2005 Giant Step Winners

"I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library," said Jorge Luis Borges, the celebrated writer who headed Argentina's national library for 18 years. The cowinners of the 2005 Giant Step Award haven't created paradise on earth. But they're working on it. These two very different libraries—the Youth and Outreach Services Division of the Laramie County Library System (LCLS) in Cheyenne, WY, and the media center at the Barnett Shoals Elementary School in Athens, GA, have one purpose: turning children into lifelong readers. We're proud to honor these amazing libraries, and we think you'll be inspired when you learn how they are changing young lives.

The annual SLJ/Thomson Gale Giant Step Award recognizes public and school libraries that have done the most to make themselves indispensable to their schools or communities. This year, a panel of independent judges chose two model libraries to share the $10,000 award.

When Amelia Shelley came to Cheyenne in August 1997, her MLS degree from the University of Illinois was only a few months old. But she wasn't inexperienced. A longtime library volunteer and aide, she had a background in children's theater—a plus for someone about to take charge of children's and young adult services in a three-library system.

What Shelley found when she joined the Laramie County Library System was an easy-to-overlook children's area tucked away in a wing of the L-shaped central library building. "The focus was on preschool children," she says. "There was storytelling and a summer reading program but nothing for young adults."

"It was a dismal situation," recalls Lucie Osborn, the chief librarian of the Laramie County Library System. "We were considering decreasing the number of children's storytimes, because we were only getting four to five kids where before we had 40 or 50. We didn't have a collection for young adults or even space for it. Outreach was almost nonexistent."

Not today. Over the past five years, Shelley and a staff of eager paraprofessionals, now eight strong, have made outreach the most recognizable feature of the library's public face. "Outreach used to be just a part of what we did," Shelley says. "Now we push it." They push it with a cornucopia of programs that have put library cards in the pockets of 78 percent of the county's children and teenagers and made the library, in Shelley's words, "an essential part of every teacher's toolkit." Thanks to these extraordinary gains, the library's Youth and Outreach Services Division (YOS) is cowinner of the 2005 School Library Journal/Thomson Gale Giant Step Award.

Shelley arrived in Cheyenne with two main assignments. One challenged her to create library services for teens and encourage them to read. The other required her to develop programs for underserved children and families, in large part through the city's 10 Title I schools. "We are a public library for everyone, young and old," Osborn explains. "But the future is young people. Any way we can reach children and reach parents we'll try. One way is through the schools."

Shelley invented her own entrée into the schools. She dreamed up a K–3 library-promotion program based on Arthur, the eight-year-old aardvark, and got a grant to execute the program from the American Library Association (ALA) and WGBH, Boston's public broadcasting station. "Arthur's Library Adventure" involved not just books but also puppets, storytelling, birthday cards to Arthur, and—the whole point—library cards. Shelley and her staff took "Arthur's Library Adventure" into 64 classrooms and threw a wrap party that brought 250 people to the central library. Every kid who obtained a fresh library card was given an Arthur book bag and a free fast-food meal. "It was fabulous for all of us," says Shelley.

The success of the Arthur project convinced the library's board of directors to provide funds for a part-time and finally a full-time outreach coordinator. "We weren't able to understand the opportunities before Amy showed us what we could do," says Troy Rumpf, the library's public affairs officer.

The new hire was Judy Norris, a former first-grade teacher from New Mexico. "The goal I was given was identifying unreached populations and finding ways to reach them," she says.

Norris's initial victories took place inside home day-care centers. "We created preschool kits for them—curriculums that were easy to do," she says. "We stuffed book packs with craft ideas, recipes, finger puppets, information on how to read to kids—quality things caregivers could take and just go with." The kits were such a hit that Head Start teachers and commercial day-care centers began to request them. "Then the program really took off," Norris says.

Reaching out to other areas—even school libraries—was slow going. "We had no centralized access to school librarians," Shelley recalls. They couldn't make much headway with classroom teachers, either. "We had to figure out a new way to do it," she says.

