SORA connection to your school, starts in July, goes until December.

Curriculum Requests: https://masslibsystem.libwizard.com/f/ceccurr 

Title Suggestion for collection: https://masslibsystem.libwizard.com/f/cecpurchase 

Collections: https://soraapp.com/library/masslibma/collections

Skip the Line collection: ⁠https://soraapp.com/library/masslibma/curated-1539386/titles⁠

Real-time Dashboard: https://insights.overdrive.com/dashboards/b20f0f7943574bd88377dd9eb1bd0651

Diary of a Wimpy Kid https://wimpykid.com/

Taylor Swift https://www.taylorswift.com/

Karen McManus https://www.karenmcmanus.com/

Magenta Jasinski talks about work-life balance, being a Simmons student in two MA programs, and feeling awkward at the conference (not this one, the one we had in Amherst). They are self-described as “Your favorite Simmons student (who's drowning in research projects),” so Ella and Luke asked about those, plus their work at the Benjamin G. Brown Elementary School in Somerville and involvement in LOTS of different things. Topics discussed listed below, and congratulations to the recent graduates of library programs! Happy Spring!

Q/T library: https://www.qtlibrary.org/store 

WBUR Q/T Library interview: https://www.wbur.org/radioboston/2023/08/28/boston-library-lgbtq-community-sober 

Cape Cod Toy Library https://www.capecodtoylibrary.org/ 

Gholdy Muhammad’s Historically Responsive Literacy Framework https://hillpedagogies.com/about/ 

Wrinkle in Time, https://www.madeleinelengle.com/books/middle-grade-young-adult/a-wrinkle-in-time/ 

Harry Potter, https://www.wizardingworld.com/ 

Divergent, https://veronicarothbooks.com/books/divergent/ 

Moonflower, Kacen Callender https://www.kacencallender.com/ 

Magical Adventures of Pretty Pearl, Virginia Hamilton, https://www.virginiahamilton.com/virginia-hamilton-books/the-magical-adventures-of-pretty-pearl/ 

Ghost in the Shell, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RF09G8Ymqg 

Cross-stitch 

Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! by Mo Willems, https://www.pigeonpresents.com/books/dont-let-the-pigeon-drive-the-bus/  

Shackled, by Candy J. Cooper, https://astrapublishinghouse.com/product/shackled-9781662620133/ 

The Warm Hands of Ghosts, Katherine Arden, https://katherineardenbooks.com/ 

Simmons University Student’s Snippets Blog

I’ts advocacy update time with Dr. Georgina Trebbe and Dr. Deborah Froggatt, school librarians, one current and one retired, who are working on statewide advocacy efforts through the MSLA and other organizations to provide each school with a “Licensed School Library teacher that earns certification”. Georgina and Deb talk to Luke and Ella about the different advocacy fronts– local, statewide, and federal– that impact our profession. And with so many different fronts, there are so many different ways to get involved: visit the Everyday Advocacy page on the MSLA website or check out the links below, all of which are mentioned in the ep:

H.3239: An Act empowering library access to electronic books and digital audiobook.

Censorship bills: HD.4389, HD.4443 and SD.2679

MBLC '25 Legislative Agenda: Top Five Reasons for a licensed School Library Teacher in Every School

Massachusetts School Library Study: Equity and Access for Students in the Commonwealth, 2018

Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education meeting and agendas 

MA DESE livestream 

Programing the Acceleration of Computing & Equity (PACE),   Anne DeMallie, dir. Of STEM at DESE.

NEASC Standards 

Pressley unveils bill to confront rise in book bans… 

Ayanna Pressley Convenes Authors, Educators, & Advocates at Library of Congress to Discuss Book Bans (YouTube) 

EveryLibrary Institute John Chrastka, Executive Director

Legislative Breakfast info: from MA Library Association or just email Debbie at [email protected]

Turtles can teach us about a sacred, cyclical renewing time that connects us to eternity, says science author (of 36 books!) Sy Montgomery. Sy talks process, experience, and, animals, with Librarian Luke Steere and Science Teacher Sarah Friswell Cotton from Wilson Middle School in Natick. Joining Montgomery is humble illustrator Matt Patterson, who truly is as Sy says-- a "turtle savant". Patterson's work is featured with Sy's on two recent books all about turtles, one for adults and one for children. Our discussion checks-in with how the book is being received, and delves into the nature of time, aging, falling in love with a research topic, and human-animal relationships.

