1. Journey to Equitable Library Access
Carbon Lehigh Intermediate Unit 21
Eric Lech |
Coordinator of Curriculum & Instruction

2. About Carbon Lehigh Intermediate Unit 21
PA Intermediate Unit = Educational Service Agency
14 Public School Districts >65,000 students
Urban Schools (Allentown = 16,000+students, 85% Free/Reduced Lunch) & Rural Schools (Weatherly = <650 students)
Library resource access varies by district with some reducing staff to eliminate Library Media Specialists yet one of our more affluent district of ~3,000 students having 800,000+ library checkouts.

3. Start with the Why? ( )
Libraries losing funding to grow collections or personnel
Adoption of K-12 1:1 programs and increased device access in the hands of MS & HS students.
Students have a right to equitable access to digital resources and library media services in our region.

4. The Power of Networking
Carbon Lehigh Intermediate Unit #21 facilitates regional Librarians Consortium inclusive of school and public librarians.
Local public libraries share their story regarding digital resources and building an Overdrive Consortium to share digital resources.
Put our school librarians to the task of convincing district superintendents to support this initiative within our schools.
Equity
Power of shared collection
Provide opportunities to personalize the collection with Advantage Collection

6. Developing the CLIU 21 Overdrive Consortium
Consortium begins (2013)
13 LEAs
$20,000
Collection development
All participating entities invited to participate and have a voice
CLIU Facilitator serves as single buying entity and consortium manager
Quarterly meetings
Evolving collection development process
Reserve $$ for special purchases

7. CLIU 21 Overdrive Consortium by the numbers14
5,404/4,106
43%
54,303
5,103

8. Overdrive works well for summer reading books when the school library closes for the summer. Again, no excuse.
I learned that students don’t mind reading a book on their little phone.

10. Journey to Equitable Library Access
Carbon Lehigh Intermediate Unit 21
Eric Lech |
Coordinator of Curriculum & Instruction