Stories from School Libraries: Librarian Roundtables

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by TuesD Chambers

We are living through unprecedented and challenging times. School librarians are often the social and emotional pulse of our community and we are sorely missing the social interactions that make us love our jobs. To try to ease that burden despite the isolation many of us feel, at Seattle Public School librarians have been holding round tables twice a week since November. 

My name is TuesD Chambers, and I am a high school librarian. I am also the Content Specialist for Secondary Librarians in Seattle Public Schools. Much of what we have done in the past needed to be rebooted for a virtual world. After talking to colleagues, we saw the need for increased community and connection within our librarian cohort. We started doing roundtables twice a week during COVID to address professional development and provide social and emotional support. 

Our roundtables are casual yet structured opportunities to check in on a variety of topics that are timely and important to the communities we serve. Topics have ranged from virtual libraries to how to ask for funding, as well as topics such as programming and reading advocacy, equity work, and more. Issues are identified by what we recognize as a need, what our Program Manager Darcy Brixey or Elementary Content Specialist Merrick Bodmer suggests, and what other SPS librarians request. 

Nobody is the expert; we share what is working and keep our good ideas on a shared document that we all have access to for future support. The meetings are not recorded in order to foster conversation, and people can share exactly what is working for them as we brainstorm and strategize how to help.  We rely on each other as PK -12 librarians and have developed a culture of sharing that has eased some anxiety and made our vast district of 55,000 students feel a little bit smaller. 

When we started the roundtables, naysayers told us librarians would be too busy, mornings wouldn’t work, people would feel intimidated and not contribute, and gave us every excuse in the book not to try. We did not listen. We did what we ask students to do every day, we tried something new and hoped it would work. 

And it did.

If you are interested in learning more, attending a roundtable, or want to talk about how to do this yourself, contact us. I can be reached on Twitter @Beaverreaders, Instagram @Beaverreadersbhs, or email at tschambers@seattleschools.org. To learn more from Merrick Bodmer you can email msbodmer@seattleschools.org. We would love to hear what is working for you in your district and share best ideas.

This past year has shown us now more than ever, we are better together.  

Example Roundtable topics and links: 

Overdue Notices

Programming and Reading Advocacy

Collection Analysis and Troubleshooting


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