Episode 15: Social Media Is Your PLN with Melanie Wood

When you had a rough day in the classroom, you could slam a door and vent to the teacher across the hall. Then you became the librarian, the only person in the building who does your job.

In this episode of The Library Stage, Amanda Hunt welcomes Melanie Wood, an elementary school librarian in the suburbs of St. Louis, entering her fifth year in the library after nine years teaching second, third, and fourth grade. She wrangles 360 kids a week and shares library life with a growing community of educators as @melanie_in_the_library.

Her argument is simple: you need your people, and if they're not in your building, they're on your phone. Melanie is direct about the objection everyone raises: you don't have to be an influencer, you don't have to post daily, and nothing has to be pretty. Her instruction: post the sticky notes. If you reorganized your shelving and it's still marked with sticky notes because you haven't made real labels yet, post it anyway. A librarian somewhere is staring at her own shelves with no idea where to start, and that's the post she needs.

She covers which platform to start on, how her families found her account and started seeing the months of planning behind what looked like a cute activity, and the resource exchange she launched in May--expecting a hundred librarians, getting over two thousand. The rule: you only get access if you give something.

Pillar: 🧡 EdTech

💡 Steal-this-idea: Book Button Tuesdays. Weeded and damaged books get cut up and pressed into buttons on a button machine, handed out Tuesday mornings to anyone who shows up with a smile. No other criteria. Roughly a hundred kids stampede the library every week, and the rule is you wear it on your backpack so everyone can see how cool books are.

🛠️ Resources:

• Canva — Melanie's design tool of choice
• The Librarian Resource Exchange

Plus, stick around for her Curtain Call featuring:

• 📖 Melanie's book recommendation — a book she'll tell you straight up she did not like, and hasn't stopped thinking about since. Her point to students: you don't have to like a book for it to be good.

Follow Melanie: 📱 @melanie_in_the_library on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok | ✉️ librarybymelanie@gmail.com

Think your library story belongs on the stage? Pitch your talk: thenextgenlib@gmail.com

Hosted by Amanda Hunt, MLS (@TheNextGenLibrarian) 🌐 thenextgenlibrarian.com

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The Library Stage is an independent podcast, not affiliated with TED Conferences LLC.