Shelley found a ready ally waiting for her at District One's headquarters. He was Mike Klopfenstein, the assistant superintendent of instruction for Cheyenne's schools. Klopfenstein was as enthusiastic as Shelley was about putting library cards in every child's hand. "Amy and I had an opportunity to help both of our organizations, especially the kids that we both serve," he says. "It goes back to that old phrase, 'It takes a village to raise a child.' The library has the same purpose we do."

Thanks to Klopfenstein, the outreach team was soon visiting classrooms regularly, distributing library cards during family literacy nights, meeting teachers' requests for reading materials, and making presentations to the PTO. "At literacy events," says Norris, "we just moved our library service desk into somebody's gym, laminating system and all, and handed out cards."

A science fair was another turning point. Science students came to the library looking for help, and the library obliged. "We realized that if we could do science," Shelley says, "we could make inroads into English, social studies, and other curriculum areas, too."

In time, the county's teachers learned to ask the library for help. "We know we can depend on them," explains Jean Davies, a teacher at Cheyenne's Goins Elementary School. This past fall, Davies called the library for help with a rodeo unit and received the books and reference materials she wanted the next day. "They were right on target with the stuff we asked for," she says. YOS takes pride in meeting all teacher requests within 24 hours.

School visits remain a big part of YOS's activities. "We do 60 story sessions a month in home day cares, Head Start, and at communal day-care facilities," says Norris. "That's pushing 800 to 1,000 kids a month."

Tekla Slider, the library's young adult services specialist, spends one Friday a month at a junior high school. "I go into all eighth-grade English classes with about 60 books and spend 15 minutes in front of each class doing promos for them," she says. Slider measures the impact of her visits the following Monday. "If the books I bring to schools are checked out over the weekend," she explains, "I figure I've succeeded." It's a rare occasion when one of her recommendations is left on the shelf.

YOS staffers are so integrated into the schools they serve that children often greet them by name, or by shouting, "It's the library lady!" "We all get recognized," says Norris. "I get hugs in the supermarket. My husband says, 'You could run for office if your constituents could vote.'"

The library's Summer Reading Celebration is one of its most popular programs. Last year, more than 4,400 kids took part. To boost participation even more this year, in May the staff visited the schools with a puppet show about a frog who signs up for a summer reading program, and—presto!—is turned into a prince.

How are these wonderful programs—plus a ubiquitous bookmobile, a mother-daughter book club, traveling ALA exhibits, visits by cowboy poets, and more—paid for? Not easily. When Shelley arrived, the outreach budget was around $2,000, and some of it was often left on the table. Today, the library contributes about $10,000 a year. Shelley nets another $10,000 to $20,000 in grants, and the Laramie County

Library Foundation adds $15,000 to $20,000 more. "That sounds like a lot," Shelley says, "but it goes very fast."

What haven't disappeared are the achievements. The Youth and Outreach Services Division has helped revitalize the county library system. It has become a key resource for the schools and made community members realize they share responsibility for the library's success. "I'm in awe of Amy and her staff all the time," says Osborn. And so are we.

—Eric Oatman and Micah Sturr

Even at 7:40 in the morning on a schoolwide testing day, the media center in Barnett Shoals Elementary School in Athens, GA, is a happening place. The bright, sunlit room, which holds 17,000 books, six computers, and a few dozen kids comfortably, is abuzz with activity. In one corner of the room, several rapt five-year-olds sit cross-legged on a checkerboard carpet listening to fourth and fifth graders read to them. Elsewhere in the room, children face open books, chat, survey the stacks, tap on keyboards, or circle the displays of books being offered at a half-price book fair.

Nancy Baumann, the school's media specialist and the fair's cashier, stands behind a low, quarter-moon-shaped counter. She knows her customers by name and passes them warm smiles with their change. "I like to make them feel they're special," she says later. "It's like running a business. If you have that nice person at the counter, don't you want to come back?"

