Library Infographic

I was asked by my lead librarian to put together a one page infographic on my library.

One page

That's not a lot of space.

But it made me really focus on what's important and what I wanted to highlight.  And it made my brain hurt. Ha!

A little background.

This is my 4th year as a librarian in this district.  

*4 years ago every librarian in the district was certified (9 of us). 

*3 years ago the smallest elementary school in the district decided to hire a paraprofessional to run the library one day a week instead of having a part time certified librarian have the library open 2 1/2 days a week (by TLA standards this school did not have to have a certified librarian because their student body numbers were so small). So 8 out of 9 libraries were staffed by certified librarians. 

*Last year we had another librarian leave and were down to 6 certified librarians and 3 paras.  

*This year we are down to 5 certified librarian with 4 paraprofessionals.

Every year we seem to digress.  As you can image the certified librarians find this disturbing.  Part of the problem is that we don't have a lot of certified librarians knocking down our doors to work here.  So it IS hard to hire certified librarians when we don't have any to hire.

But the other problem is:

4 out of 6 of our elementary schools do not have certified librarians.  Some of these principals don't understand why they need a certified librarian.  

With that being said my goal for this infographic is to show what I do as a professional with a masters degree and certification in my field and why a paraprofessional with only a high school degree or even a certified educator (not in Library Science) cannot do all that I do and to showcase what the library provides the school.  My question to you, dear readers, is did I do that?

And another problem is:

 “A lot of what we do very well can be invisible...."  Sara Kelly Johns, school librarian, consultant, and American Association of School Librarians (AASL) past president. Vercelletto, Christina. "ESSA-and Federal Support of School Libraries-Signed Into Law." School Library Journal. Media Source, 09 Dec. 2016. Web. 09 Dec. 2016.  

When I read that quote all I could think is "Yeap!  That's it exactly!"  I showed this infographic to a teacher who doesn't understand what I do.  After he read it he said "I didn't know you did all that.  But the problem is not every certified librarian does this stuff."  True... and how do we fix that?  That's a topic for another time!  I also showed it to a good friend of mine who is an assistant principal and tells me all the time he doesn't see the need for a librarian.

The Infographic:

I tried not to use the pronoun "I" too much.  I didn't want it to sound braggy about what I do.  I want it to be about what a certified librarian can do.  But part of what I do is because I'm doing it. 

If there's something you don't understand more than likely the principals will not either.  Please point those things out to me so I can clarify them in the infographic.

Is there anything I should add or take away?  I have until January to work on this so I have plenty of time to play with it and make sure I'm getting my point across.

Any and all constructive criticism is welcomed!!!

Here's a Google Drive link in case you can't enlarge the picture below.