This interview was with , the media specialist at Elementary School, one of three

elementary schools in the system. I chose to interview

because she works in the same system that I do, and she has many years’ experience as a media
specialist. The following are ’s answers to the interview questions, then a personal reflection of
what I learned from the interview that affected my knowledge and perceptions of the school library
media specialist profession.

How long have you been a media specialist?

“I've been a media specialist for 29 years. This is my 29th year.

How long were you a classroom teacher before becoming a media specialist?
“Believe it or not, I was never a classroom teacher. I came in, I was a sub. from working in
serving at the high school and wanted to be a high school teacher. But, on the elementary level the
media specialist had to have some surgery, and so the principle that was here at the time called me and
asked me to sub for him. I was like, ‘I don't want to sub in the library. You know, I'm just not interested.’
And so, I kept subbing at the high school and finally he told me, he said, ‘Well just come in and do it for a
day. If you don't like it, I won't call you back.’ So, I said okay, and I came in and I loved it. Another reason
I did it was because it was a long-term sub position. She had to be out, then had some complications and
could not come back, so, boom, there I was in the midst of it and it fell in my lap. I'm still here.“

How have your past job experiences prepared you, directly or indirectly, for this position?
“Well, before I became a teacher, I used to be a medical technologist. Working in an environment where
I was involved with a lot of people, a lot of different people, and I ran a lab so I knew how to manage
stuff, was just a part of what I used to do. So, I brought those skills over here and managing a library was
not hard the hardest part. The hardest part is managing the people that work for you or with you.”

Why did you choose to pursue a degree to become a school library media specialist?
“My degree was in political science, and I minored in education, so I had to go back to school to get my
Master’s in Instructional Technology. That kind of was the reason, because if I wanted to stay in the
library as the librarian here, I had to go back and I had to do it in one summer. And so what happened
was I had to get on a provisional, and so in order to do that you had to have 20 hours into that field and
that's what I did that summer. I went back, I stayed on campus and did those 20 hours.”

What did you not learn in school that you wish you had?
“Gosh, I had such good teachers. I enjoyed my time. I went to Georgia Southern. I don't know if there's
anything I can think of because while I was in school, I was also working, so it was very real to me, you
know? When I learned something in school, I could come right back and put it to use as a working media
specialist. So, really, there isn’t anything I wish I had learned but didn’t. If I had a question about
something, I could always go back to class and ask, so while I was here, I was learning but they were
teaching me the basic theory and all of that behind what I was doing every day. And it was just the best
experience.”

What experience have you had with cooperative program planning? with cooperative teaching?
“Very little. 29 years later, it is still hard to get teachers to collaborate with you. There are some
teachers that enjoy it. They'll seek you out, and you work with them. Other teachers will seek you out so
that you can come and get their class so they can have another 30-minute break, but it's very little and
it's not teachers’ fault, I don't think. I think that administration does not know what librarians do and
how they can impact learning in a school. I think that's what it is.”
How would you go about developing a strong team approach with other teachers? How would you get
reluctant teachers to utilize the library?
“I think for a strong team approach, you have to interject yourself into things, like go to all the ELA
meetings. When they come up with something, say what you do. Mention to them what you do, how
that can help them. Try to assist them in any way you can. Usually my teachers see me as somebody
that will help them with reading and technology, you know, but other than that…. Co-teaching, I've done
it on a limited basis. I used to do it a lot at the end of the school year when teachers didn't have
anything else to do. Testing is over and they want to keep the kids busy, so they give them research
projects. And so, everybody's in the library doing research, you know, and they'll come and bring them
and drop them off and leave them or whatever instead of us planning together. It's like they have very
little time to plan with me and so you just take them and you just do your thing with them.”