Mentioned media:

Sy Montgomery: https://symontgomery.com/books/ 

Matt Patterson: https://www.mpattersonart.com/

From Head and Heart conference page https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/education/teachers/professional-development/from-head-and-heart-caring-for-the-environment-through-science-stories-and-action 

Freshwater Fish of the Northeast, illus. by Matt Patterson

The Book of Turtles, Sy Montgomery, illus. by Matt Patterson

The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery

From Head and Heart conference page https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/education/teachers/professional-development/from-head-and-heart-caring-for-the-environment-through-science-stories-and-action 

Becoming a Good Creature, Sy Montgomery, illus. by Rebecca Green

Of Time and Turtles: Mending the World, Shell by Shattered Shell by Sy Montgomery, Matt Patterson (Illustrator)

“Endangered Turtles Offer Hope In an Era of Despair A look at Sy Montgomery's compassionate portrait of turtles,” https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/animal-emotions/202311/endangered-turtles-offer-hope-in-an-era-of-despair

Artists for Conservation, https://www.artistsforconservation.org/ 

“Sy and her buddy Fire Chief, a snapping turtle,” https://symontgomery.com/sy-and-her-buddy-fire-chief-a-snapping-turtle/ 

Dog Smart, Jennifer S. Holland https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/739453/dog-smart-by-jennifer-s-holland/ 

An Immense World, Ed Young https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/616914/an-immense-world-by-ed-yong/ 

Turtle Survival Alliance, https://turtlesurvival.org/ 

Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer, https://www.robinwallkimmerer.com/ 

Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben https://www.peterwohllebenbooks.com/about 

Finding the Mother Tree, Susan Simard, https://suzannesimard.com/finding-the-mother-tree-book/

A bunch of us went to the conference in Amherst, MA on March 19th and 20th of this year. It was our organization’s first in-person conference in four years. Ella and I captured a few on-the-floor interviews during our time there, and then had Conference Committee Co-Chair Alix Woznick speak to some of the reactions members had to the conference, including about locations, days, keynote speakers, food, and next year’s planning schedule.

Get involved with the conference comm: [email protected]

Conference Committees Final Report: in a Google Slides doc

Official Conference Page: https://www.maschoolibraries.org/conference.html 

Reach out to the podcast: [email protected] 

“I think the dirty little secret here is that parents are assuming that kids have access to libraries and school librarians and districts are not telling them otherwise, but the data speaks for itself,” says Project SLIDE Director Debra E. Kachel, a faculty member at the School Library Media Endorsement Program at Antioch University Seattle. She joins us from Pennsylvania along with SLIDE Principal Investigator Dr. Keith Curry Lance, a consultant at the RSL Research Group, joining us from Colorado. Co-host Deeth Ellis is the Head Librarian at Boston Latin School and a doctoral student at Simmons University who volunteered on Project SLIDE. Deeth joins Luke for a look at data and possible avenues for addressing uneven development and equity around school librarians in Massachusetts. We begin with background and a discussion of the health of data reported to the National Center for Education Statistics, and move into Massachusetts-specific elements of the study and resources to access them, and, finally, possibilities for advocacy. We hope the episode provides some talking points for you in your district, and use the links below for additional context:

Project SLIDE website

Project SLIDE Massachusetts Data

Deeth's Academic Column on SLIDE (MSLA Forum)

National Center for Education Statistics 

Why school librarians matter: What years of research tell us: When schools have high-quality library programs and librarians who share their expertise with the entire school community, student achievement gets a boost Apr. 2018, Phi Delta Kappan (Vol. 99, Issue 7)

The Sower: Interview with Keith Curry Lance, 2007, SLJ

School is stressful for kids and adults and the phenomenon of school refusal, which is often caused by that stress, is nothing new. But has it been kicking up more dust in our post-lock down educational rebound? What can libraries do? Well, we discuss relationships and collaboration as a way forward with Ariel Dagan, from Tri County Regional Vocational Technical High school in Franklin; Bonnie McBride, Fenway High School in Boston; and Laura Gardner, Dartmouth Middle School. What do we mean by triage? How can books help? How are libraries complicit in refusal? Listen and find the balance...

Discussed:

Sign up for the MSLA Conference here!

Sparks, Sarah D. "Addressing the Link Between Anxiety, Depression, and Student Attendance." Education Week, vol. 42, no. 11, 26 Oct. 2022, p. NA. Gale In Context: Biography, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A724329114/GPS?u=mlin_m_wil&sid=bookmark-GPS&xid=b949767b. Accessed 2 Feb. 2023.

Bridge for Resilient Youth in Transition program (BRYT)

Laura’s Little Green News and here is the link to the October 2022 issue.

Victory. Stand!: Raising My Fist for Justice by Tommie Smith, Derrick Barnes and Dawud Anyabwile.

The Great Escape: A True Story of Forced Labor and Immigrant Dreams in America by Saket Soni

Dead End Girls by Wendy Heard

Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution by Uri Levine

24/6: Giving Up Screens One Day a Week to Get More Time, Creativity, and Connection by Tiffany Shlain

Tiffany Schlain “Dear Student” (YouTube video)

Moonflower by Kacen Callender

Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts by Kate Racculia

A Heart That Works by Rob Delaney

For 2023’s first episode, we discuss independent reading and school library support. Joining the pod are Nancy Stenberg, who is the librarian at Dorman Elementary School in Springfield; Sarah Murphy, Kennedy Middle School librarian in Natick; and Laura Harrington, the high school librarian in North Andover. Independent reading and school libraries is a vast topic, connecting to many things we all do everyday, yet the culmination of Emily Hanford’s reporting into the Sold a Story podcast and Wayne D'Orio's recent SLJ article, which outlines the scope of the problem and how some libraries are responding, has put it back into the spotlight.

Media discussed:

Laura is Reading:

Nancy is reading:

Sarah is reading: