Blog post 2: Interview – running a successful parent volunteer program in a school library

 1. A detailed description of the activity undertaken

The librarian of the Singapore American School was interviewed on how to run a successful parent volunteer program. In answering all my questions and showing me the library she explained the process of recruiting and training volunteers, the type of tasks that volunteers do, potential problems and pitfalls and how to handle them and how to show your appreciation. We ended with a tour of the library.




Recruitment takes place early in the year at events that are likely to attract a lot of parents.  The initial training is 90 minutes long and focuses mainly on library organization and the shelving of books and expectations of the volunteers including etiquette and behaviour. It was interesting to hear the expectations regarding commitment and responsibility to the role, and this one area our library has struggled with in the past.
 New recruits are initially paired with more experienced volunteers. Depending on their volunteer role and interest, some volunteers also receive training in FollettDestiny (the library system) and are given restricted rights based on what they need to accomplish.


Volunteers are also involved in longer term projects such as the collection genrefication and with special events such as the Red Dot awards, Readers’ Cup and Battle of the Books.

We concluded with a discussion on the importance of showing appreciation and the ways in which this could be done.

2. Answers to the following questions:

What did you learn?

Recruiting and supporting parent volunteers is an important task in a school library that is short staffed. If volunteers are able to take over some of the shelving and book processing tasks, librarians are freed up to spend more time teaching, performing reader advisory tasks and helping with curriculum related tasks. There is an art and a skill to keeping volunteers engaged and committed to helping in the library.

How was the activity relevant to your professional practice?

We have had parent volunteers but we have not been systematic in our recruitment, training and appreciation of them. As a result the program was not as successful as it could have been. I now have a better appreciation of the process and can apply it to our school situation.  

Were any gaps in your knowledge revealed? How might you fill those gaps?

I had many questions as to why our program was not working well, and through the interview and visit was able to answer many of them. In addition, the librarian lent me the ALA book: “Managing Library Volunteers” (Driggers, 2011) so I could read further on the matter.

3. References:

Driggers, P. F. (2011). Managing library volunteers (2nd ed.). Chicago: American Library Association. 

Activity 2: Interview – running a successful parent volunteer program in a school library

Libraries in general, and some school libraries in particular are not known for having a surplus in staff. Many therefore consider turning to parent volunteers to help out with a variety of tasks.  

Some libraries manage this better than others, and here in Singapore, the Singapore American School is known in our network for having a very well run, well functioning library parent volunteer program. They have 35-40 regular weekly parent volunteers and more than 50 parents who are involved in one-way or another in the library as well as a group of committed high school student volunteers. 

So this morning, I went over to interview Kate Brundage, the Elementary School Librarian who has been running a successful program for the last five years.

In answering all my questions and showing me the library she explained the process of recruiting and training volunteers, the type of tasks that volunteers do, potential problems and pitfalls and how to handle them and how to show your appreciation. We ended with a tour of the library.

The process of recruiting and training volunteers

Parent volunteer form

Recruitment generally takes place at the beginning of the school year when sign-up forms are distributed during open-house sessions, back to school night, the first parent coffee mornings and are also shared with classroom teachers.  The library hosts a parent coffee morning and talks to the parents about library service and the benefits of being a volunteer.  During the school year, the librarians have an active partnership with classroom teachers, whereby parents who tend to “hover” or want to be overly involved in the classroom have their energies directed to the library where they can make a meaningful contribution to the school as a whole.

The initial in-service training takes 90 minutes and parents are introduced to the library organization, explanations on shelving are given and parents are given guidelines on what to do with damaged books and other commonly encountered problems.  The desk and mobile circulation systems are explained and other projects and service opportunities are introduced.  New parents are then buddied with existing volunteers who provide further training “on the job”.

Parents are also encouraged to team up with close friends or with people who speak the same language as themselves, if they are not comfortable or fluent in English. Depending on their volunteer role and interest, some volunteers also receive training in FollettDestiny (the library system) and are given restricted rights based on what they need to accomplish.

The library makes it clear on the form, and in their talks that the main priority for volunteers is shelving, as this frees up the librarians to spend more time teaching and interacting with the children and transferring their librarian knowledge and expertise.

The creation of a "writing wall"
was a parent volunteer idea

Besides the parents, the High School pupils can also sign up to be library volunteers as part of their service program.  A similar training program is given to them, and they are also encouraged to be ‘book buddies’ with the younger students.

