In a previous post, I shared ways to wrap up the school year for school librarians. Now, I hope you can take a bit of a break—and perhaps review my 2026 summer reading list if you need ideas for how to spend your time! Even though I am looking forward to some downtime, personally, I find that balancing rest with planning can help make for smoother transitions between school years.
In my 15+ years working in academic settings with a standard school-year schedule, I have found that ending the current year by reflecting on the upcoming year can be beneficial. Thinking about the upcoming year can include everything from:
- Organizing projects so they are ready to begin
- Making notes to yourself so you remember what needs to be done and where you may have left off
- Thinking about what you want to do differently next year
- Deciding on who you want to have conversations with to help you plan
- Planning training for technology, including any updates to the ILS, digital collections, or new devices
- Reviewing usage data from the past year to inform collection or programming decisions
- Identifying one professional learning goal for yourself
- Noting partnerships (i.e., with classroom teachers, public library, or community organizations) you want to deepen
- Scheduling time with building leadership, classroom teachers, or the technology team to plan for the coming year
- Thinking about accessibility, including what worked, what didn’t, what you want to address proactively
I encourage you to think about what you might add to this list. Your school library is a unique place, and you will want to plan activities tailored to your school and community.
Ask yourself, “What’s one thing I am already planning to do differently next year? How can I strategize for that now to ensure it happens?”
Then, in addition to taking time to plan for the next school year, I encourage you to consider how you might take time to engage in your own professional development. This could be:
- Professional reading you want to get done
- A PD class you want to take
- A certification you want to obtain
- A new technology tool you want to learn
- A conference you want to attend
- Or anything else you are curious about
You can take time now to plan for professional development and then decide when it works best for you to complete it. I frequently find that if I do not plan for learning, I let too many other responsibilities that immediately need my attention crowd out the time I should spend learning. To the extent possible, I want to stop doing that (and I encourage you to as well) by scheduling opportunities for learning.
Preparing for a new school year takes a lot of work, but it is important and valuable work. The more we can prepare well now, the better shape we will be in when it’s time to get back into the swing of school in the fall.
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