Public libraries are often a great source of support for school library media programs. School and public libraries can collaborate in a variety of ways, making each library program stronger and improving the services that the community members receive. Here are some successful ways that school library media specialists collaborate with public libraries.

• School and public library staff members meet together to plan special projects. Coordinating events such as National Library Week activities helps ensure successful events and helps staff members avoid scheduling conflicting activities.
• Library staff members help each other manage resources. The public library places deposit collections in the school library media centers, and school library media specialists let the public librarians know when students will need resources on topics for homework projects.
• Public and school libraries assist each other with advertising. The public library newsletter, flyers, and Web site include notices of school library media center events, and school library media staff place public library flyers and newsletters in school mailboxes for teachers and students.
• Library staff members help promote programs for other community libraries. The public library facilities are sometimes used for special school library media programs. The school library media staff collects Summer Reading Program registrations for the public library and then distributes program materials before school ends.
• Community library staff members help each other manage circulation. When materials are returned to the wrong location, the staff forwards the resources to the correct school or public library. This is easily done when the public library is added to the interschool mail route. The public library becomes one of the daily stops on the school district delivery route.
• Public and school libraries work together to meet the teachers’ resource needs. Teachers are able to directly request public library resources, or they may have the school library media staff sends their resource requests to the public library by email, fax, and phone. The materials are then sent through the school district mail route. Teachers are also able to return leisure-reading materials to the public library through the school library media staff.

This column has been created to provide a way for Media Forum readers to share successful ideas with their colleagues. In this issue, the column has been written with ideas gathered by the author. But in the following issues, the column will primarily present reader contributions. The topics “Collaborating with Public Libraries” and “Integrating Information Literacy Skills” will be presented in the next issue. If you have successful ideas for these topics that you would like to share, send them to April Graziano at agraziano_pps@yahoo.com and let your colleagues know What Works.