It is emphasized that although this is a volunteer position, the library is counting on the commitment of the volunteers, and should they not be able to come for whatever reason, it is their responsibility to find a replacement, from the list of trained volunteers, to take their place.  Volunteers are also required to commit to a minimum of 3 hours per week on a consistent basis.  The volunteer roster is changed every 3 or 4 months giving new volunteers a chance to join up and also to change around times should situations change or if people are found not to work well with each other (e.g. friends spending too much time chatting rather than volunteering!).  Volunteers are encouraged to be active readers so as to better understand children’s literature, the needs of young readers and the availability of books of different genres and difficulty in the collection.

The types of tasks volunteers do:

Parents assisted with the genrefication
of the picture book collection

Although the primary task is shelving, and with the huge collection the school has this is a very important task, it is acknowledged that it is not the most exciting task and needs to be interspersed with other tasks that may be more stimulating.  For example parents help with include circulation – checking in and out of books either at the check-out desk or using the mobile apps the school have. Parents are also involved in longer term projects such as the current genrefication of the library, pushing books out of the library to classroom libraries, documenting and photographing the puppet and soft-toy collection into a visual album.  Depending on their skills and interest, parents also create displays, help with signage and other graphic design, and help children in the shelves with choosing books, or with occasional story telling and reading.  Annual special events such as the Battle of the Books, the Red Dot Awards, author and illustrator visits and the Readers’ Cup Challenge also provide the opportunity for parents to take ownership of a project and help the library in this way. For example during an author or illustrator visit, the volunteers will manage the ordering process.  Parents also do “shelf-reading” to ensure that books are properly shelved and to check missing or damaged inventory. A new project coming up is the creation and maintenance of a makerspace area, and volunteers will definitely be involved in that.

Sorting and organising special materials

Parents are asked on signup if they have specific skills or preferences, including foreign language skills where they can help with cataloguing, shelving and ordering of LOTE (languages other than English) materials.  Even stay-at-home-parents are catered for!  Parents who want to volunteer but cannot come into the library due to younger children or other difficulties have tasks sent home to them like creating resource lists or checking inventory and creating order spreadsheets from mark-ups in the SLJ or other book reviews.

Potential problems and pitfalls

Occasionally parents may be motivated by less altruistic ideals, and exhibit behaviors such as just assisting their own children in the library, or may have a hidden agenda, such as censoring books in the collection. Kate emphasized that this was extremely rare, but had to be dealt with firmly.  At all times the fact that it is a partnership for the benefit of all children. Most problems can be pre-empted by being clear about expectations during the initial in-service training. Common etiquette things such as not using mobile phones, deferring to the librarians and teachers, not interfering with the class experience, not disciplining or shaming children, maintaining respect and supporting all children are clearly outlined.  The three month volunteer cycle also allows for a review of which volunteers are in which roles and at what times and this can be changed if necessary.

Showing appreciation

The library hosts two parties during the year, one before Christmas and one at year end.  Catering part of the library budget and parents are given small thank-you gifts such as flowers or vouchers for Starbucks or movies, candles and holiday bookmarks.  They are also given first choice in books that are being weeded from the collections.

During the year, the librarians take regular snapshots of the volunteers that are then made into an appreciation video that is shown at year-end, and some photos are put in the annual yearbook.

ALA Book on managing Volunteers

After a tour of the library and seeing some volunteers at work, Kate then very kindly lent me the new ALA book “Managing Library Volunteers” so that I could look through it while I was in the process of setting up our volunteer program at school.

Assignment 3: Evaluative Report

Part 1: Online Learning Journal

A separate tab for the Online Learning Journal (OLJ) was created on my blog: Informative Flights where readings and learning activities were documented throughout the session from 30 October 2013 to 26 January 2014. 

Part 2: Evaluative Report

During the semester many of the learning activities were interesting and eye-opening.  Prior to commencing INF506 I had considered myself to be reasonably experienced in social media personally and considered the library I was working in as similarly "with the times".  I must admit to easily being "wowed" by the newest and latest online tools and gadgets and had previously too easily adopted and (over)-used (Facebook) or dismissed tools (Twitter, Google+).

a) Evaluative Statement:

The three experiences that are highlighted are; Building academic library 2.0, Web 2.0 tools in the library and Information Policy: identity, privacy and trust.