At Barnett Shoals, hundreds of children answer yes every day. Library circulation rose from about 19,000 checkouts in 2000, the year Baumann transferred to Barnett Shoals from a local middle school ("I missed the puppets and sitting on the floor with kids"), to almost 44,000 this year. Only 49 percent of the school's fourth graders met or exceeded Georgia's standards for reading competency in 2000. Last year, 79 percent did. Remarkably, these gains took place in a school where 53 percent of its more than 500 students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, where children from 23 nations come to learn, and where one-fifth of the students receive special education services.

Baumann and her assistant, JoAnne Shaw, played a major role in engineering these achievements. By launching an array of imaginative programs, they put the library at the center of the school universe. The Barnett Shoals media center clearly deserves its selection as cowinner of the 2005 SLJ/Thompson Gale Giant Step Award.

Baumann is the first to admit that the school's triumphs aren't just her doing. "The gains involved a schoolwide effort and commitment," she says. Shelia Neely-Norman, a veteran kindergarten teacher, puts it another way. "Here," she says, "reading is not just a library thing. It's everything."

At Barnett Shoals, everything starts with the principal, Ray Clark. "Nancy's library is so wonderful," says Jackie Elsner, the children's librarian at the Athens Public Library, "because Nancy is a nurturer, and she's got a principal who is also a nurturer."

Clark's support for the library is strictly pragmatic. "We put reading wherever the kid is," he says. "But the media center is the only place that touches every kid in the school."

It doesn't hurt that his sister is a media specialist in Atlanta. "He gets it," Baumann says appreciatively. "Whenever I have an idea, I go to him, and he always says, 'Go ahead.'"

It was Clark who found the money to hire Shaw, the only full-time library assistant in any of the county's 17 elementary schools. "I couldn't do anything without JoAnne," Baumann says.

Together they have made the library an indispensable resource for teachers, children, and even parents. "If we need help or guidance with activities that we're doing," says Christine Register, a teacher of gifted students, "we go to Nancy and say, 'Give us some suggestions.'"

A down-to-earth, soft-spoken, goal-directed woman, Baumann is an extraordinary marketer. Every program she has introduced promotes the library, its books, and the joy of reading. This year she launched Beary Special Readers (the school's mascot is a bear), a project that challenges kindergarten parents to read 100 books a year to their children. Home reading is supplemented in the school by volunteers—parents, older children, students from the nearby University of Georgia, even the school custodian. "The kids you read to just think that you're the most special person in the world," says Domingo Ortiz, a member of the rock group Widespread Panic and a parent volunteer who has two children at Barnett Shoals. "The buzz they give you just makes you feel real good inside."

While Beary Special Readers is her own invention, Baumann has pulled ideas for other programs from a variety of sources. The idea for Reading Lunch, which invites children to listen to her read a novel while they eat, came from a 1986 issue of SLJ. This year 255 students took part in the program, which is one of this former classroom teacher's favorites. "It enables me to see the same kids day after day," she explains.

The idea for the student-run Bear Bookstore was suggested by her husband, a professor of education at the University of Georgia and former editor of The Reading Teacher. Open four mornings a week, the "store"—a section of the library's checkout counter—sells high-quality books for a dollar each. "The kids love it," says Marsha Thomas, a fourth-grade teacher.

The program's influence ranges well beyond the school. "Whenever I go to a baby shower," Thomas says, "I stop by the Bear Bookstore first." One parent bought 21 Bear Bookstore gift certificates; her daughter sent them with Valentine cards to her classmates. Another program that moves fresh literature into children's homes is the annual November Book Swap, at which kids trade books they have already read.

To get children to read challenging books, Baumann started a Newbery Club for fourth and fifth graders. The idea originated with a librarian in Omaha, NE, with whom she struck up an e-mail correspondence. Students who read 10 Newbery books get their names engraved on a brass nameplate that is mounted on a wooden plaque in the library. Every May, students who achieve this distinction are presented with a Newbery Medal book and a certificate at a luncheon that they attend with their parents.

