The Librarian Influencer of the Week is Amanda Hunt, a librarian from New Braunfels, Texas. She’s worked 9 years as a librarian in both the elementary and middle school settings. Click here to listen to her interview now.
Here are some Librarian Influencer strategies Amanda shared for early-career librarians:
She loved elementary libraries for the book talking and book recommendations to young students. But, she felt at home when she moved to the middle school level. She loves this age group and is personally able to make better connections with middle school students.
It’s always going to feel like a new experience when you move to a new campus.
Change takes time. Have goals, but realize your changes impact people directly you are there to support.
She always has a summer to-do list. This year’s list includes:
- Branding herself as a librarian - the next gen librarian
- She is learning from the social issues that are in the news. She plans to work on
building her collections in various social justice issues like LGBTQI+, Black Lives
- Matter, LatinX, and novels in verse.
- She will build Destiny collections with these social justice titles.
- She is making plans to genre-fy her non-fiction section.
- Creating training videos for her staff.
Check out MESH - media literacy, ethics, sociology, and history.
Here is a list of Amanda’s recommendations about social media:
Elementary social media is more for connecting with parents.
In middle school, using social media allows you to connect with students.
Teaching digital citizenship and safe usage of social media as a student
Instagram is how she shares what’s happening in her library. She posts at least one photo daily.
She learned about TIkTok from the students.
She built her PLN of fellow librarians on TIkTok. Tokstarlibrarians was started by @akbusybee.
Using social media creates a unique connection with your patrons. You can recommend books. You can showcase what’s happening in the library.
Amanda encourages you to download the TIkTok app and just watch for a while. Follow her and see librarians she follows.
She recommends thinking through whether you should use a personal or a library account. Be considerate of what you are posting and realize it will be a reflection of your school.
She learns a lot from her students. When they talk about something new, she wants to be a part of that conversation.
Her TIkTok PLN uses Discord to chat with each other and to follow trends.
You can follow Librarian Influencer Amanda Hunt at:
Twitter: @thenextgenlib
Instagram: @thenextgenlibrarian
Facebook: www.facebook.com/thenextgenlibrarian
TIkTok: @thenextgenlibrarian or @tokstarlibrarians
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