The Library Stage

Amanda Hunt, MLS
  • 4.7 (3)
  • Education
  • Weekly

The Library Stage is the podcast where school librarians take the stage: 18 minutes, one big idea, every episode. Hosted by Amanda Hunt, MLS (@TheNextGenLibrarian), award-winning Texas high school librarian with 21 years in education, each episode spotlights a librarian sharing what actually works: the programs, books, and edtech lighting up their libraries. Every talk hits one of three pillars: Literacy (books, reading culture, and collection stories), Edtech (AI, digital creation, and the tools transforming today's library), or Discovery (programming, makerspaces, and big ideas from guests.

  1. 5d ago

    Balling on a Budget

    Episode 34: Balling on a Budget with Ashleigh Osborne One craft a month, 20 minutes of advisory, under $20. That's the whole program. In this episode of The Library Stage, Amanda Hunt welcomes Ashleigh Osborne, a high school librarian in Richardson ISD with ten years in the library, a TAYSHAS Reading List Committee alum, and a member of the TLA Conference Planning Committee. High school is stressful, so she built a low-stakes space where kids can unwind and stumble into hobbies they didn't know they'd like. September was book bedazzling: accents only, because Ms. Osborne does not have a budget for the whole cover. October was sprinkle embroidery on cupcakes, with sprinkles donated by staff. November is sealed glitter bookmarks made from scrapbook paper and plastic sleeves she found in her own craft hoard. Kids sign up through a Google Form capped at 25, and it runs during a 20-minute advisory on a Tuesday or Thursday. If it fills fast, she adds sessions. Her advice for starting: pick a craft you already know how to do, scroll TikTok and Instagram for the rest, and focus on process over perfection. Half the kids don't know what they're doing either, they're just thrilled to be making something. Pillar: 🩵 Discovery 💡 Steal-this-idea: Ask your staff for their leftovers. Ashleigh emailed the whole building asking for sprinkle donations: half-used bottles, a quarter left in the container, anything, and didn't buy a single one. She's candid that it took her years to get comfortable asking, but the worst anyone can say is no. 📌 Three more things worth stealing: Crayons instead of wax pencils for picking up bedazzling gems — a student's idea, and the flat tip works perfectly. The art department had plenty.Kits in a bucket on days the library is closed for testing. She made paper pumpkin kits: construction paper strips, a pipe cleaner, one brad, announced them on Schoology, and set them outside the door.Your library aides can assemble the kits. She made one as the model and handed the rest off.📎 Resources: Ashleigh's Amazon list — the supplies behind her makerspace momentsPaper pumpkin instructions📌 Her earlier version of this was called More Than Books, where teachers taught a skill they already had — yoga, embroidery, junk journaling — with fabric and thread donated by community members. The embroidery was the surprise hit. Plus, stick around for her Curtain Call featuring: 📖 Hollow Bones by Jodi Picoult — postpartum psychosis, tied to the 25th anniversary of 9/11, and researched the way Picoult always researches. An adult read, and one of Amanda's top books of the year.Follow Ashleigh: 📱 Instagram: @jjpearcelibrary where all the photos of these crafts live Think your library story belongs on the stage? Pitch your talk: thenextgenlib@gmail.com Hosted by Amanda Hunt, MLS (@TheNextGenLibrarian) 🌐 thenextgenlibrarian.com #TheLibraryStage #TakeTheStage #SchoolLibrarians #HighSchoolLibrary #LibraryProgramming #MakerSpace #PassiveProgramming #Crafts #SchoolLibrary #TeacherLibrarian #BudgetFriendly #TLA #TxASL The Library Stage is an independent podcast, not affiliated with TED Conferences LLC.