To outsiders, Battle of the Books is the most visible of the programs that Baumann brought to Barnett Shoals. Versions of this literary trivia contest have been around for more than 40 years, but it didn't reach Athens until Baumann and another local media specialist, Rosemary Belger, introduced it in 2002. Thanks to Baumann's prodding, this year hundreds of children in nine elementary schools and four middle schools participated. A Barnett Shoals team walked away with the top prize for the third time in four years after a nail-biting, sudden-death finale.

Baumann believes that a big reason she is able to collaborate so well with her colleagues is the fact that she was an elementary school teacher for 18 years. "I know all the duties teachers have and how hard their jobs are," she says. "And I know how to run a classroom"—valuable experience for someone who meets once a week for half an hour with each of the school's 28 classes. "I don't just teach referencing skills," she says. "I do short booktalks and teach literacy skills, and sometimes we play library games or just drop everything and read."

Teaching also gave her an understanding of what parents want and need, she says. "Parents will come to me and say, 'My child doesn't like to read. What can I do?' I can help them motivate their children."

No one could be happier about that skill than parents. Dorothe Otemann's daughter didn't take to reading right away. "Maggie likes to read to learn and not just for pleasure," Otemann says. "Nancy went out of her way to find books for her, and in second grade they found common ground with biographies. I find that amazing. It's really easy to love the kids that love reading; but to go out of your way to find the kids for whom reading doesn't come naturally and make them love it is a real gift."

"Nancy is relentless in a nice way," says Principal Clark. "She won't leave a rock unturned. If you don't come, she'll come find you. That's the way she is."

Not surprisingly, kids welcome the attention. "She knows you as an individual," says a fifth-grade boy. "Somebody can go up to her and ask if there are certain books that she thinks you might be interested in, and she will show you what to read."

Baumann has also become a pro at marketing her programs to potential donors. "Nancy researches every little grant source that comes in," says Clark. A newsletter circulated by the school district's grant writer tipped her off to Target's support for reading initiatives. The result was funding for a day-long visit by Susan Stevens Crummel, coauthor of And the Dish Ran Away with the Spoon (Harcourt, 2001).

Cold calls have worked for Baumann, too. One let's-give-it-a-shot call won the utility Georgia Power's sponsorship of the Battle of the Books. This year's outside contributions have almost doubled the media center's $4,200 budget.

What motivates Baumann? Love of books, children, and education certainly. But an even more powerful motivator, she says, was a diagnosis of breast cancer two years ago. Caught early, the disease is now in remission. But her now-or-never attitude is not. "I decided that if there was a project that would be beneficial for students—and especially the parents—to at least give it a try. I just wasn't going to think I was too busy."

What's on tap for the future? This summer Baumann is piecing together Young Readers, a program for children in the second and third grades. Children who read 20 books from a list of 100 will have their names inscribed on brass nameplates just like the big kids who read 10 Newberys.

A Friday book club for fourth and fifth graders is also in the offing. "I want kids to have a chance to read and discuss books strictly for enjoyment," she says. "No grades, quizzes, or projects." If all goes well, she will add a club for third graders in the spring.

She also has plans for the $5,000 the Giant Step Award has brought to Barnett Shoals. First off, she wants to strengthen the Beary Special Readers program. "I want to purchase paperback libraries that the kindergarten teachers can send home nightly with the students," she says. Another goal is to fill gaps in the library's reference and biography collections.

While Baumann is clearly a woman on a mission, she is no 24/7 workaholic. A few days a week, this mother of two grown children drives her Toyota pickup to the stable at which she boards her horse, Mojo. A relative newcomer to riding, last year she entered several jumping contests for beginners.

"I am entering at a higher level this season," she says.

Raising the bar—for the children she serves, for the library, and for herself—has become a way of life for Baumann. "Nancy just keeps bringing her media center to a higher level," says Elsner. "She continues to make her projects just expand… just get bigger." Bigger and, more importantly, better—one giant step at a time.—Eric Oatman