The Library Stage

Episode 24: What It Costs to Stand Up with Charlotte Wood*CONTENT WARNINGS: PTSD, BOOK BANNING & CENSORSHIPOn day fifteen of her first year as a librarian, the Charlotte Wood was given a list of books the school board wanted pulled. She wasn't even familiar with the collection yet.In this episode of The Library Stage, Amanda Hunt welcomes Charlotte Wood, high school librarian at Monticello High School in Charlottesville, Virginia, and a thirty-year education veteran.This is the story of what happened at Madison County High School in 2022–23, told in full for the first time since it happened. Twenty-one titles. A board member who read excerpts aloud but admitted he hadn't read the books. A librarian PLC meeting where Charlotte was the only person who spoke up for intellectual freedom, and board meetings where she was the only staff member who showed up at all. Teachers told her privately they supported her. None of them came.But this is also a story about the people who did show up. Community members who followed her to her car when she was afraid to leave a board meeting alone. The public librarian who bought every banned title so students could still get them. A GoFundMe that put 210 books on her shelves, funded by strangers across the country.Charlotte's motto, from Audre Lorde: "My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you."Pillar: 🩵 Discovery💡 Steal-this-idea: Call your public librarian. When Madison County's titles came off the school shelves, the public library director made sure every one of them was in her collection, then walked over with library card applications. Censorship at the district level doesn't have to mean a student loses access.🛠️ Resources:Charlotte's slideshow and presentation — including the full list of the twenty-one pulled titles and interview coverageALA Office for Intellectual Freedom — who she reached out to, and who supported her through itPlus, stick around for her Curtain Call featuring:📖 The twenty-one banned titles — Charlotte's recommendation is the list itself. They're still banned in Madison County and they're not coming back. Buy them, read them, and put them in students' hands somewhere else.Email: [email protected]  Think your library story belongs on the stage? Pitch your talk: [email protected] by Amanda Hunt, MLS (@TheNextGenLibrarian) 🌐 thenextgenlibrarian.com#TheLibraryStage #TakeTheStage #SchoolLibrarians #BannedBooksWeek #BannedBooks #IntellectualFreedom #FreedomToRead #SchoolLibrary #TeacherLibrarian #LibraryAdvocacy #ALA #TxASLThe Library Stage is an independent podcast, not affiliated with TED Conferences LLC.

Episode 23: Why Are All the Black Librarians Gathering in the School Library? with Erika LongFor generations we've asked why representation matters in books. Erika Long wants us to ask why it matters behind the circulation desk.In this episode of The Library Stage, Amanda Hunt welcomes Erika Long, certified school librarian, adjunct lecturer, founder of Not Yo Mama's Librarian LLC, and editor of Why Are All the Black Librarians Gathering in the School Library? Stories and Lessons, out this month.She names the paradox plainly: libraries champion diversity and build inclusive collections, yet the profession itself is 80 to 87% white, with roughly 6% of librarians Black and fewer still in school libraries. Her book collects fifteen voices, the librarian who found the profession because someone finally saw them, the Black male librarian who has never met another Black male elementary librarian, the one documenting microaggressions in a private journal. What surprised her: nobody centered their story on victimhood. Every contributor names a barrier and turns toward possibility.Her closing ask: every student deserves to see possibilities standing in front of them, not just on the shelves.Pillar: 🩵 Discovery💡 Steal-this-idea: Lego book covers. Run a popular title's cover through a Lego-style generator, print it big, and hang it on the end of a shelving unit with a pad of sticky notes beside it. Kids post their guesses, argue with each other, and go check the book out when they figure it out. Erika ran it around Banned Books Week, and the community-building is the real payoff.🛠️ EdTech tool: The Canva presentation remote. Control slides from your phone, plus emoji reactions, a drum roll, applause, timers, and music, and you're free to walk the room instead of standing at your laptop.📖 Featured: Why Are All the Black Librarians Gathering in the School Library? Stories and Lessons, edited by Erika Long — with blurbs from Lauren Mobley, K.C. Boyd, and Becky Calzada. Don't skip The Quiet Part Out Loud at the end of each chapter, or Beyond the Page, her action items and discussion questions.Plus, stick around for her Curtain Call featuring:📖 Night Ride by Christopher Myers — a wordless picture book Erika loves to her core. Vibrant and completely quiet at the same time.Follow Erika: 📱 Instagram: @notyomamaslibrarian | 💼 LinkedIn: Erika Long | 🦋 Bluesky: @erikaslong.bsky.social Think your library story belongs on the stage? Pitch your talk: [email protected] by Amanda Hunt, MLS (@TheNextGenLibrarian) 🌐 thenextgenlibrarian.com#TheLibraryStage #TakeTheStage #SchoolLibrarians #Representation #DiversifyLibrarianship #SchoolLibrary #TeacherLibrarian #LibraryLeadership #AASL #ALA #TxASLThe Library Stage is an independent podcast, not affiliated with TED Conferences LLC.

