Brittany Kester (she/her) is an Education Librarian at the University of Florida. She is pursuing a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Florida and holds a master's degree in Library and Information Studies from Florida State University. She has 8 years of library experience and has taught university courses in children's literature, media literacy, and library research methods.
Recently a few of the Diverse BookFinder (DBF) team members attended the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) Conference in sunny Tampa, FL! This conference is the only US conference that is solely for school librarians and features keynote speakers, author panels, educational and workshop sessions, an exhibit hall, author signings, and poster and IdeaLab presentations.
Rachael Elrod and myself (Brittany Kester) hosted a table in the IdeaLab and Poster hall where we shared about the DBF with over 400 people, many of whom were being introduced to the DBF for the first time. We were also able to show off the new DBF logo!
At the IdeaLab tables the presenters are able to interact with the conference attendees in an interactive and engaging format. Rachael and I were able to talk with the school librarians about the different features of the DBF including the searchable collection and the Collection Analysis Tool (CAT). We had handouts with steps for running a CAT report, as well as a cheat-sheet for downloading the needed information from school Library Management Systems.
For those of you that do not know that the CAT is, it is a free, online tool that is designed to help users analyze their children’s and young adult book collections. All you need to do is create an account, upload a list of book ISBNs, and then a report consisting of statistics about your collection will arrive in your email. The CAT reveals strengths and gaps in the racial/cultural representation within collections and can be used by teachers, librarians, and other educators to identify areas to focus collection development, advocate for funds, and illustrate goals met.
At the conference we spoke to many school librarians that have used the DBF and the CAT, with its current collection of picture books, both to analyze their collections and to identify books to purchase to fill in any gaps the CAT found.
We also shared about the upcoming additions to the DBF (check out our previous post about what is happening while the DBF is hibernating!). The librarians attending the conference were most excited about the expansion of the books to include graphic novels, early reader, middle grade, young adult books as well as the new, more detailed character and content tags that will accompany these books.
Rachael and I were also able to meet with a few of the DBF team that live around the country that we have not been able to meet in person!
This was such a fun conference! We were so privileged to be able to attend and speak with so many amazing school librarians!
We hope that the DBF is a helpful tool for all educators and we look forward to visiting many more conferences in the future, especially once the expanded version of the DBF launches early in the new year!
Make sure you keep an eye on #DBFHibernates on social media (Facebook, Instagram) and subscribe to our DBF Newsletter to stay in the loop! And look for us at the American Library Association (ALA) conference in San Diego next summer!