Valenza

Joyce Valenza

Joyce Valenza is currently the Library Information Specialist at Springfield Township High School in Pennsylvania, but that's not all! She is a prolific speaker, blogger, and writer on a variety of topics including technology, issues relating to librarians, and education. Valenza is at the forefront of using a wide variety of technology tools to promote the school library, its benefits and its critical role in education today. She promotes a strong web presence for every school library and allowing student access to their library 24/7. Valenza is a great proponent of utilizing today's technology to integrate education into everyday life. Take a look at her Manifesto for 21st Century School Librarians to get an idea of her thoughts on the subject.

Joyce Valenza does not have your typical, everyday, run of the mill, school library website, instead it is truly a virtual library, albeit a busy one! The students at Springfield Township High School have unlimited access to their [|virtual library] via the web. Students, parents, and teachers can access the entire library from their home computer, smart phone, or other device. Research can be done whenever and wherever students are and want to get working. Research tips, tools, and guides are available at the click of a mouse or touch of a button. The school library catalog is online and ready for use.

 Dr. Valenza is also the author of the School Library Journal's blog [|Neverending Search]. The Neverending Search is Valenza's take on the current practices, professional strategies and growth issues that surround her ongoing goal of making libraries the place to be. She discusses the ever-changing technology that our students are constantly bombarded with and how to incorporate them into our schools and libraries. She blogs about the latest and greatest (and not so great) software, hardware, and web resources, answers queries from new and experienced librarians alike, and shares her experiences as she teaches, writes, addresses conferences and works with real life students.

 I find Dr. Valenza to be a very forward thinking teacher and librarian. I believe that, as teacher librarians, we have to do our best to meet our students where they are. If that means we meet them in cyberspace, then so be it! As our society changes, with an ever increasing pace, I feel we must shift our attitudes and change with it. Utilizing as much technology as possible in the school library (both the physical library and the virtual one) sends the message that we, as librarians, are aware of the changes in our society and in our students. We need to be willing to embrace the new while updating the old, tried and true. I see Joyce Valenza as a great proponent of this and look to her as a guide. mwm 