In Building the academic library 2.0 the talk of Farkas (2007) made me consider a number of points regarding Web 2.0 in the library.  One of the things I followed up on subsequently was the notion that students use their parents as a first port of call when they need to do research.  Since Farkas is speaking from a tertiary education viewpoint, this is probably even more applicable to secondary schools, which is the environment I work in.  Hoover-Dempsey et al (2005) concluded that schools both enhance and influence parental involvement.   Although the "themes of empowerment" they referred to did not mention the library or research, this is an area where positive reinforcement of involvement in a constructive way could occur, something which is echoed by DePlanty, Coulter-Kern and Duchane (2007) and Hay (2010) who suggest schools align parental participation with what matters to academic success using workshops, brochures and pamphlets and talks with parents. The library is ideally situated to do this, and in fact needs to if parents are expected to "help educators address the information literacy initiative" as Valenza (2003) highlights in her "Letter to Parents about the Internet"

Web 2.0 tools in the library allowed me to critically evaluate the Web 2.0 tools of ASU through the lens of the 4 C's : collaboration, conversation, community and content creation (Mishra, 2009).  Initially I was under the impression of how much they were doing, their consistency and the scope of the tools they were using (Youtube, Facebook, Blog, Twitter, chat etc.).   My conclusion was that they were putting a lot of time and effort into social media, but I wasn't sure of the pay-off.  There was not much two-way communication on any of the tools they were using and no evidence of collaboration, conversation or community.   An argument can be made that various social media channels were being used in order to reach the greatest number of users and that information and marketing was the objective, however Harpointer (2012) and Freud (2010) warn against engaging in social media without understanding the nature of social media and allow dialogue and user-generated content to occur.

The final posting I'd like to evaluate was Information Policy, and that coincided with a media furore about a social media posting here in Singapore.  Unravelling the incident under the rubrics of identity, privacy, security and trust, it became apparent that the concepts of privacy and trust were illusions in the world of social media.  Everything you post "can and will be used against you". In addition postings "live forever" even though one tries to delete them.  The concept of personal identity online versus in person is a very interesting one.   In essence the ideal would be to have congruence between the two identities, the problem comes when one is "a dog" (Pearson, 2009).  In person the less positive attributes are limited to a smaller audience than on social media and personal contact with your "friends" (Young, 2013).  In the workplace, an abrasive personality may be compensated for by limited customer interface or good performance in profitability - on the Internet these compensating factors are eliminated at the less positive aspects highlighted.  Although companies are encouraged to have social media policies governing their employees  (Lasica, n.d.), what employees do in their private capacity on "private" social media can impact organisations adversely.  For this reason Lauby (2009) argues, "employers need to be upfront with employees that they have no right to privacy with respect to social networking".  

Within the school sphere, studies such as Keipi and Oksanen (2012) point to the problems around anonymity and social identity which leads to less social accountability, particularly in the sphere of cyber bullying, aggression and harassment.  These are issues that schools would need to address in their policies, particularly with the movement to one-laptop-per-student and the increased use of smart-phones and other mobile devices. 

b) Reflective Statement

Looking back on the beginning of this semester, my use and experimentation of social media could probably be categorised as random.  As an early adopter of computers and the Internet, I’d grown tired of the “flavour of the month” in social media and was trying out new media without spending the necessary time to understand how to use it properly.  Enrolling in the course coincided with starting work with a very media-savvy librarian, who encouraged me to try out new tools and assisted in shortening the learning curve, which, together with the guidance and instruction offered in INF506 kept me stimulated and experimental. 

One of the most interesting aspects of the course was examining social media under an “academic” lens and thinking about matters such as identity or participation in online groups from a sociological or psychological viewpoint, or personal learning networks from a knowledge management perspective always reflecting back what it means for the library and information sciences (Burkhardt, 2009; Casey and Stephens, 2009) and the individual librarian (Utecht, 2008).

https://flipboard.com/profile/nadinebailey754

Looking back in my module notes, on numerous occasions I’ve scribbled “out of date” or “links no longer working” even though the resources were no more than three years old.  The core learning in such a rapidly evolving field is the ability to differentiate between concepts and ideas, and the materials or tools that they are embodied in at a moment in time (Standage, 2013 reviewed by Shariatmadari, 2013).

http://paper.li/deschatjes/1387886085

        My research project “Comparative analysis of social networking tools and technologies for International School Librarians in Asia” prompted me to evolve further as a social networker in my professional sphere.  Many librarians had responded on the benefits of Twitter and Google+, necessitating professional exploration into the ways in which these tools could be incorporated in my learning network through aggregators such as Paper.li and Flipboard.  Becoming active in both these tools and curating material for librarians and students has been very satisfying as more people access and use these resources.  

