What if your library program could more visibly support curriculum goals and student achievement without becoming “one more thing” on an already full plate?

That was the core message in Follett Software’s on-demand webinar, Co-Planning for Impact: How Library–Curriculum Partnerships Move the Achievement Needle, presented by award-winning teacher-librarian Shannon McClintock Miller, Innovation Director of Instructional Technology and Library Media at Van Meter Community School in Iowa.

For K–12 librarians and library leaders, the challenge is familiar: you know your work matters, but proving that impact in ways that resonate with teachers, administrators, and district leaders can feel difficult. Shannon’s approach is refreshingly practical. Instead of adding disconnected initiatives, she focuses on embedding the library directly into the work schools are already doing.

The result is a library program that is not peripheral, but instructionally essential.

Start with the Mindset Shift

One of the strongest takeaways from the session is this: collaboration should not be treated as an add-on. It should be the way the library operates.

When librarians align their work to curriculum priorities, support classroom instruction, and build strong partnerships with teachers, administrators, students, families, and the community, they create more than good library experiences. They help strengthen instructional alignment, increase student engagement, support resource access, and make the library’s value more visible across the school.

That idea aligns with this main theme: helping librarians design library-led experiences that plug directly into existing units and priorities so their work is clearly seen as advancing teaching and learning.

Align the Library to Curriculum, Not Just Calendar Time

For librarians looking to deepen collaboration, Shannon recommends starting with alignment and identifying priority standards and district goals together.

That means understanding what is already happening across grade levels and content areas, then identifying where the library can naturally strengthen instruction. In practice, this can look like:

• reviewing curriculum guides, pacing maps, and district goals
• joining grade-level or planning meetings
• identifying standards or goals the library can support
• bringing ideas that fit existing units rather than proposing entirely separate projects

This approach matters because teachers are already carrying heavy loads. The most effective collaborations do not ask them to stop what they are doing and start over. Instead, they offer a better, richer, or more engaging way to teach the goals already in front of them.

For many librarians, this is also the key to earning – and keeping – a seat at the table.

Build Simple Systems that Make Collaboration Easier

A major strength of Shannon’s approach is that it relies on practical systems, not heroic effort.

One example she shared is a simple shared planning document where teachers note what they are covering in class. Those notes do not need to be elaborate. Even a quick entry like “apples,” “pumpkins,” or “chickens” can give the librarian a clear opening to suggest resources, create a supporting choice board, or plan a short co-taught lesson.

Over time, simple systems like this can grow into something much more powerful: a living collaboration document that supports planning across grade levels, special events, literacy themes, digital citizenship, research skills, media literacy, and more.

The lesson is an important one. You do not need a complex process to begin. You need a usable one.

Curate Resources Teachers Can Use Right Away

Another theme from the webinar was the importance of curation.

Librarians are uniquely positioned to bring together books, digital resources, databases, activities, and instructional tools in ways that save teachers time and improve access for students. Shannon described this as a kind of “resource toolbox,” a trusted, evolving collection of materials that teachers can return to again and again.

That curation can take many forms:

• themed resource collections
• choice boards
• digital shelves or carousels
• classroom-ready reading and research supports
• tools embedded directly into platforms students already use
• reference books and eBooks

The practical value is huge. When teachers know the library can quickly provide relevant, high-quality materials tied to what students are learning, collaboration stops feeling abstract and starts feeling indispensable. Curating collections that directly support classroom learning can be a core strategy for strengthening the instructional role of the library.

In Destiny(R) Library Manager, Shannon pointed to Destiny Discover, noting, “I also love using our Destiny Discover for collaboration in showing the resources that we have.” She sets up carousels in all kinds of ways – from summer reading to curriculum topics a teacher is focusing on – so students and teachers can easily find and access the resources she has curated.

Destiny Users: Try Creating Collections in Destiny to Curate

It’s easy to create curated curriculum collections using Collections by Destiny is a powerful feature within Follett Destiny® Library Manager. See Shannon Miller’s Tips to Creating a Collection in Destiny Discover.