    Balling on a Budget

  2. 6d ago

    Projects Are Less Planning

    Episode 33: Projects Are Less Planning with Maura Madigan Long projects hit more skills than a one-off lesson and, Maura Madigan argues, they’re less work for you. One setup carries months. In this episode of The Library Stage, Amanda Hunt welcomes Maura Madigan, a secondary school librarian in Northern Virginia, nationally board certified in library media, beginning her twelfth year in the library after ten at the elementary level, and the author of several ALA Editions titles. Her project of choice is green screen video and her first note is that it doesn’t have to be green. It just needs a consistent colored background. Her studios are unused pizza boxes she asked her local pizza place for, lined with construction paper, with rulers wrapped in the same paper to hold cutouts so hands disappear. The second and third grade version runs for weeks: three lessons learning Pebble Go, Britannica, and World Book, then research onto a graphic organizer, then rewriting those facts as a script, then filming an animal documentary. Kids discover on their own that no single database has everything. She also scales it down: three lessons with a high school self-contained class and sideways into a learning center with pre-printed characters, including photos of teachers and the principal as the cast. Her framing: she’ll tell you she isn’t the most tech savvy person. If she can learn this and teach it to second graders, so can you. Pillar: 🧡 EdTech 💡 Steal-this-idea: Pizza box studios. Ask your local pizza place for unused boxes; they’ll likely hand them over free to a school. Line the bottom and back with colored construction paper, prop it open, and you’ve got a class set of mini green screen studios for the cost of the paper. 🛠️ Tools: Do Ink for iPads, WeVideo for Chromebooks (you can film directly in it, though she has students film first and edit second), plus Image Quest for animal and habitat images 📎 Resources: Maura’s database graphic organizers — the research scaffolds she uses with second and third gradersPlus, stick around for her Curtain Call featuring: 📖 Head Fake — a 26-year-old trying to make a comeback, driving a bus and then coaching basketball at an alternative high school. Hard in places, ultimately uplifting, and she’s buying it for her high school collection.📖 The Tenth Mistake of Hank Cooperman by Gennifer Choldenko — a Virginia Readers’ Choice middle school pick. Eleven-year-old Hank, a three-year-old sister, and a mother who doesn’t come home.📖 Margot’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe — adult fiction and professional reading only, not a school purchase. Far better than the series adaptation.Reach Maura: ✉️ Her email is in the linked slide deck | 📚 Her books at ALA Editions Think your library story belongs on the stage? Pitch your talk: thenextgenlib@gmail.com Hosted by Amanda Hunt, MLS (@TheNextGenLibrarian) 🌐 thenextgenlibrarian.com #TheLibraryStage #TakeTheStage #SchoolLibrarians #GreenScreen #EdTech #ProjectBasedLearning #ElementaryLibrary #SecondaryLibrary #Databases #LibraryLessons #SchoolLibrary #TeacherLibrarian The Library Stage is an independent podcast, not affiliated with TED Conferences LLC.

    Projects Are Less Planning

  3. Oct 31

    The Librarian is the Hype Person

    Episode 32: The Librarian Is the Hype Person with Amy Garlitz A first-year social studies teacher walked into a library with a wild idea about a feudalism simulation. The librarian said yes immediately. Years later, Amy Garlitz decided she wanted to be that person. In this episode of The Library Stage, Amanda Hunt welcomes Amy Garlitz, a high school librarian in Frederick, Maryland, now in her ninth year at Frederick High School. Her method is simpler than it sounds: the teacher owns the content, Amy owns the logistics. She doesn't speak Spanish and she's bad at math, which hasn't stopped her from building a Spanish airport simulation or a Super Mario breakout where kids punch open boxes to get math problems out. Plus advice for librarians who aren't naturally the loud one, and one hard-won lesson: check with your custodian before you run the fog machine. She didn't. The fire alarm went off. Pillar: 🩵 Discovery 💡 Steal-this-idea: Partner with your public library's teen librarian. Amy's comes to her campus twice a month to run a lunchtime craft, brings all his own materials, and sets it up himself. Teen librarians often genuinely want school partnerships during the year, and it's a free, recurring program you don't have to build. 🛠️ EdTech tool: Gemini Notebook — her favorite because you upload the documents you want it working from. She used it on the murder mystery: she'd recorded all the suspect interviews before deciding who the killer was, so she uploaded her scripts and asked which character made the best murderer, then had it check that she'd left enough clues behind. Plus, stick around for her Curtain Call featuring: 📖 Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman — peak millennial humor, easy to read, and exactly the kind of outside-your-usual-lane pick that breaks a reading slumpFollow Amy: 📱 @adventurouslibrarian on TikTok, Instagram, and Threads; she said explicitly to reach out, and that she'll answer any question and share any resource. Think your library story belongs on the stage? Pitch your talk: thenextgenlib@gmail.com Hosted by Amanda Hunt, MLS (@TheNextGenLibrarian) 🌐 thenextgenlibrarian.com #TheLibraryStage #TakeTheStage #SchoolLibrarians #HighSchoolLibrary #TeacherCollaboration #Gamification #ProjectBasedLearning #LibraryProgramming #BreakoutEDU #SchoolLibrary #TeacherLibrarian The Library Stage is an independent podcast, not affiliated with TED Conferences LLC.