How do you see the role of the library in the overall reading program of the school?
“Our library plays a big part in the reading program because we have several book promotions we do.
Accelerated Reader, which the kids love, and I buy prizes for them and set goals and all of that, and you
know I have their names up on the wall, stuff that you know they can see. So, I do that. Then, I also have
the 100 Book Club where kids have to read 100 books and they have little incremental surprises that
they get, and they love it. And then, $100 is a big deal, so we offer a big prize and we give them an
Amazon Fire tablet to our grade level winners, and then we give incremental prizes to those who don't
actually win but they get there. And we do all this on Honest Add and then with the 100-book club the
three that make it in each grade level, we give them a Chromebook. So, you know we have programs,
and we will also promote stuff like the Book It program, where they read books. I tried to do the Six
Flags reading program, but there's nobody to take the kids so they don't see a tangible result of doing six
minutes of reading with the Six Flags over Georgia, so I don't really promote that. But they love Book It
because they can get a pizza and we’ll do stuff like, some parents don't take their kids you know, so we'll
have a picnic outside. We'll go pick up the pizzas ourselves and those kids that were reading have a little
picnic outside for them. Do stuff like that so they love that.”

How would you go about: (a) promoting appreciation and interest in the use of resource center
materials?
“Our Destiny checkout system has a lot of resources in it, so we try to teach the kids how to access that
stuff. And I'm always sending students to my website where I have safe sources, and I do that because I
don't want them to get used to using Wikipedia. I want them to use safe websites and I try to tell
teachers that, but teachers just let them use whatever. All they want is the results, but you need to have
safe websites, so I have those resources right where they can go and then click and go to a child-safe
encyclopedia, dictionary, all of those resources. And with teachers, we have a professional learning
section, we really have a room, with all resources for teachers in that room where they come. We have a
cafe where we'll bring teachers in for 20 minutes in the morning before class and will either show them
a new resource take them through the paces, while we serve them coffee and donuts. Doing that little
time just to introduce them to what's going on in the library, what resources we have that are new, that
you might be able to use. And that's what you have to do, you just have to give them those little nuggets
and some people will come, some people won’t, but you just have to take the ones that will come and
work with them.”

(b) promoting storytelling, story reading, book talks, and other resource center programs?
“Alright, so I don't usually do book talks until the book fair honestly. When we have the book fair, then
we'll talk. I'll get on there and I'm really promoting the books at the book fair through my book talks, so
that's really the only time that I do that. Storytelling, I tried some of that initially when I first started
working, and it works well with my SPED students. It works well with third grade, but 4th and 5th grade
don't want you to read to them. Since third grade and SPED love it, what you do is you partner with
those teachers and then you do story time. I've even dressed up like Cinderella and had gold in the class
and read, just read the story, you know. And they were reading Cinderella stories, they did all the
different versions of Cinderella, and so as a culminating activity that's what I did. I went in there dressed
up like Cinderella and everything and they were like, ‘Do you have on your glass slippers?’ which I did
not. So, it was fun, yeah.”

What is your experience in leading professional development? Especially in leading technology-related

professional development?
“I used to do it and I loved it. I'm not doing it so much now. You know we have an instructional
technology person now at the central office level. Before we got a lot of technology in the schools, each
school had to purchase their own technology. When they started giving money from the central office
and you wanted more, we would write grants, and as a result of the grant we would have to deliver the
professional development. And I was an integral part of those teams where we started it, we designed
the professional development from the beginning to the end, and went through it. That was great. I
loved it.”

How do you ensure your own continued professional growth? In what areas do you feel you would like
to develop your professional skills and knowledge further?
“Staying connected to the media specialist community is one thing, because I go to the conferences, but
one of the best ones is the Georgia Library Media Conference. They usually have it in Atlanta in the
summer. It’s one of the best ones for media specialists now. They have book authors and it is all about
us. You go to the little sessions. Reading publications about what's going on in the library and when you
connect it to the library community you will find out what they're doing, and you try stuff in your area.
The one thing that I like now is because I'm removed from so much from the technology part of it now, I
don't think my skills have kept pace with what's happening in technology now. There are some things
that I can still do. You know, back in the day, I could take a computer apart and put it back together, but
see that's not what we do now. We don't even have to have that skill. Everything is so controlled
centrally now, and the devices are so inexpensive that you know a Chromebook is only $250. Why waste
your time? We can do a little repair but we have people that repair stuff for us now because we have
RESA, who comes to our school every Tuesday.”

