Pitching the Library: The Elevator Speech

Presented by Michelle Luhtala, Library Department Chair, New Canaan High School, CT; and Susan Ballard, Program Developer and Instructor USNH
Sponsored by Mackin Educational Resources

Watch the Recording

If you attended the live session, you’ll be emailed a CE certificate within 24 hours of the edWebinar. If you view the recording and would like a CE certificate, join the Emerging Tech community and go to the edWebinar Archives folder to take the CE quiz.

When administrators are faced with challenging budget cuts, they frequently cut from library programs—often because they don’t understand how strong library programs serve the learning community. In this edWebinar, Michelle Luhtala, Library Department Chair at New Canaan High School, CT, who just returned from the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) National Conference, interviews Susan Ballard, Program Developer and Instructor at USNH. Susan and Michelle share how the newly unveiled standards can facilitate conversations around the role of librarians, libraries, and library programs. This edWebinar will equip participants with talking points to promote library programs, reframing their work with new language, and dispelling myths about librarianship. All librarians are invited to watch this recorded session.

About the Presenters

Michelle Luhtala is the Library Department Chair at New Canaan High School in Connecticut and was one of five school librarians named as a “Mover and Shaker” by Library Journal in 2015. She is the winner of the 2011 “I Love My Librarian” Award and the Library Association’s 2010 Outstanding Librarian Award. The New Canaan High School Library won AASL’s National School Library Program of the year in 2010. Follow her on Twitter @mluhtala.

Susan D. Ballard, Program Developer and Instructor at USNH, has over 25 years of experience as a district director of library, media and technology in an award-winning school district, which she later parlayed into successful practice as an adjunct professor in a variety of school librarian preparation programs, and most recently, into the development of a new program for the University System of New Hampshire. She is a past president of the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) and a current member of AASL’s Standards and Guidelines Editorial Board and CAEP Coordinating Committee and Working Group to revise AASL Standards for the Preparation of School Librarians. Susan also served as a member of Julie Todaro’s ALA Presidential Initiative Steering Committee and Co-chair of the school library sub-committee to develop school librarian competencies. Susan is a member of the advisory board for Teacher Librarian and the board of directors for the Q.E.D. Foundation, and has published in a variety of education and library journals.

Join the Emerging Tech community to network with educators, participate in online discussions, receive invitations to upcoming webinars, view past webinars, take a quiz to receive a CE certificate for a past webinar, and access free resources.
Watch the Recording

 Mackin is one of the top providers of library and classroom materials for grades PK-12. Working with over 18,000 publishers and a database of nearly 3 million printed titles, and more than 1.9 million digital titles, Mackin supplies print books, eBooks, online educational databases, audiobooks and video resources to schools around the globe.