I served as a teacher-librarian for twelve years, ten years at the elementary level and two years in a high school. For the 2008-2009 school year, I returned to service in a combined junior high-high school library. During my school library tenure, I served in fixed, mixed, and flexibly scheduled school libraries. Regardless of the schedule, I always strive to collaborate for instruction with classroom teacher and specialist colleagues in order to integrate literature and information literacy into the classroom curriculum.

In my experience, a flexibly scheduled library program provides greater opportunities for effective learning and teaching. Through co-planning, co-teaching, and co-assessing lessons and units of instruction, I have benefited from job-embedded professional development. Learning alongside my peers propelled my growth as an educator. This book, which includes lessons that I co-taught during my elementary teacher-librarian career, is the culmination of this experience.

I also serve as a literacies and libraries consultant. As an adjunct assistant professor in the School of Information Resources and Library Science (SIRLS) at the University of Arizona (UA), I teach courses in children's and young adult literature and school library administration. I earned my master's degree in library science from SIRLS (1992) and my doctorate in education from the UA Department of Language, Reading and Culture (2003).

I have also served as a district-level teacher-librarian mentor, a literacy coach, a classroom teacher, and a teacher educator. My current research centers on the factors that influence preservice and first-year classroom teachers' understanding and practice of classroom-library collaboration. In addition, I am the author of two published children's picture books.