Heather Schubert will tell you straight out that she has always struggled with book clubs. This is the version that finally worked.In this episode of The Library Stage, Amanda Hunt welcomes Heather Schubert, librarian at middle school in central TX, who runs Battle of the Books across district lines, partnering with two middle schools in Dripping Springs ISD, and a fourth school joining this year.Four rounds a year, two books per round, chosen by the librarians and voted on by the students. Heather buys each kid at least one book per round so they can write in it. They meet weekly during a 25-minute advisory period, all three grade levels together, which means eighth graders end up mentoring timid sixth graders who now have someone to wave to in the hall.The battles themselves rotate between campuses, with a breakfast spread the kids sign up to bring. Questions go up on the big screen, each school huddles at its own table with a giant whiteboard, and everyone holds up their answer when time is called. A trophy for the winning school, medals for every participant.Her real point is who shows up. These aren't the sporty kids. They're the quiet readers who don't have an obvious place to plug in, and this became theirs.Pillar: 🩷 Literacy💡 Steal-this-idea: Let the students write the practice. Heather's team members come up with questions they think might get asked, then build Kahoots to challenge each other between battles. They're doing the close reading work themselves, and it's more fun than anything she'd have assigned.🛠️ Resources:KahootHeather's library website📖 Heather's book recommendationsFollow Heather: 🌐 Her library website — she's not much for social media, so this is the placeThink your library story belongs on the stage? Pitch your talk: [email protected] by Amanda Hunt, MLS (@TheNextGenLibrarian) 🌐 thenextgenlibrarian.com#TheLibraryStage #TakeTheStage #SchoolLibrarians #BattleOfTheBooks #MiddleSchoolLibrary #BookClub #LibraryProgramming #StudentVoice #SchoolLibrary #TeacherLibrarian #TLA #TxASLThe Library Stage is an independent podcast, not affiliated with TED Conferences LLC.

Episode 21: Diamond or Dud? Weeding Is a Lesson with Heather ArguelloHeather Arguello adds about a thousand books to her collection every year. Which means every summer, a thousand books have to go.In this episode of The Library Stage, Amanda Hunt welcomes Heather Arguello, school librarian at Almaden Country Day School in San Jose, California, a pre-K through eighth grade campus of about 425 students, where circulation has tripled under her watch from roughly 8–10,000 a year to over 30,000.Diamond or Dud works like this: students fill out a half-sheet slip with the title, author, call number, and copyright year, then evaluate the book against five criteria and circle a verdict. Diamond, meaning it's been sitting there unnoticed. Or dud, meaning there's a reason nobody's checked it out. Heather wants five slips per book before she decides. If a kid falls for a book mid-evaluation, they can check it out that day and save it.Her point: weeding isn't magic, and kids should know that. When they're part of it, the collection becomes theirs.Pillar: 🩷 Literacy💡 Steal-this-idea: Raffle the new releases. Students enter their name for the chance to be the first to check out an anticipated title, which means they learn what's coming out and when, and a new book arrives with a waiting list instead of sitting on a display.🛠️ Resources:Diamond or Dud evaluation template — Heather's half-sheet student slip, ready to printFollow Heather: 📱 Instagram: @borntobealibrarianThink your library story belongs on the stage? Pitch your talk: [email protected] by Amanda Hunt, MLS (@TheNextGenLibrarian) 🌐 thenextgenlibrarian.com#TheLibraryStage #TakeTheStage #SchoolLibrarians #Weeding #CollectionDevelopment #ElementaryLibrary #MiddleSchoolLibrary #StudentVoice #LibraryLessons #SchoolLibrary #TeacherLibrarian #TxASLThe Library Stage is an independent podcast, not affiliated with TED Conferences LLC.

Episode 20: Passion Clubs Are Programming with Rachel JoinerAt AASL, everyone at the table was naming their sessions. Passive programming. Law for librarians. Then they got to Rachel, who said she was going to Pokémon.In this episode of The Library Stage, Amanda Hunt welcomes Rachel Joiner, librarian at Advent Episcopal School in Birmingham, Alabama, chair of the Yellowhammer Middle Grade Committee, and head of a library recently named ASLA's School Library of the Year.What she found at that panel: ALA ships libraries a free Pokémon starter kit, and the whole thing is built to remove barriers.Rachel opened it to K–8 against every kindergarten teacher's advice and had to cap enrollment. Her actual argument is bigger than Pokémon: low-stakes, no-barrier clubs built around whatever your students are already obsessed with. Legos, K-pop, D&D, squishies. Just ask them, then open the door.Pillar: 🩵 Discovery💡 Steal-this-idea: Passports. After genrefying her fiction, Rachel made a Genre Passport: 12 genres listed, read 10, get a literary prize pack at the end of the year. Kids check out a book and she stamps it. She added a Newbery Passport the next year to push new titles, and it was a raging success. Finished readers get their photo up in the library with the date. Some kids worked both at once, and a Classics passport is coming this year. Her checkouts are up.🛠️ Resources:ALA Pokémon Club kit: still available to apply for, and she says you'll be amazed at what they sendAll other resources linked herePlus, stick around for her Curtain Call featuring:📖 Rachel's book recommendation — her favorite middle grade read of the year, still under consideration for the Yellowhammer list + 2 more professional titles!Follow Rachel: 📱 FB @thesouthernliterarionThink your library story belongs on the stage? Pitch your talk: [email protected] by Amanda Hunt, MLS (@TheNextGenLibrarian) 🌐 thenextgenlibrarian.com#TheLibraryStage #TakeTheStage #SchoolLibrarians #PokemonClub #LibraryProgramming #ElementaryLibrary #MiddleSchoolLibrary #PassionProjects #StudentVoice #SchoolLibrary #TeacherLibrarian #ASLA #TxASLThe Library Stage is an independent podcast, not affiliated with TED Conferences LLC.