    The Librarian is the Hype Person

  4. Oct 31

    Disagreeing is a Skill

    Episode 31: Disagreeing is a Skill with Elizabeth Dickerson Elizabeth Dickerson’s students couldn’t collaborate, whether she picked the groups or they did. The fix wasn’t a better rubric. It was teaching them that disagreeing is allowed. In this episode of The Library Stage, Amanda Hunt welcomes Elizabeth Dickerson, a school library paraprofessional in New Hampshire working toward her library certification, and mom to two neurodivergent boys. She walks through the projects she builds collaboration into: cardboard gingerbread houses her fourth graders research, cut, paint, and decorate over three weeks before the whole school votes. A published ABC book of the library through Student Treasures. Lego parade floats mounted on Sphero Indi robots. And a book-themed mini golf course: one hole per class, then a full week of the library as a course, with the gym teacher teaching golf skills in year two. The grouping method is the part to steal. Students write down three people they’d like to work with. She picks one of those names to pair them with, then pairs that duo with a completely unrelated duo. Nobody gets a table of four friends, and everyone gets at least one person they chose. And her best observation: the materials do a lot of the teaching. A chimney cut at a weird angle won’t stick, so the argument resolves itself. Her job is mostly to stand nearby with the hot glue gun asking did you hear what that person said? Pillar: 🩵 Discovery 💡 Steal-this-idea: Give them permission to disagree, out loud, before the project starts. Elizabeth sets the expectation that everyone participates and everyone participates with kindness, and that if you don’t like how something’s going and you’ve said so, you can come talk it through with her. In four years she’s had to actually intervene in a group twice. 🛠️ Resources: Student Treasures — free class-published books; parents can order copies, and Elizabeth only sends that info home if a student asks, so no pressure on familiesMakerWorld — where she found the free 3D-printable Lego adapter for Sphero Indi robotsCardboard tools: MakeDo and the ChompSaw (two bought by her PTA with end-of-year funds), plus paint sticks instead of liquid paint — they stick to cardboard, dry fast, and spare a carpeted library📌 The Sphero Indi Lego adapter came from a post by Melanie Wood — our Episode 15 guest. Good ideas travel. Follow Elizabeth: 📱 Instagram: @pagesofplay | 🎵 TikTok: [@elizabeththelibrarian] Think your library story belongs on the stage? Pitch your talk: thenextgenlib@gmail.com Hosted by Amanda Hunt, MLS (@TheNextGenLibrarian) 🌐 thenextgenlibrarian.com #TheLibraryStage #TakeTheStage #SchoolLibrarians #ElementaryLibrary #Collaboration #MakerSpace #ProjectBasedLearning #Cardboard #SEL #LibraryProgramming #SchoolLibrary #LibraryPara The Library Stage is an independent podcast, not affiliated with TED Conferences LLC.

    Disagreeing is a Skill

  5. Oct 25

    Storytelling is Belonging

    Episode 30: Storytelling Is Belonging with Dr. Hatice Karaaslan Post one image to a shared board. Then take the stage and tell the true story behind it. Two minutes, maximum. In this episode of The Library Stage (our first international guest!) Amanda Hunt welcomes Dr. Hatice Karaaslan, a cognitive scientist and instructor in Turkey who coordinates the student mentorship program at her university's Learning and Teaching Center and is a Google Certified Innovator. The activity is called the One Slide Show, created with her colleague Dr. Ahmet Çolak. Participants get five minutes to pick one thing: an image, a video, a quote, a poem then post it to a Padlet wall, then tell the personal story behind it in two minutes or less. The constraint is the design. One slide keeps the scope small enough that anyone can enter, and the clock forces people to find what's actually real in their story. The brain is wired for narrative: a number presented as data gets forgotten, and the same number inside a story sticks. Pillar: 🧡 EdTech 💡 Steal-this-idea: The One Slide Show. One image, one video, one quote, one thing. Five minutes to find it, two minutes to tell the story behind it, volunteers first. The small scope is what makes people willing to start, and the clock is what makes what they say land. 📌 Let people watch before they participate. The students who became the most expressive storytellers almost all started as bystanders who stopped to see what was happening. 🛠️ Resources: Padlet — her tool of choice for this and her courses. Participants can post anonymously or by name, and read and respond to each other's entries.Her Padlet example — the actual board from the activityPlus, stick around for her Curtain Call featuring: 📖 The Storytelling Animal by Jonathan Gottschall — the cognitive science of why our brains are built for narrative, and why a story outlasts a statistic.Follow Dr. Karaaslan: 💼 LinkedIn: Hatice Karaaslan | 📸  Learning and Teaching Center’s Instagram (@aybuogmer) Think your library story belongs on the stage? Pitch your talk: thenextgenlib@gmail.com Hosted by Amanda Hunt, MLS (@TheNextGenLibrarian) 🌐 thenextgenlibrarian.com #TheLibraryStage #TakeTheStage #SchoolLibrarians #Storytelling #LearnerAutonomy #Padlet #EdTech #StudentVoice #Belonging #SelfAccessLearning #InternationalEducation The Library Stage is an independent podcast, not affiliated with TED Conferences LLC.