Use Engagement as the Bridge to Achievement

One of Shannon’s clearest messages was that engagement matters because it drives learning. Librarians can integrate inquiry, choice reading, book clubs, and research opportunities in ways that boost engagement and strengthen comprehension and achievement.

When librarians help design high-interest, high-relevance experiences – whether through inquiry, research, choice reading, technology integration, book clubs, or interactive projects – they are not just making learning more fun. They are supporting stronger comprehension and, ultimately, stronger achievement.

Shannon shared examples ranging from pop-up classroom libraries and ebook access to digital choice boards and collaborative research experiences. What these examples had in common was not a specific tool. It was the intentional design behind them.

Students were given access, relevance, and choice. Teachers were given support. And the library became the connector.

Bring Innovation in Ways that Fit Real Classrooms

Innovation does not have to mean something flashy or complicated.

Sometimes it means helping a teacher rethink a long-standing project so students can engage more deeply. Sometimes it means introducing a digital tool at the right moment, with a clear curricular purpose. Sometimes it means showing how a resource can turn a passive assignment into a more creative, student-driven learning experience.

That is an important distinction for school leaders, too. The most effective library innovation is not innovation for its own sake. It is innovation in service of instructional goals.

This is where librarians often provide unique value: they can see across classrooms, across tools, and across grade levels. They know what resources exist, what has worked elsewhere, and where a small shift could create a much stronger learning experience.

Slide 53:

Capture Evidence of Impact as You Go

Great collaboration should be visible.

Shannon encouraged librarians to gather evidence that shows how the library contributes to student learning and school priorities. That evidence does not have to be complicated, but it should be intentional.

Useful examples include:

• student work and project artifacts
• Teacher, student, and parent group feedback
• classroom co-teaching counts
• resource usage data
• circulation trends
• database or digital tool usage
• newsletters, photos, and short stories that show learning in action

The goal is not just to collect data for its own sake. It is to tell a more complete story about how the library supports achievement, engagement, innovation, and instructional partnership.

That story matters when speaking with principals, district leaders, boards, and families. It also matters when building momentum with teachers who may be looking for their next strong collaborator.

Slide 105:

Start Small, But Start

For librarians who want to strengthen partnerships but are not sure where to begin, Shannon’s advice is especially helpful: start with one teacher, one lesson or unit, and one piece of evidence.

That is manageable, practical, and it creates momentum.

A single successful collaboration can lead to another. One strong classroom partnership can shift how a grade level sees the library. One clear example of impact can help school leaders better understand the library’s instructional role.

That is how the work grows: not all at once, but through visible, meaningful wins.

The Bigger Opportunity for Library Leaders

At its best, collaboration is not just about helping with a lesson. It is about redefining how the library is seen in the school.

When librarians consistently align to instruction, curate useful resources, co-plan meaningful experiences, and show evidence of impact, they move from support role to leadership role. They become central to how schools think about teaching, learning, engagement, and access.

For K–12 librarians and library leaders, that is the real opportunity.

Not to add more to your plate. But to make the work you are already doing more connected, more visible, and more powerful.

Whether you’re using Follett Software Destiny(R) Library Manager, Destiny Discover, Collections by Destiny, and Destiny Engage or exploring which tools best fit your school community the opportunity is the same: align the library more closely to curriculum goals, make trusted resources easier for students and teachers to discover, and create engaging reading and learning experiences that make the library’s impact visible across the school.

WATCH NOW: To see how to make these ideas work in action, watch Shannon McClintock Miller’s free webinar, which is packed with actionable ideas, Co-Planning for Impact: How Library–Curriculum Partnerships Move the Achievement Needle.

Shannon McClintock Miller
District Teacher Librarian & Innovation Director

Shannon McClintock Miller is the Innovation Director of Instructional Technology and Library Media at Van Meter Community School in Van Meter, Iowa. She is also the Future Ready Librarians Spokesperson working with librarians, educators, and students around the world every day as an international speaker, consultant, and author who has a passion for education, librarianship, advocacy, technology, and making a difference in the world and lives of others, especially children. Shannon brings a special expertise and vision to conversations around school libraries, education, technology, creativity, and student voice.