Social Media for Librarians

 This week we are talking about social media platforms (sigh!). While many of us are trying to move off of social media, or trying to let it impact our lives less, there are still some benefits to some of the platforms. My inquiry this week turned into finding some new kids books Instagram accounts that will be helpful when looking for read-aloud ideas and it also brought me to the much talked about and anticipated re-boot Reading Rainbow! I found it on Instagram and watched an episode on YouTube and absolutely LOVED the new version (so go check it out!).  I also found that you can find kids books on #BookTok! Just use #BookTokkids. 

Facebook Favorites

Heather The Contoured Librarian: Heather is a social media favorite! She is a K-5 elementary librarian who focuses on librarian tips & tricks, most notably book repair tips, and all things library like managing your Book Fair. She is on multiple social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube & TikTok. She has also shared Canva templates on her Beacons page.

Learning Librarians: Moderators of this group are librarians or retired librarians. “Welcome to Learning Librarians! This group is for school librarians to build encouragement, ideas, and inspiration. “ This group is private but a good place to ask questions about library issues to others in the group. Helpful links and author information are shared. There are a couple of authors that belong to this group. There is no self promotion but occasionally promotion of Teachers Pay Teachers resources by the moderators. 

Instagram

MaiStoryBook: MaiStoryBook has great collection reels of books on various topics including those about girls, diversity, monthly topics like Read Across America Week, and other topics that are often inquired about in the elementary library. Her quick reels showcase quite a number of books on the selected topic making this a fabulous resource to find a new book in a category or a collection of books. She also has a TpT shop that focuses on social-emotional learning activities.

Reading Rainbow. Readingrainbow: Reading Rainbow’s Instagram page has been updated for the 21st century and contains posts and reels from new Reading Rainbow host, Mychal Threets. Not only does the page advertise the new Reading Rainbow on the YouTube channel Kudzo, it also has library and librarian fun facts, and book lists on a variety of holidays and topics, like Women’s History Month, Ramadan, and “Books for Empathy-Building”. This is a great stand-alone resource for librarians or posts can be shared in your own Instagram account.

Raising Readers to Become Readers. Raisingreaderstobecomeleaders: This Instagram account has great book lists on various topics like collections on inspiring women, chapter book series, and easy readers. Many of her posts and reels also include a quick flip-through or pictures of inside pages of the books she is highlighting in that post.

Blogs

That Library Girl: Julie Olson is a retired school librarian sharing her classroom ideas through Teachers Pay Teachers (TpT). Most of Julie’s blog posts feature her TpT products, but she does offer a number of freebies too. Julie co-authors a free monthly librarian newsletter that has a lot of helpful information for classes and read-alouds.

MrsReaderPants: I follow MrsReaderPants on Pinterest and while she is a Pinterest favorite, the most value I get is from her “Articles-Librarianship” Pinterest board of her blog posts. This board and her posts are great for new librarians that include tips for managing difficult classes, “New School Librarian…Now What?”, and Genrification to name a few.