Head Librarian, Meadowbrook School of Weston, Weston, MA

Posted November 12, 2016

The Meadowbrook School of Weston seeks a dynamic, motivated, and passionate Interim Head Librarian beginning immediately with the potential to become permanent. We are seeking an educator who loves children and libraries, and has a clear vision for the library of the future.

The Meadowbrook School seeks an innovative self-starter who enjoys working with a diverse population of academically talented students and creative faculty. Preference will be given to candidates with three to five years of demonstrated success in leading an independent school or college library, or learning commons. We are seeking candidates who are detail-oriented, organized, and willing to take thoughtful initiative in a collaborative setting. We seek applicants who will actively support our school’s mission to know, love, and challenge every student. The ideal candidate will possess excellent teamwork skills and the ability to work well with, and relate effectively to, all constituents in our community.

About us

The Meadowbrook School of Weston is a co-educational, independent day school for about 315 students in grades Junior Kindergarten through Eight. By fostering in children the sustainable joy of seeking knowledge, facing challenges, and pushing limits, we inspire children to live with purpose, learn with passion, and lead by practice. We are a mission driven school where we know, love and challenge every student.

Recognized as an exemplar school by the Partnership for 21st Century Learning, Meadowbrook balances tradition, rigor and innovation as a means to best educate our students. Meadowbrook’s collaboration with MIT’s Edgerton Center focuses on embedding the design thinking process in all subject areas. Meadowbrook’s Digital Citizenship program has been recognized as a model K-8 curriculum by Common Sense Media. Meadowbrook also values the importance of professional development, and has been recognized for its commitment to investing in faculty through a NAIS national model professional development program

Essential Responsibilities

• Foster a child-centered library space that is vibrant, welcoming, and conducive to deep thought, authentic inquiry, and collaboration
• Build a culture of reading for all members of the community, supporting reading as a core value and an essential skill for discovery, life-long learning, global citizenship, compassion, and joy
• Guide students and faculty as they seek access to information
• Supervise assistant librarian, as well as parent volunteers
• Manage and maintain the library department budget
• Collaborate with teachers, department chairs, grade-level deans and directors, acting as an instructional coach and providing resources and support around project based learning and design thinking.
• Teach critical thinking skills required to locate, evaluate, analyze, synthesize, and ethically apply online and social media information
• Collaboratively infuse information and media literacy into the Meadowbrooks Digital Citizenship K-8 Curriculum.
• Oversee the maintenance of the school’s Pre-K to Grade 8 library collection, including circulation, cataloguing, collection development, inventory, and evaluation
• Develop and implement a program that supports classroom curriculum with resource collection, curation and information literacy instruction
• Offer instruction and support in research skills and behaviors in support of classwork and assignments
• Guide access to a wide variety of resources including but not limited to digital resources, including subscription databases, ebooks, audiobooks and technological devices and hands-on materials.
• Provide faculty/staff development opportunities in the use of information resources in a variety of formats and integration of information literacy skills throughout the curriculum
• Build a vision and implementation plan for a future-focused library that will open in the fall of 2017.
  • Participate in collaboratively defining and communicating about the role and changing nature of our school library in the 21st century
  • Create a vision for the role of the library as a vibrant and essential member of the new Learning Commons, which includes a new Innovation Space, Makerspace, Library and Wood Shop.
  • Build, maintain, and promote multimedia collections that foster a love of reading and that support the curriculum, needs, and interests of students and faculty
  • Assume a leadership role in promoting intellectual freedom and access to information as requisite to responsible citizenship
  • Participate in independent school, state, and national professional school library organizations such as EISLA, CLA, MSLA, and ALA.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree required. Preference will be given to applicants with a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Library and Information Science or Library Teaching, and to those with a minimum of three years experience working as a librarian in an independent school. We also seek applicants with demonstrated excellence in writing and communication skills, and the desire and demonstrated ability to assist students’ writing skills.

The application process will include opportunities to demonstrate knowledge of advanced search and research skills using databases and the use of a wide range of instructional technology tools. Candidates with the ability to teach using the devices we require of our students will be given preference, as well.

Candidates meeting these requirements should send a cover letter, resume and supportive documents to:
Christine Eddis, Director of Student Support Services
The Meadowbrook School of Weston
10 Farm Road, Weston, MA 02493
or [email protected]