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The Future Ready Librarian

Two resources in this section particularly spoke to me and enhanced my concept of a Future Ready Librarian. The graphic “FUTURE READY LIBRARIAN SUPPORT STUDENT-CENTERED LEARNING (Links to an external site.)” is exciting. Words like “data,” “strategic,” and “digital” jump out — these aren’t describing your stereotypical librarians portrayed in pop culture. 
(The words that come to mind when I picture the school libraries of my past include “staid,” “quiet,” and “unwelcoming.”) 
And then, during Mark Ray’s TEDx Talk, he pointed out that librarians need to “meet the needs of students and teachers today.” I hadn’t seen or heard it put quite so bluntly before. Do you want to be the person who is leading the pack? Or the person who everyone is looking back at forlornly as they push on without you? Do you want to be an active contributor or a dead weight in your school community? The answer is pretty obvious.
But one problem is that these concepts are hard to plan for and identify. “Strategic,” “data,” “meeting needs” — those aren’t concrete action steps. I believe, in order for someone to meet these qualifications and be a future ready librarian, they have to have an open mind, be eager to collaborate, and participate in as much professional development/professional learning communities as possible. As they said in the Field of Dreams, “if you build it, they will come.” If you build a welcoming, warm space that is staffed by a knowledgeable librarian who is friendly to technology and open to collaboration, the space will be a success.
How can librarians use data in their space? I think that they could use circulation stats to feature popular books - but I’m drawing a blank on other examples and would love input.
Upon further reflection, I think being a "future ready librarian" is not enough - we have to be "future making." It calls to mind the quote attributed to speaker Jim Rohn: "If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan."

Citations:
“Future Ready Librarians®.” Future Ready Schools, futureready.org/thenetwork/strands/future-ready-librarians/.
“Changing the Conversation About Librarians.” YouTube, uploaded by TEDx Talks, 7 June 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IniFUB7worY&feature=youtu.be

(This essay addressed the prompt: Share with your classmates your current understanding of what it means to be a "Future-Ready" librarian.)
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