NYC School Librarian Guidebook: Creating a Vision Statement for the School Library

Vision statements describe the desired future, the end result of your efforts. School and library vision statements often describe the educational climate and student success that will be in place when the school has achieved its goals (e.g., a community of learning and literacy that leads to high academic achievement. . .).

SAMPLE FROM NYC OFFICE OF LIBRARY SERVICES: VISION OF LIBRARY:
The library fosters a community of learning and literacy that leads to high academic achievement, independent reading and learning, and collaboration throughout the school.

A PROCESS FOR BUILDING A VISION
Discussion among the Principal, Librarian and Teachers will help shape the vision of the Library. You can use the following process to guide your collaborative development of a library vision [See also the worksheet in 1.3.2].

With a team of three to four people, individually, identify what you believe about school libraries:

I believe that

School libraries should teach. . . .

A good school library is one that. . . .

A school library enables students to. . . .

School libraries impact understanding of content by. . . .

School libraries strengthen classroom learning by. . . .

In addition to that, describe the activity in your ideal school library:

The kinds of activities I would see in a school library are

Students would be. . . .

Teachers would be. . . .

Administrators would be. . . .

Parents would be. . . . 

Now combine each team member’s completed sentences within a bullet format under the sentence stem.  From that list of items, develop a shared vision statement for the ideal school library.

Your vision should be a few sentences combining as many of the concepts each member has provided as appropriate. Through consensus, decide which are the most important from each member’s sentence.

Your vision may start with “We believe” in the first paragraph. The second paragraph may start with “We see” or “Our students will”. Include the activities and outcomes that the members of your team agree are most important.