However, despite these useful tools, there is still a frustration shared by the librarians canvassed in my research.  On the one hand there are graphically interesting, dynamic, current but ephemeral resources  (Twitter, Google+, Facebook, Paperli) which are constantly refreshed without reference to what is useful in an ongoing manner. On the other hand there are the static collaborative wikis (Wikispaces) which had their hey-day in professional networks around 2006,  but are suffering from neglect and time shortage on the part of their initiators.  There are attempts at social bookmaking using folksonomies (Vander Wal, 2007) with less graphically enticing but practical tools (Delicious, Diigo).  Forums and listservs as social media didn't receive a lot of attention in the course although these appear to be the dominant mode of interaction for many of the professionals surveyed. As a professional and as a researcher I have become more and more interested in knowledge management and how the world of the online social network can be carved out by organisations and individuals to meet their information and learning needs and this is something I would like to explore further.

The concepts of online identity are fascinating and manifold.  Reading around issues relating to identity, trust, privacy and security in social media made me re-examine both my use of social media and that of my family using various tools suggested in the modules.  Professionally the most important take-away for me has been the value of building up your online professional identity as a librarian using your own name as a "brand".

Practically I've learnt much which can be directly beneficial to my work, whether in terms of Website design (Lazaris, 2009; Mathews, 2009) or marketing (Brown, 2009) or how to approach teaching students about the use (and abuse) of Social Media (Valenza, 2009; Stephens, 2011; Lorenzo, 2007) and the creation of a social media policy (Dearnley and Feather, 2001; Lauby, 2009) and strategy (Kagan, 2010).

Finally, the best part of the course was to be afforded the time to systematically explore the world of online social media in all its aspects, to play around with the tools, using and keeping or discarding them according to their relevance or usefulness while still earning academic credit!

I'll end this reflection with the latest Facebook meme - the wonderful "Map of the Internet 1.0" created by Jay Jason Simons - a graphic glimpse of the state of the Internet world in 2014. 

Map of the Internet by Jay Jason Simons @ deviantart.com

References:

Brown, A. (2009). Developing an Effective Social Media Marketing Strategy. Examiner.com. Retrieved January 19, 2014, from http://www.examiner.com/article/developing-an-effective-social-media-marketing-strategy

Burkhardt, A. (2009, August 25). Four Reasons Libraries Should be on Social Media. Information Tyrannosaur. Retrieved January 30, 2014, from http://andyburkhardt.com/2009/08/25/four-reasons-libraries-should-be-on-social-media/

Casey, M., & Stephens, M. (2009). You can’t afford not to do these things. Library Journal. Retrieved from http://tametheweb.com/2009/03/15/you-cant-afford-not-to-do-these-things/

DePlanty, J., Coulter-Kern, R., & Duchane, K. A. (2007). Perceptions of Parent Involvement in Academic Achievement. Journal Of Educational Research, 100(6), 361–368.

Dearnley, J., & Feather, J. (2001). Information policy. In The wired world: An introduction to the theory and practice of the information society (pp. 60–93). London: Library Association. Retrieved from http://unilinc20.unilinc.edu.au/F/? func=direct&doc_number=001664190&local_base=L25RESERVES

Farkas, M. (2007). Building Academic Library 2.0 [YouTube]. Retrieved January 30, 2014, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_uOKFhoznI

Freud, A. (2010). Brand Success and Failures in Social Media [YouTube]. Retrieved January 19, 2014, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G_CblR8jSQ

Harpointer, T. (2012). 10 Killer Social Media Pitfalls Businesses Must Avoid. AIS Media. Retrieved January 19, 2014, from http://www.aismedia.com/press/10-killer-social-media-pitfalls-businesses-must-avoid/

