Juanita Leatham e-portfolio

Competency M: Demonstrate professional leadership and communication skills.

Introduction

Being a librarian means that you are a leader in society and in the library. Librarians can lead in the way they set up their students for success or by keeping visitors engaged. One can also lead by keeping track of demographics or by monitoring new and existing programs. Being a librarian also means that we have strengths in effectively communicating as a MLIS professional. 

Improved Student Achievement

Diane Oberg in Libraries in Schools: Essential Contexts for Studying Organizational Change and Culture says, “The goal of the school library is to positively contribute to teaching and learning in the school. Research has shown that an integrated school library program, appropriately resourced and staffed, can contribute to improved student achievement. The school library also has the potential to contribute to the social goals of schools, such as student engagement,  inclusion of diverse learners, and relationships with the community.” 

Being a librarian doesn’t mean staying within the confines of the walls of the library. Sometimes being a librarian means going to school classrooms and talking to students about what the library has to offer them. Maybe it’s manga, magazines, or resources for their next project. Or maybe its bilingual offerings for diverse learners. Or maybe it’s setting up a buy-a-book booth at a local hometown fair or farmers market. Not that computers are unimportant, students can achieve more than just using the library for Facebook, they can do research for their classes but also get enveloped in fiction or enlightened in non-fiction.

Conducting Interviews

In Web Style Guide, it was said that “To do a good interview you’ll need at least one research conversation with your subject so that you understand the point of the video and the essential stories or explanations to cover, and to get a sense for how to construct a short video that conveys the core information” (Lynch & Horton, 2016) 

Creating videos to teach introductions and lessons are two reasons to sit down and do an interview. Sometimes doing a short interview is just as effective as doing a long interview and vice versa. Doing interviews demonstrates leadership and communication skills. Sometimes doing interviews lets you see if the grass is greener on the other side. I did an interview with a library manager who was in charge of a library that was in a financially upscale community. They did not need any extra funding and grant writing because their library visitors were that well off. Having an interview with that library manager did not give me information about budgeting because they did not have to find any extra money. They were already being given funding by their well off community. 

Learners, Environment, Situation

I base my communication style off of Kaplowitz’s three prong approach that starts with analyzing learners, environment, and situations. 

“Your learners – in order to gather data about Learners and their information needs, needs assessments look at such things as demographics, past ILI (information literacy instruction) experiences, educational goals, and so forth” (Kaplowitz, 2014). 

In communicating teaching strategies as a librarian I would analyze my visitors needs and who they are (demographics). A library with visitors who are wealthy may need different materials than visitors that are low income. Take for example, the interview above, there isn’t a need for community inoculations because the demographic is so wealthy. Whereas, further into the interview there is discussion about other libraries providing flu and other shots to low income individuals who are also library visitors.   

“Your environment – you will also need to examine your institution or communities culture, climate, and politics. This is a good opportunity to find out who in your institution or community might share your interest in ILI and could be potential partners for you” (Kaplowitz, 2014). 

Friends of the Library Organization would be a welcome addition to Los Angeles libraries, which is where I live. Lots of libraries in my area serve low income persons and families. Having this extra funding from Friends of the Library Organization would increase materials being onboarded.

“Your situation – looking at your library’s resources to determine what types of instruction can be supported given the current situation (staffing, facilities and equipment, funding, time allocations, training needed Etc)” (Kaplowitz, 2014). 

Monetary funding would be helpful to purchase more library materials. Also, extra training for library staff would be welcome. For example, more training in Narcan use would be helpful for Los Angeles librarians that may experience visitors who overdose on narcotics.

Evidence

1 – INFO 232: Issues in Public Libraries: Equity Challenge in Public Library Services Report (INFO 232)

For my first piece of evidence for Competency M, I will explain my part in the paper on equity/equality. In the following equity report I was to lead the first and historical part of the collaborative paper. I found out that, “PBS describes Jim Crow laws as laws that “affected almost every aspect of daily life, mandating segregation of schools, parks, libraries, drinking fountains, restrooms, buses, trains, and restaurants. “Whites Only” and “Colored” signs were constant reminders of the enforced racial order” (Camfield Leatham et al, 2024) 

It is with my leadership as a librarian that we stay woken up to what we now take for granted like freedom to drink water at any water fountain. During segregation libraries were also divided. It is my hope that society will never go back to the times where people were divided by race, especially in the library. Being a librarian means being a leader. It is our responsibility to stay in the know about which books are highlighting racism in honest form. It is also important to keep those books in  rotation. It is important to keep books and authors that are underrepresented outside the walls of the library uplifted online in a newsletter for example or inside direct sight on the shelves.

