Your Library - Wrapped: A Mid Year Approach to Data Sharing and Advocacy

Although I rarely share it outside of the context of my classes, I have been recording a podcast for my Rutgers students for several years now. Titled Voices of Literacy, I use these recordings to chat with library leaders from various contexts. The goal of these interviews is to provide my students with the opportunity to listen to people who know a lot about library work grapple with big issues and ideas. I do not want, nor do I expect, the guests who appear on this podcast to have all the answers. Rather, what I hope occurs during these conversations is that together we wrestle with big ideas, acknowledging that while library work is often challenging, the juice, as they say, is very much worth the squeeze.

Still, even though I come to these recordings with no expectation of "right answers," I almost always emerge from them with new ideas and plenty of inspiration. This was especially true during a recent interview with Len Bryan, who is the Partner of Library Services for the Cherry Creek School District, just outside of Denver, Colorado. I asked Len to join me for a conversation about school library data for two reasons. First, Len is a pro at helping school library staff identify data sources that are literally at their fingertips and develop strategies for collecting, synthesizing and then sharing that data. I love sharing his work, like the presentation below, with my students.

The second reason I asked Len to chat with me about data is because we are both, self proclaimed, data nerds! We are always eager to take any opportunity to combine our love of libraries with our love of spreadsheets. An aside, I have written about best practices for librarians when it comes to data sharing many times before including this post where I also share the examples of annual reports that I have curated over the years.

All of that said, as you might imagine, while we were talking about the many ways school librarians use data to help stakeholders, (like administrators, teachers and families), understand the impact of our work, we stumbled upon some sticking points. One of those points has to do with timing. Many librarians wait until the end of the school year to share data in the form of an annual report. To be clear, I love these reports and have spent years researching them. Still, one problem with these yearly data dumps is that by the time they land on an administrator’s desk, most of the decisions that affect our programs have already been made. Budgets are spent. Staffing plans are nearly set. Everyone is tired and focused on finishing strong. In short, while our data might be great, it can also be meaningless if we have missed the window for administrators to respond to it in meaningful ways that involve funding or staffing.

As Len and I talked, we found ourselves wishing for something different. Something joyful and brief. Something that might meet school leaders exactly where they are, in that moment when decisions for the next school year are still flexible. Then, almost as a joke, I wondered out loud what it might look like if school librarians created a mid year report modeled after Spotify Wrapped. We asked ourselves what it might look like to share our stories at a moment when people are still paying attention and decisions for the next school year are still in motion.

What if we... shifted our efforts in a way that still included end of year reflection while also emphasizing mid year visibility?

What if we...  offered a snapshot of our impact while there is still time for leaders to support the staffing, resources and programming our students deserve?

What if we...  used the same playful energy found in Spotify Wrapped to highlight our circulation patterns, instructional minutes, reading celebrations and all the other things that make our libraries the beating heart of our schools?

Introducing “YOUR Library Wrapped”

Once our conversation ended, I found myself continuing to think about a school library version of Spotify Wrapped. As I write this post, it’s tough to scroll through any social media feed without seeing someone’s musical wrap up. Despite the justified criticism Spotify has faced this year, their personalized end of year summaries continue to be popular. Spotify Wrapped works because it is short, colorful and created for mobile viewing. It does not expect viewers to sit down with a long report or interpret complicated data. Instead, it delivers quick snapshots of information that feel playful and personal. That structure translates beautifully to the work we do as school librarians. More importantly, these constraints require us to tell an effective story in a way that captures attention while also inviting deeper conversations.

With that goal in mind, I did some quick searching for a Canva template that might work for this project. When none of the existing templates quite fit the bill, I decided to create my own using the mobile video design. I will be honest, I am not a huge fan of Canva’s new video editor, but even I have to admit that it results in more polished products, so I am willing to climb what feels like a steep learning curve, (for me anyway). Ultimately, I wanted to provide school librarians with an example of what a mid year Library Wrapped might look like while also offering a plug and play template that gives anyone who wants to try this approach an easy entry point.

You are welcome to use my Canva Template exactly as it is (swapping the numbers and images/videos for some from your own library) or feel free to change every element to match your school’s colors, fonts and personality. The goal is not to mimic Spotify’s style perfectly. The goal is to capture the spirit of celebrating what learners are doing, what you as the librarian make possible and how those moments shape the culture of the school.