Hay, L. (2010). Developing an Information Paradigm Approach to Build and Support the Home-School Nexus [online]. In Mal Lee & Glenn Finger (Eds.), Developing a Networked School Community: A Guide to Realising the Vision (pp. 143–158). Camberwell, Vic.: ACER Press. Retrieved from http://search.informit.com.au.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/documentSummary;dn=324432590971664;res=IELHSS

Hoover‐Dempsey, K. V., Walker, J. M. T., Sandler, H. M., Whetsel, D., Green, C. L., Wilkins, A. S., & Closson, K. (2005). Why Do Parents Become Involved? Research Findings and Implications. The Elementary School Journal, 106(2), 105–130. doi:10.1086/499194

Kagan, M. (2010, July 13). What is social media NOW? Slideshare. Retrieved January 30, 2014, from http://www.slideshare.net/mzkagan/what-is-social-media-now-4747765

Keipi, T., & Oksanen, A. (2012). Youth Online: Anonymity, peer interaction and linked subjectivity in Social Media (pp. 16–27). Presented at the To be Young! Youth and the Future, Turku, Finland. Retrieved from https://www.utu.fi/fi/yksikot/ffrc/julkaisut/e-tutu/Documents/eBook_2013-8.pdf#page=16

Lasica, J. (n.d.). Best practices for developing a social media policy. Socialmedia.biz. Retrieved January 30, 2014, from http://socialmedia.biz/social-media-policies/best-practices-for-developing-a-social-media-policy/

Lauby, S. (2009, April 27). Should Your Company Have a Social Media Policy? Retrieved January 30, 2014, from http://mashable.com/2009/04/27/social-media-policy/

Lazaris, L. (2009, November 27). Designing Websites for Kids: Trends and Best Practices. Smashing Magazine. Retrieved January 30, 2014, from http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/11/27/designing-websites-for-kids-trends-and-best-practices/

Lorenzo, G. (2007). Catalysts for Change: Information Fluency. Clarence Center, NY: Lorenzo Associates, Inc. Retrieved from http://www.edpath.com/images/IFReport2.pdf

Mathews, B. (2009). Web design matters: ten essentials for any library site. Library Journal, 134(3), 24. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA199461903&v=2.1&u=csu_au&it=r&p=EAIM&sw=w&asid=772bd6e5bac5518cf7d8b35c4be2c212

Mishra, G. (2009, May 11). Digital Activism: the 4Cs Social Media Framework. Global Voices Advocacy. Retrieved January 30, 2014, from http://advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org/2009/05/11/digital-activism-the-4cs-social-media-framework/

Pearson, J. (2009). Life as a Dog [online]. Meanjin, 68(2), 67–77.

Shariatmadari, D. (2013, October 11). Writing on the Wall: Social Media – The First 2000 Years by Tom Standage – book review. The Guardian. Retrieved January 30, 2014, from http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/11/writing-wall-social-media-standage-review

Simons, J. J. (n.d.). Map of the Internet 1.0. deviantART. Retrieved January 30, 2014, from http://the9988.deviantart.com/art/Map-of-the-Internet-1-0-427143215

Stephens, M. (2011, September 30). Exploring the impact of Learning 2.0. www.InfoToday.eu. Retrieved January 30, 2014, from http://www.infotoday.eu/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/Exploring-the-impact-of-Learning-2.0-78002.aspx

Thomas, L. C. (2011). Google+ and the Commodification of Cool. Journal of Web Librarianship, 5(4), 322–326. doi:10.1080/19322909.2011.623535

Utecht, J. (2008, April 3). Stages of PLN adoption [Blog]. The Thinking Stick. Retrieved January 30, 2014, from http://www.thethinkingstick.com/stages-of-pln-adoption/

Valenza, J. (2003). A letter to parents about the Internet. Library Media Connection, 22(3), 30–31.

Valenza, J. (2009, September 27). 14 Ways K–12 Librarians Can Teach Social Media. Tech Learning. Retrieved January 30, 2014, from http://www.techlearning.com/copyright/0031/14-ways-k%E2%80%9312-librarians-can-teach-social-media-by-joyce-valenza/46329

Vander Wal, T. (2007, February 2). Folksonomy. vanderwal.net. Retrieved January 30, 2014, from http://www.vanderwal.net/folksonomy.html

Young, K. (2013). Managing online identity and diverse social networks on Facebook. Webology, 10(2). Retrieved from http://www.webology.org/2013/v10n2/a109.pdf