Describe how you will create an inclusive space where diversity and equity are valued by all learners in
the school community.
“I always have displays, and my displays are not limited to Black History Month. You put out all the black
history books for the kids, so there's Hispanic month, contributions that women make. I try to be
inclusive by including books for these children that address the different ethnic groups that we have in
our school. One thing I discovered was I bought some books in Spanish because we started getting more
Hispanic students in our school, and I discovered that they don't speak their own language well and they
don't read it. They've learned English, and they can hear Spanish from their parents, and they can
understand and converse with them, but to read it was something different. That was an eye opener for
me, so I don't really buy that many books in Spanish. I buy books about Hispanics, but not written in
Spanish. I do have several that are in both languages; you can turn it one way and it's in English, and you
turn it the other way and it's in Spanish. So, you just have things available that address the diversity in
your school.”
How do you ensure that you have appropriate resources for all learners in your school?
“I think that you have to know you're going to be limited by your budget. Now, when I first came to
and I was the media specialist, I think my budget was something like $20,000 a year. My
budget now, 29 years later, is somewhere around $6000 a year. Now, if you know anything about the
cost of books, one book can cost upwards of 15 dollars. $15 is like the standard, and that money is not
going to go very far, and included in those funds I have to buy laminating film, poster board, etc., and
some of the money is designated for promotional stuff that I have to buy for students like prizes. So, I go
out of pocket a lot and get prizes. I have people donate stuff. So, the budget is not there and it limits
what you can address. So, what you do is you create a plan based on your collection and you choose to
maybe this year address this area, and then the next year you address the other one. You're constantly
relooking at your collection to see if it fits your current population because your population changes. So,
you just make a plan to address that. I think that in my budget I can spend $22,500 on books and the
other is for technology. They have it in categories that you have to spend that money and when you
think I could spend $2500 I could go up to my computer and do that in about two hours. So, you have to
be intentional about what you order and why because you're targeting a certain part of your collection.”

How do you include reading and instructional materials in both print and digital formats that represent
multiple perspectives and varying points of view?
“I try to include what is being taught in the classroom and match up those resources that I purchased to
fit. I know there are varying points of views, but you have to think about my grade level and this is the
way I think. Be it right or wrong, I have students in the media center in grades three through five that I
don't know if they've really formed all of their own personal opinions yet, but I think you have to tread
lightly on what you say to them and how you say it because their parents are teaching them certain
things at home. I'm talking about the different opinions about different things you know. Like I
decorated my library one year, and I had a girl side and a boy side, not thinking, and the girl side was
beautiful and frilly, and the boy side was just sportsy. One person came in and she said, ‘Oh, my child
would love to be on this side of the room. It was a girl and she wanted to be on that side of the room.
And then one teacher said, ‘I don't think you should restrict.’ So, you have all these different opinions
that you have to be careful about because you're not thinking about gender differences, gender
identification, you just want to do boy/girl stuff and make it look beautiful. I get books that people send
to me that have sensitive information. What I do with that stuff on my level you have to be careful and
you have to know your community. I work in . I've had an administrator come in my library
and tell me to take certain books off the shelf, and I said, ‘Yes, sir.’ And, when they don't come down
here often, and when they left, I left it with right there because that's not my job to censor information.
Now I can determine what comes in and what doesn't. People have sent me all kinds of stuff, you know.
Some of it just is not appropriate for my grade level. You get into high school, they can discern that stuff
and work it out, but on my grade level some of it I have to make sure that it is age appropriate for our
students. And that's when you're talking about different opinions, especially in our society now. You
have to be careful. I've had parents come up here and say, “You know, my child checked out this book
and there are naked people in it.’ And it's Greek mythology. So, you have to just know your community
and tread lightly, and being a parent myself, I understand that that's their child and they have to do
what they think is best for their child, and we have to work within those parameters.”

What surprised me most about this interview was the discrepancy between the budgets of a school
library years ago and today. While the price of most goods, including books, has increased, the budgets
of school libraries are a fraction of what they once were. I wasn’t aware of how financially shrewd and
capable a media specialist must be in order to try to provide a collection that serves the interests and
needs of a diverse student population, along with those needs of the curriculum and the faculty. Also, I
was a bit surprised to hear that fourth and fifth graders don’t like to be read to. I’ve actually found that
in my English classes, even a lot of juniors like to be read to if they are interested in what is being read. I
found it very valuable to hear the perspective of a media specialist who has been on the job, in the same
school, for 29 years. What a rarity these days.