Sarah is blogging:

• Two biggest challenges for public libraries? 2010/03/09
• School Libraries must be included in ESEA reauthorization 2010/03/06
• Questions about the future directions of ALA 2009/12/10
• GOOD question! 2009/10/08
• October is Information Literacy Month! 2009/10/04
• Here we go! SKJ4ALA is launched 2009/10/02
• “Give us libraries! Give us librarians!” 2009/09/27
• It all comes together for a New York Times story on school libraries…finally! 2009/02/16
• Resolutions… 2009/01/03
• ALA Virtual Poster session 2008/08/17

Sara Kelly Johns has been the 6-12 library media specialist at Lake Placid Middle/High School since 1999, (supervising the Lake Placid elementary school library for two years) and taught the same middle/senior high level at Beekmantown Middle/Senior High School before that.

From 1990-2006, she was an adjunct professor for the mandated undergraduate Library Research Methods through Technology course at SUNY Plattsburgh and won the “Excellence in Teaching” Award for Adjuncts in 1999 as well as the sixth annual “Award for Excellence in Library Service” from the North Country Reference and Research Resources (3’R’s) Council. Currently, she is teaching as an adjunct for the NCATE accredited School Library & Information Technology (SL&IT) program at Mansfield University.

She is an American Association of School Librarians (AASL) Past President, is the Associate Editor for AASL Community for Knowledge Quest, and is the AASL Coordinator in New York State for implementation of the AASL Standards for 21st Century Learner. Her new term on ALA Council begins at Midwinter in Boston.

Sara has presented extensively at state, regional and national school library conferences on advocacy, leadership, plagiarism prevention and AASL. In addition to presenting AASL updates while one of the AASL “presidents,” she was a keynoter for state school library conferences in Connecticut, West Virginia, Hawaii, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts as well as Singapore and the Capital Area (NY) School Development Association conference for school library media specialists. She has written professional articles for LMC, School Library Journal, Knowledge Quest and Teacher Librarian and will lead her first webinar on Collection Development for Linworth in October.

At the recent ALA Annual Conference, she was the school library panelist for the Reference Books Bulletin’s “Defending the Reference Collection” program.

She was a member and president of the Saranac Lake Free Library Board of Trustees. She served on the Regents Commission on Library Service for the 21st Century and is currently a member of the Regents Advisory Committee on Libraries, the New York Library Association (NYLA) Legislative Committee, the Intellectual Freedom roundtables for NYLA and ALA and the AASL Legislative Committee.