Interview: Rock Star Librarian, Joyce Valenza, Nabs Lifetime Achievement Award

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By Debra Lau Whelan
December 19, 2011

Superstar teacher librarian Joyce Valenza is this year's winner of the Edublog Lifetime Achievement Award for her tremendous contribution to the world of ed tech.

SLJ caught up with the 35-year veteran librarian to talk about what this honor means to her, some of her proudest moments over the years, and the biggest fears she has about the future of the profession.

There were 40 nominees for the Edublog Lifetime Achievement Award, and a librarian won. What does that say about how others view the profession?

It's about time—not for me—but for the school library profession. I think it says two things. One, that our teacher librarian colleagues have a real voice in the ed tech field—one that's loud enough to be heard outside the libraryverse. It says that we are connecting, not only with partners in our buildings, but with partners in the other communities of practice—classroom teachers across disciplines and grade levels, administrators, academics, librarians in other library situations, across geography. We now mingle effectively face-to-face and online. Our ideas cross-pollinate. We are a force at ISTE [International Society for Technology in Education conference] and BLC [Building Learning Communities conference] and at edcamps and at unconferences, at webinars, and on Twitter and through our blogs. Two, within our own profession, we are now an effective tribe. We have leadership. We have forums. We share with each other, we mentor each other. We can mobilize for action quickly. To be completely honest, I know I had some very kind teacher librarian colleagues advocating for me on Twitter and on their blogs.

What are some of your proudest achievements in the field?

I started as a special librarian in 1975, became a public librarian in 1976, and I became a teacher librarian in 1988. For real, the proudest achievements are those one or two emails I get each year from alumni who take time in their college/adult lives to thank me for something I did or taught that made a difference in their lives. I suspect that many of us get those emails. They are gifts. They are treasures.

What about specific things you've done in the library?

Over the years, I've had the wonderful opportunity to build two library programs, to teach thousands of learners, and to mentor many student teachers. I was particularly proud of my 11-year stint as the edtech columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer. It gave me the opportunity to meet and interview my heroes and to talk to an incredibly varied audience. If I had to point to specific events, over the past couple of years, doing that TEDxPhillyED talk [on researching] last spring was an honor and a challenge. I've also loved being able to help build our tribe through our hashtag, #tlchat, the TLVirtual Cafe, and the Ning.

It's probably the best time to be a teacher librarian right now, yet so many are losing their jobs. What do librarians need to do to stay relevant?

You must have heard me say that! It almost feels ironic, but despite these hard times, it is the very best time to be a school librarian. Learners have never needed us more. The tools have never been more powerful. My kiddos are discovering all sorts of new ways to experience and discuss their reading.
Like every other profession, teacher librarians need to make a difference in other people's lives. If we don't, we don't deserve to practice. We need to know more about our specialty than the others in our buildings. We must be ahead of the curve in all things related to information and communication technologies. We should be the best searchers. Whenever we advocate, we should advocate for learners. And our practice should be transparent enough that we could point to it in an instant.

Our web presence—content, resources, instruction, tools—should be rich and scalable, and it should reach the learners and the teachers we serve anytime, anyplace. In fact, it needs to be mobile. I really want to be an app.

What kinds of technologies are you and your students most excited about right now?

For a few years now we've been exploring and exploiting digital storytelling and digital publishing tools. I want my kiddos to have robust academic digital footprints. Right now, we're playing with the idea of curation as a strategy for managing information and as a search tool. My book club is so charged about connecting with other clubs around the country via Skype and Hangouts and about using Twitter hashtags to engage in conversations about books with other high school readers, and with authors. In addition to traditional research with databases and ebooks, we're exploring the value of real-time search and in using tools like Mashpedia and Twitter for news related research.

How has technology changed your role over the years and how have you incorporated transliteracy into your lessons?

I am convinced that business people are not passing term papers around board room tables. I want our learners to be able to communicate what they learn and create in any medium that makes sense for their message. We've done work deconstructing and constructing media messages. Being able to read, write, and share creatively using the tools of your time is what success will be about after school.

What are the key skills that your graduating high school students must have in 2012 that they didn't need to have years ago?

They need a lot of the same skills and dispositions—persistence. They need to read, write, think, know how to solve problems, communicate, network, share, publish. The sandbox has just expanded.

Do you think librarians are embracing technology fast enough?

Some are. We have so many examples of powerful teacher librarian leaders. I am fans of so many. Frankly, there is no choice. If you are an information professional, you have to be able to not just live, but lead in the information world of today. You need to be the scout. You need to discover and predict the emerging opportunities and connections for learners.

What are your fears about the future of the profession?

I am afraid that we may not have made our case soon enough, and that our practice has not been transparent enough. Our stakeholders and those people who make decisions about us don't get who we are today. We need to make it super clear that, yes, we are about books, but that we are not just about books. We are about literacy in all its glorious flavors. Books themselves are changing. Reading is growing even more interesting as both an independent and a social experience. We live in exciting and dynamic information landscapes, and I think we should be the ones who help learners explore, manage, and create with it. Would it be harsh to say that librarians who have not retooled do not belong in our practice?

I don't know how you possibly do all that you do in a work day. How do you keep up?

How do I keep up? I wrote a little about the ways me and my colleagues keep up in my recent VOYA network confession. I love learning. I love mentoring and sharing. How do I keep up? In a nutshell, Twitter has made it so much easier.

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