School libraries have always been a haven for self-paced, interest-guided work. Students have always been able to engage in choices in the library: how to spend their time, what to read, how to work, and what to create. In other words, personalized learning is not new, especially not to libraries. Here are some ways the library has and will continue to support personalized learning.

The core four of personalized learning are flexible content and tools, targeted instruction, student reflection and owenership, and data driven decisions. When it comes to flexible content and tools, the library excels.

OverDrive is the district's main source for ebooks. Students and staff can check out books to read on their own personal devices or check out a kindle from the library.

The district and the state library both provide databases for student and staff use. Database span many most subject areas and content levels. In addition to articles, they contain ebooks, videos, images.

The library's website, created with LibGuides is a collaborative tool. The librarian can create a LibGuide on a topic for use by a specific class, for a specific project, or for general use; but LibGuides can be worked on collaboratively by any staff. Once started by the librarian, he or she can share the page with a teacher who can edit, add content, and so on.

The librarian can be a co-teacher in any traditional co-teaching approach, helping provide targeted help to individual students and lowering the student teacher ratio with any collaborative lesson or unit.

The space of the library itself can also facilitate personalized learning. We can accommodate large and small group instruction. We have different areas that can be used for center-type activities. Teachers can also send SMALL groups of students to the library to work on collaborative projects or to work quietly while other work is occurring in the classroom.

Librarians can also help students individually with technical support and information literacy needs. This includes not only finding information but also synthesizing, citing, and communicating that information.

The librarian can also help you determine the best instructional technology for you and your students. Whether it's using plickers for formative assessment or creating jeopardy style quiz games or finding the best iPad app for exploring the elements, the library has you covered.

The library strives to provide student choice and voice. This manifests in allowing students to select books for the library, help the library come up with a new slogan for positive branding, TAs that help provide input into library procedures and policies, and providing a welcoming atmosphere.

We also seek to maintain a diverse fiction and nonfiction collection so that we can help students find both mirrors reflecting their own experience and windows into the lives of others. Although not available at present, we hope to offer book clubs and other ways for students to interact with literature in a way that enables them to reflect and share.

With the district's subscription to Noodle Tools, students can share research papers and bibliographies with the librarian or a teacher who can provide feedback on specific citations, whole bibliographies, notes, and so on. Students, when they log in to their account, will see that they have a message from their teacher. You can even set it to require a student response if you want.

The librarian can also help with assessment of information literacy skills, providing formative or summative feedback to student bibliographies, outlines, and so on. We can also track change over time this way. Noodle Tools has grading options as well.