The Restorative School Library
Building Spaces and Programs Where Students Are Seen and Celebrated
Published on 25. March 2026
128 pages
978-1-040-54072-5 (ISBN)
Description
School libraries today are faced with budget cuts, book challenges, "job creep," and more. What is a school librarian to do? Award-winning librarian and ALA author Julia Stivers details how you can navigate these times and build library collections, spaces, and programs where our students are both seen and celebrated.
Stivers shows how restorative practices-including community building, group circles, and actively repairing harm-can work to create more just, equitable spaces where identities and relationships are centered. You'll learn how to build collections that reflect students' identities, lived experiences, and interests, and how to avoid inequitable systems like book fairs, lost book fees, limited check-outs, and biased cataloguing, which create barriers to access for our most vulnerable students.
With the strategies in this book, you'll be able to rethink your procedures, collections, and spaces to make your library restorative for all users.
Stivers shows how restorative practices-including community building, group circles, and actively repairing harm-can work to create more just, equitable spaces where identities and relationships are centered. You'll learn how to build collections that reflect students' identities, lived experiences, and interests, and how to avoid inequitable systems like book fairs, lost book fees, limited check-outs, and biased cataloguing, which create barriers to access for our most vulnerable students.
With the strategies in this book, you'll be able to rethink your procedures, collections, and spaces to make your library restorative for all users.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
1 Tables, black and white; 10 Line drawings, black and white; 10 Illustrations, black and white
File size
54,75 MB
ISBN-13
978-1-040-54072-5 (9781040540725)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Julia Stivers
The Restorative School Library
Building Spaces and Programs Where Students Are Seen and Celebrated
Book
approx. 03/2026
1st Edition
Routledge
€34.90
Not yet published
Person
Julia Stivers (she/her) is a high school librarian in Durham, NC. As an American Library Association Emerging Leader, she helped develop AASL's Defending Intellectual Freedom: LGBTQ+ Materials in School Libraries. She is proud to have been named NC's 2022 School Library Media Coordinator of the Year and the 2023 School Library Journal School Librarian of the Year. Find her at linktr.ee/BespokeLib.
Content
1. Students at the Center: The #LibFive 2. Building a Restorative Space 3. Curating a Restorative Collection 4. Restorative Policies and Procedures 5. Restorative Instruction + Collaborations 6. Restorative Practices Embedded in a Library Program 7. Marketing = Seeing 8. Restorative Clubs + Author Visits 9. #TrueBookFAIRs 10. Library Helpers: Beyond the Clerical
