Librarian Philosopher

At the Texas Library Association (TLA) summer meeting, the School Librarians were privileged to have the Texas Parent Teacher Association (PTA) Executive Director and one of the Board Members come speak with us about their 100^th Anniversary program – SMART (Start Meeting And Reading Together).

Next year (2009) will be the PTA’s 100^th anniversary. PTA and Libraries have had a long history of partnerships. The SMART program is a reflection back over the 100 years of collaboration between Libraries and PTA groups.

SMART is a reading motivation program. The first component is to encourage the collection of “new and gently used books for children in disadvantaged and difficult circumstances”. Texas PTA will make available posters for promotion. They suggest decorating collection bins and sending photos of the collection bins to enter into most creative bins and most books collected contests. Other SMART ideas include:

1. Host a used book sale to raise money.
2. Distribute books to early childhood centers.
3. Host a Family Night with book exchange activities.
4. Encourage high school students to donate purchased books for class assignments to next year’s students.

The second component of the SMART program is the Read 100 challenge. Individual students and families can choose to read:

1. 100 stories
2. 100 pages
3. 100 minutes
4. 100 books

Certificates will be available for download.

School Libraries all across Texas should take this opportunity to build even stronger relationships with their PTA members as we all work toward more reading for our students. Contact your PTA members soon to see how you can work together.