Competencies, Collaboration with Children's Librarian, Kristen Hare, Charleston County Public Library

 I got to meet and talk with Kristen Hare, Children's Librarian Manager at the Dorchester Branch of Charleston County Public Library system. Her branch serves my school community and we thought it important to create a partnership. After being closed for over six months due to refurbishment, It reopened just a couple days ago and Hare realized that they would have to reach out to schools to revive the program. We sat down and talked about how she felt she met AASL's competencies  within her program and focused on Collaboration.  In looking at the calendar her program had events, clubs and storytimes all over the place, It was obvious that she and her team looked for ways to engage their patrons in their program through collaboration.   

STEAM CLUB

Hare was excited to talk about her STEAM club experiences because it seemed to be a perfect example of how they meet Collaboration through each domains.  This program is rolling and never has had a conclusion.  It is project based and requires group work so that encourages collaboration in students.  Using inquiry causes them to ask questions and work out problems with each other.   

Hare discussed how they collaborate with other classroom teachers for specific classes or topics.  One that she was particularly proud of was working with Kelly Burbage for a program provided by NASA.  They created terraforms of mars.  She felt working with classroom teachers keeps her hand on the pulse of where the focus of the program should go.   

Good ole Google Search

Resources that are used are found everywhere.  She has used Ted Talks collaborations with various professionals to bring a real world component. Hare values networking and social media  free experiments and other resources.   Some of her favorite includes SC State Library and the resource kits they lend out for free, blogs and always, "a good old google search".

Some of the challenges she deals with are age old.  Interpersonal differences.  Truly we need to be mindful of our interpersonal skills and understand how to work with others with different styles. This can be make or break when modeling collaboration and collaborating with others.  

Finally as we finished up our conversation she mentioned something that will always be important with any of the important competencies is to consistently look for  new and possible resources.   There is always something coming out or someone using it in a different way that can change the way we work.