Julia Borner, graduate librarian-Head of School Media libraries in the Gütersloh City Library

Professional background & career.

Libraries have always inspired me as places of inspiration. I have been using it since I can remember. No other facility can be used individually for personal development as libraries, be it for school or work, for learning a hobby, to expand the horizon or or or. I still fascinate that knowledge in libraries is actually physically, not only in databases or on storage media, even though the inventory in public libraries changes significantly and decreases its importance. Far too few people are probably aware that libraries offer access to fantastic online resources.

I studied at the Cologne University of Applied Sciences after graduating from high school. Both course and university are called differently today. I work in the Gütersloh city library and have performed different tasks there. At first it was public relations, later the classic editing work. Since 2018 I have been leading the Team of School media libraries within the city library. With six colleagues, we look after seven school libraries from the special school to high school.

Learn more about the Gütersloh city library here.
Photo credits Article Julia Borner: © Gütersloh City Library

Personal experiences.

Working in a school library is significantly different from working in a public library. You can see the customers much more regularly (many times a day) and get to know them well. Sometimes a relationship of trust arises, also because we are not part of the teaching staff and are perceived as neutral people. We accompany the children from their 10th to the 16th or 18th year of life and so we get with us how children become personalities.

We have designed a digital reading promotion project, www.next-level-ersen.de . There, similar to Antolin, the students can enter their read books. The IT in the background calculates the height of the book stack using an interface with our EDP and makes it visible using a reference picture. And since the children can also see how their joint class and school stack grows, they are proud of their common reading performance and talk more about books. For many, it is also an incentive to climb to the next level as quickly as possible. Teachers can get separate access to see who may need a motivational impulse from their class. With Next Level, we would like to accompany as many children and adolescents as possible through the notorious reading knick and, above all, bring the children to reading who cannot (can) receive the necessary help from their parents.
Our evaluation has shown that Next Level some non-readers: Inside with difficult start requirements, they have actually become regular readers: inside. It's nice to see!.

Meaning & added value.

School libraries make a major contribution to the educational biographies of the students. The Colorado study from the United States shows that those who have access to a good school library will perform in tests around 20 % better than students who only have a bad (or no) school library. Promotion of reading is currently a big topic. A quarter of the fourth graders can only read the simplest texts that take up topics that are basically already known. Here, professionally managed school libraries can make important contributions if you get the opportunity to do so.

Recommendations.

Libraries are more than ever colorful places of communication, information, exchange and inspiration. If you like working with and for people, talk to a group of people and inspire you for lifelong learning, you are in good hands in a public library.
The school libraries are particularly important to me and I hope that there will be a lot more specialists in the future than today. The attraction is that you run a manageable library as a one-person library and carry out all work from acquisition to budget management and (school-internal) public relations to events with classes. This is very varied, requires a lot of flexibility and ingenuity and is very fulfilling!

From my personal experience, I can say that internships are important to get a realistic picture of a future job, but can also be the cornerstone for the future job. Several of my colleagues came to their place through internships during their studies.

What specific skills or qualities are important in order to be successful in this professional field? Communication skills, openness, creativity, interest in people, willingness to learn.

What role do teamwork and communication play in daily work? A big one! In our team, a colleague each heads a school media library, which means we only see each other to team meetings. Nevertheless, we try to learn as much as possible and realize joint projects (e.g. Next Level, Gütersloher Youth Book Prize). Every colleague is also closely integrated into her respective school. Communication via a wide variety of channels occupies a large part of our work. Fortunately, there are now cloud solutions to facilitate working at different locations!

Developments & future prospects.

I very much hope that even more federal states will pass to promote school libraries structurally, e.g. B. through specialist agencies. Where this has already been implemented, school libraries, which are often volunteer or personally committed by teachers, receive professional support and practical help in the form of. B. of reading promotion concepts, joint online resources or similar, also concrete school library laws have so far only existed in a few federal states.

As a company, I wish us legal regulations for school libraries on the country. In almost all European countries, school libraries are not the exception, but the rule, often with specialist staff. In Germany it is the other way around: the vast majority of school libraries are held on a voluntary basis, have little budget, manage outdated stocks and do not experience any funding. Last but not least, the PISA studies show the connection between well-equipped schools (with school libraries) and good school performance. It is sad that school libraries in this country lead such a niche existence.

Libraries are more than ever colorful places of communication, information, exchange and inspiration. If you like working with and for people, talk to a group of people and inspire you for lifelong learning, you are in good hands in a public library.