91´«Ã½

CHICAGO – Developing Critical Curators Seeking Diverse Perspectives, a project proposed by the American Association of School Librarians (AASL), has been selected as a part of the 2022 91´«Ã½ (91´«Ã½) Emerging Leaders program. AASL’s project tasks an Emerging Leaders team to develop materials that support professional development and instruction around the National School Library Standards Shared Foundation of Curate.

“As the growing number of material challenges and assertions from the challengers has shown us in the past year, this is an opportune time to focus on the Curate Shared Foundation,” said AASL President Jennisen Lucas. “Curation has typically been a core function of librarians of all types but including it as an instructional part of the AASL Standards demonstrates how school librarians are addressing the changing world of information.”

The Emerging Leaders program is a leadership development program which enables newer library workers from across the country to participate in problem-solving work groups, network with peers, gain an inside look into 91´«Ã½ structure, and have an opportunity to serve the profession in a leadership capacity. The program culminates with a poster session presentation to display the results of the project work of each group at the 91´«Ã½ Annual Conference.

As part of the Curate project, the Emerging Leaders team will be asked to craft an introduction and narrative summary of the Shared Foundation Curate, develop a collection of activities and resources to support professional development and instruction, and draft an infographic to help raise awareness of the work school librarians undertake as a part of Curate.

“Now that it is so easy to share information in online platforms that are not regulated, it is up to the information consumer to parse through the material and make critical decisions about what they read,” said Lucas. “Curation is a key component to information literacy, and I am excited that this year's Emerging Leaders are taking on the exploration and creation of materials for this Shared Foundation at this time.”

AASL member Jennifer Sturge will serve as AASL’s member guide to the 2022 Emerging Leaders team working on the Curate project. The team will kick-off their work on January 21 in a virtual session during 91´«Ã½’s LibLearnX event.

“As the member guide for the Curate project, I am thrilled that this Shared Foundation has been chosen as a focus,” said Sturge. “It is more important than ever that school librarians curate diverse, relevant, and engaging collections. The products developed from this project will provide a wider range of tools in our school librarian toolboxes as we face challenges to our profession and our collections. I cannot wait to meet our team and kick off our work at LibLearnX.”

The Curate project is the third in a series of Shared Foundations projects completed by Emerging Leaders teams. Earlier projects focused on the Shared Foundations of and can be found on the AASL Standards web portal at

The American Association of School Librarians, , a division of the 91´«Ã½ (91´«Ã½), empowers leaders to transform teaching and learning.