    Storytelling is Belonging

  6. Oct 24

    Civics in Action

    Episode 29: Civics in Action with Rain Smith Students registered to vote, showed up at the polls, and felt lost. So Rain Smith called her county voting office and asked them to bring a machine to school. In this episode of The Library Stage, Amanda Hunt welcomes Rain Smith, a high school librarian in Indiana beginning her twenty-seventh year in education and tenth in the library, and chair of the Association of Indiana School Library Educators. Government classes cover voting in the abstract. Nothing in her building did anything bold and forward-facing about it. So she registered the library as a National Voter Registration Day site. A government teacher walked in, saw it, and said we should do this together next year. Four years on it's a three-day event: a superintendent on the school referendum, a judge on why judicial races matter, stations on local races and disability rights in the booth, pledge cards, a signed poster in the hallway, and the League of Women Voters manning tables. Last year they registered 200+ students, plus staff: cafeteria workers, custodians, subs, anyone not registered locally. Her framing: K–12 isn't about teaching kids to get a job. It's about preparing people who can care for themselves and their communities. Pillar: 🩵 Discovery 💡 Steal-this-idea: Call your county voting office and ask for a sample voting machine. Nearly every locality has one or can get one, and those staff are often glad for the outreach, especially outside peak season. Students who've pushed the buttons once aren't afraid of the booth. It works at any level: hold a vote on the best classroom stuffie and bring the machine in for that. 🛠️ Resources: National Voter Registration Day — register as a site and they send posters, stickers, digital downloads, and speaker videosLeague of Women Voters — they want to help, and they'll move fastCheck out Rain's Canva templates in the resources spreadsheet📌 Keep current books on voting, voting rights, and representation in your collection year-round, not just on a November display. Rain made a visual book list that lives in the government teacher's classroom so students know what's available when they need it. Follow Rain: 🦋 Personal: Bluesky: @simplyrain.bsky.social LinkedIn School: 📱Instagram: @wchs_medctr Think your library story belongs on the stage? Pitch your talk: thenextgenlib@gmail.com Hosted by Amanda Hunt, MLS (@TheNextGenLibrarian) 🌐 thenextgenlibrarian.com #TheLibraryStage #TakeTheStage #SchoolLibrarians #HighSchoolLibrary #VoterRegistration #CivicEngagement #LibraryProgramming #SchoolLibrary #TeacherLibrarian #CivicsInAction #TxASL The Library Stage is an independent podcast, not affiliated with TED Conferences LLC.

    Civics in Action

  7. Oct 18

    Advocacy Is Problem Solving

    Episode 28: Advocacy Is Problem Solving with Cherity Pennington Nobody else wakes up in the morning thinking about the school library. Cherity Pennington built her whole advocacy practice around that fact. In this episode of The Library Stage, Amanda Hunt welcomes Cherity Pennington, an Oklahoma educator for twenty-seven years and a teacher librarian for fifteen, now at Norman High School. She's past president of the Oklahoma Library Association, co-editor of the second edition of AASL's National School Library Standards, and a 2026 School Library Journal Librarian of the Year finalist. Early on she thought advocacy meant making pretty charts for her principal. Then she realized teachers are thinking about classroom management, principals about achievement, superintendents about strategic goals, parents about their own kid, and every one of those is a problem the library can solve. Advocacy is making yourself the obvious answer to the problem someone already has. Her three rules: build relationships long before you need anything, adopt other people's goals as your own, and tell the story behind the number. Pillar: 🩵 Discovery 💡 Steal-this-idea: Ask every teacher one question: what's the one standard or learning activity you need the most support with? Then go solve it. It's a relationship, a lesson, and an advocacy win in a single conversation. 🛠️ Resources: AASL Standards ResourcesPlus, stick around for her Curtain Call featuring three professional reads: 📖 Strengthening Library Ecosystems by Dorcas Hand, Sarah Kelly Johns, Michelle Robertson, and Aaron Duffy: how librarians across all library types can advocate for each other📖 National School Library Standards, second edition including a full advocacy section built for reflection and planning real conversations📖 Assessing Learners by Elizabeth Burns — short, practical, and the reference for proving your students are learningFollow Cherity: 💼 LinkedIn: Cherity Pennington Think your library story belongs on the stage? Pitch your talk: thenextgenlib@gmail.com Hosted by Amanda Hunt, MLS (@TheNextGenLibrarian) 🌐 thenextgenlibrarian.com #TheLibraryStage #TakeTheStage #SchoolLibrarians #LibraryAdvocacy #HighSchoolLibrary #AASL #SchoolLibrary #TeacherLibrarian #LibraryLeadership #AdvocacyMatters #TLA #TxASL The Library Stage is an independent podcast, not affiliated with TED Conferences LLC.