Like their Spotify inspiration, Library Wrapped videos are designed to be quick. My template runs just under 90 seconds. They can be watched on a phone between meetings or shared in an email or shown at the start of a staff gathering. They offer a preview of your mid year impact in a format that is easy to view and easy to remember.

Murdering Your Darlings

The phrase murdering your darlings is often attributed to writers like Faulkner or to early writing instructors who used it to describe the painful process of cutting sentences they loved in service of a stronger final draft. My own writing mentor, the late Sally Sullivan, used to say that murdering your darlings, or editing, was simply a way of clearing away anything that kept readers from truly hearing your voice.

The same principle applies when we create data stories. School librarians collect an enormous amount of information. Circulation patterns. Instructional minutes. Co teaching hours. Collaborative planning. Reading celebrations. Makerspace usage. Digital citizenship lessons. Student feedback. Community events. Author visits. The list goes on and on. We want to honor every facet of our work because all of it matters. Yet, when it comes to Library Wrapped, we have to make peace with the fact that not everything can fit. In this context, it may be helpful to think of Library Wrapped as part of a larger data sharing strategy where there is still room for longer stories in the form of an annual report, a presentation to the school board or a kid created documentary about why the library matters.

With these goals in mind, I crafted my template to contain six content sections, with a bumper at each end. Here is a rundown of each section as it appears in the video.

1. Quantitative Data related to what librarians do beyond circulate books.

2. Quantitative Data related to circulation - part 1. Spotify often shares a listener's favorite genres, artists or titles in their wrapped videos. Librarians could easily include genres, authors or illustrators in this section, too.

3. Quantitative Data related to circulation - part 2. In this section, it was important for me to emphasize that these numbers only represent half the year.

4. Qualitative Data related to how learners use the library - part 1. Here I used stock photos and created captions as examples, but these photos and captions can be easily swapped to emphasize how the library serves the whole child - not just that part of them that needs to check out a book.

5. Qualitative Data related to how learners use the library - part 2.

6. Qualitative Data to showcase how the library only matters because of the community it serves and helps to build. Here I used stock videos that could be swapped out with interviews or sound bites from students, teachers and other community members.

If you are anything like me, as you build your video you will likely feel the tug to add more sections. You might catch yourself thinking that one extra chart will not hurt. You might wish there were room for every idea on your list. Resist that urge. I believe that Library Wrapped will work because it is tight, focused and joyful. In the context of a mid year data story, less is definitely more!

Sharing Your Work

Once your Library Wrapped video is complete, the next step is deciding how and where to share it. A mid year data story is most effective when it lands in front of the people who can act on it, so think strategically about your audience. School leaders are often navigating a hectic winter calendar, which means they may not have the time or energy for long reports. A short mobile friendly video, however, can slip easily into the spaces where decisions are being shaped.

Thinking back on how I approached sharing important information with my own principal, I realize that the more excited I was about something, the more my principal’s enthusiasm blossomed, too. So, rather than sharing something formally, I often sent her a quick note or text that read something like, “Hey, pop into the library when you need to see something fun!” Not only did this help me create a relationship with my principal that was rooted in joy and camaraderie, but also… by inviting her to pop by when it was convenient, I was also letting her decide when she had time to focus on what I had to share. Plus, framing it around fun or around a small reprieve from the hard work of leading a school meant she arrived in the library ready for some joy. Without fail, my principal responded to whatever I shared informally by asking me to share whatever I had created in a way that made it easy for her to share, too!

You may also decide to share your Library Wrapped on social media. In addition to all the typical reminders about making sure you have permission to share student images before posting them online, I want to add one more caveat. Sharing your work on social media can be powerful because you are doing two incredibly important things:

1. providing inspiration for other librarians, and

2. reminding the larger community that librarians do more than check out books.

Still, when we share our work online it can be easy to lose sight of our real audience. For the most part, your social media network cannot affect decision making in your district or community related to funding, staffing or other essential measures of support. The people you really need to reach are within arm’s length, so make sure they remain the focus of your work, not the people who may end up engaging with your content online.

HOWEVER, if you do decide to try making a Library Wrapped video yourself, I hope you will tag me so that I can ooooh and aaaah over all the ways you are making a difference for the readers you serve.