AASL’s exploration of the Shared Foundations continues with Engage

CHICAGO — Published by the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) and ALA Editions, “Engage” is both anchor and sail in the Shared Foundations, providing a culmination of knowledge and a starting point for new thinking that promotes learners’ dynamic, spiral, and cyclical journey with AASL’s National School Library Standards. Written by Kathryn Roots Lewis and Marcia A. Mardis, this final volume in a six-book series on the Shared Foundations will help school librarians contextualize and complement the other Shared Foundations while providing learners with the skills and knowledge for their engagements with reading, information, learning, and life. To support school librarians as they help all learners navigate the complex future of information, this book provides:

• grade-band specific learner trajectories that accompany learning scenarios for each Domain within Engage;
• action lists, reflective questions, strategies, policies, and resources to engage learners and school librarians and shape the school library;
• five cross-cutting themes—design thinking; equity, diversity, and inclusion; information quality; inquiry learning; and social-emotional learning—that will resonate with readers as necessary to ensure Engage throughout learners’ academic lives and beyond; and
• web companion pieces that demonstrate professional learning scenarios which can be replicated and modified for use with practicing and pre-service school librarians and adapted for use with other educators and learners.

Examination copies are available for instructors who are interested in adopting this title for course use.

Lewis, retired director of libraries and instructional technology for Norman (Oklahoma) Public Schools, has served in numerous roles with AASL, including as the 2018–2019 president and as a member of the editorial board responsible for reimagining AASL’s National School Library Standards. She is a past president of the Oklahoma Library Association and the Oklahoma Technology Association. Currently she is working with the AASL School Leader Collaborative, an initiative with school administrators to promote the leadership role of school librarians. Mardis is professor of information science and associate dean for research at Florida State University’s College of Communication and Information. She was a school librarian for ten years in Michigan and Texas, while also serving as a high school debate coach and assistant headmaster. A lead writer and editor of AASL’s National School Library Standards, Marcia also led “last mile” broadband implementation projects for Merit Network at the University of Michigan, including Michigan’s digital library for K–12 educators (1998–2008).

The American Association of School Librarians (AASL), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), empowers leaders to transform teaching and learning.

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