    Advocacy Is Problem Solving

  8. Oct 17

    Twelve Days of Giveaways

    Episode 27: Twelve Days of Giveaway with Jennifer Brusenhan For the last twelve days before winter break, Jennifer Brusenhan sends kids home with a book that's theirs to keep and the staff decides who gets one. In this episode of The Library Stage, Amanda Hunt welcomes Jennifer Brusenhan, an elementary librarian in New Braunfels, Texas, building a library program from the ground up at a campus that opened last year. A spreadsheet goes out to staff in November, and any adult on campus can nominate. The priority is kids who don't have much access to books at home, but nominations also go to kids who showed growth: a behavior turnaround, a jump in reading level, a good run on tests. Each certificate names the student, the reason, and who nominated them, so a kid learns the PE coach noticed them helping clean up. Four or five names go out on morning announcements each day across mixed grade levels. Kids come pick any book from the stack and leave with the book, the certificate, and a goodie bag. Kindergartners ask if they really get to keep it. Her advice for anyone building a program from scratch: don't roll it all out at once. Small things, one at a time. Pillar: 🩷 Literacy 💡 Steal-this-idea: Who Am I cards. Clues about a historical figure i.e. birth year, accomplishments, details that don't give it away, posted on a hallway bulletin board with a guess box, or read over morning announcements. 🛠️ Resources: Who Am I cards and Guessing template — Jennifer's sets, ready to printPebble Go — her pick for elementary research, and what students use to crack the Who Am I cluesPlus, stick around for her Curtain Call featuring: 📖 Dancing Hands: How Teresa Carreño Played the Piano for President Lincoln by Margarita Engle — a true story kids don't believe is true until you pull up the research with them. Great for Hispanic Heritage Month, Women's History Month, or any time of year.📌 Jennifer shares free resources constantly, including Beanstack templates — worth a follow for that alone. Follow Jennifer: 📱 @TexasAggieLibrarian on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook | 🦋 Bluesky: @TXAggieLibrarian | ✖️ X: @AggieLibrarian1 Think your library story belongs on the stage? Pitch your talk: thenextgenlib@gmail.com Hosted by Amanda Hunt, MLS (@TheNextGenLibrarian) 🌐 thenextgenlibrarian.com #TheLibraryStage #TakeTheStage #SchoolLibrarians #ElementaryLibrary #BookGiveaway #LibraryProgramming #ReadingCulture #SchoolCulture #NewLibrarian #SchoolLibrary #TeacherLibrarian #TLA #TxASL The Library Stage is an independent podcast, not affiliated with TED Conferences LLC.

    Twelve Days of Giveaways
See All (34)

Ratings & Reviews

4.7
out of 5
3 Ratings

About

The Library Stage is the podcast where school librarians take the stage: 18 minutes, one big idea, every episode. Hosted by Amanda Hunt, MLS (@TheNextGenLibrarian), award-winning Texas high school librarian with 21 years in education, each episode spotlights a librarian sharing what actually works: the programs, books, and edtech lighting up their libraries. Every talk hits one of three pillars: Literacy (books, reading culture, and collection stories), Edtech (AI, digital creation, and the tools transforming today's library), or Discovery (programming, makerspaces, and big ideas from guests.

Information

  • Creator
    Amanda Hunt, MLS
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    34
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Amanda Hunt, MLS
  • Show Website
    The Library Stage

You Might Also Like