2 – INFO 233: School Library Media Centers: INFO 233 – Scope and Sequence – Rationale/Reflection – Juanita Leatham

For my second piece of evidence for Competency M, I will explain the scope and sequence and also the rationale/reflection of my 36-week long library calendar. “My instructional focus is based around AASL Standards Framework for Learners and Model School Library Standards for California Public Schools Kindergarten Through Twelve. I am zeroing in on students checking out at least one book every month and to write a research paper about it. Most months have themes based on the history or theme of the month and two of those research papers have a free choice of what students would like to write about. There are also two breaks in writing research papers” (Leatham, 2025). 

Looking at the calendar, librarians can show leadership by using short to long videos as well as other materials like books to explain the information about how to write a research paper will increase the amount of books being borrowed. Librarians can lead classes of students by teaching and showing informational videos online and how that relates to an increase in checking out books for their research papers. 

3 – INFO 250: Design and Implementation of Instructional Strategies for Information Professionals: Instructional Design Planning Worksheet for Step 6: Choosing Teaching and Learning Tools and Planning Instructional Materials

For my third piece of evidence for Competency M, I will show how digital tools help with teaching. “I will use in-person chat at the library and voice over tools online using Canva. In-person chat is also valuable information that will also guide my synchronous lecture as well. It could help me shape other lectures I’m to do or help me to edit the “How to download and use Hoopla app” presentation and for other future in-person classes as well. I will also use any comments that are left on YouTube to guide my lecture moving forward.” (Leatham, 2025). 

In the quote above I was acting as a teacher of a mobile application called Hoopla. This is a video and ebook streaming platform. As a leader and librarian, using the synchronous way of instructing and learning are what we are focusing on because our environment is the library teaching new programming. As a librarian/instructor I would be the one asking students if they need help signing in and checking out an ebook or music. 

4 – INFO 233: School Library Media Centers: Discussion | Humanities Programming

For my fourth piece of evidence for Competency M, I will show how librarians show leadership and communication skills. For this example I was to read two articles and one of them was by Tammy Gruer. The article I chose for my favorite idea was from her article. “My favorite idea is from “Creative Collaboration” where Tammy Gruer says, “When school librarians collaborate with the art and music teachers, significant opportunities for inquiry-based, collaborative instruction occur. Art and music teachers bring their expertise to the classroom, helping learners explore their questions through creative and hands-on activities” (Gruer, n.d.) I like this idea because it involves the librarian and collaboration with art and music teachers” (Leatham, 2025). I liked that this article showed where art and creativity can evolve into leadership and communication. It takes communication between the librarian and teachers, like art and music teachers to pull off well-thought-out creative lessons. It takes leadership in order to make sure all teachers are on board so that lessons with children or even teens are successful.

Conclusion

Being a librarian means also being an instructor to the visitors and students that come through the library doors. There is such a variety of programming at libraries that affects its environment and situation. Librarians also have calendars that they fill with programming as well as quick introductions that are filled with information on how to write, search, and research papers by using the internet, books, and other materials like journals.

References

Camfield, J. (2025). INFO 233 – Scope and sequence – rationale/reflection – Juanita Leatham. [Google Doc].  https://docs.google.com/document/d/15kE3612pRVSXZxjKjTr3qU7-n2r_0l-_iQ37HpmvEMU/edit?usp=sharing. 

Camfield Leatham, J. Lopez-Gutierrez, X. & Herrera, L. (2024, October 13). Equity challenge in public library services. [Google Doc]. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uKc1dlG3KRsDQLE-Zms9pbvU7fQD75bf511yRkJAaR8/edit?usp=sharing. 

Camfield Leatham, J. (2025). Instructional design planning worksheet for step 6: Choosing teaching and learning tools and planning instructional materials. [Google Doc]. https://docs.google.com/document/d/183UW3EVPvGPy8ecdQ0w6WaS3vtcb62jD5sMUlt1f0dE/edit?usp=sharing. 

Kaplowitz, J.R. (2014). Designing information literacy instruction: The teaching tripod approach. Rowman & Littlefield.

Leatham, J. (2025). Discussion | Humanities programming. [Google Doc]. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Q6AQj09H6ZxFb_o4Ya2JpCW5Cplc-vAhRjHG6Qbzq4k/edit?usp=sharing. 

Lynch, P.J. & Horton, S. (2016). Web style guide: Foundations of user experience design. (4th ed.). Yale University Press.

Oberg, D. (2009). Libraries in schools: Essential contexts for studying organizational change and culture. Library Trends, 58(1), 9-25.