School/Public Library Cooperation

As we all know, the words cooperation and collaboration are used a lot these days especially for public and school libraries. Here are a few resources that have popped up that you may or may not be aware of:
TSLAC now offers a free online course, "Everyone Wins - When School and Public Libraries Cooperate!" which is found at http://onlinetraining.tsl.state.tx.us/. Willie Braudaway recommended this course to me and I took it. It takes about 2-3 hours to complete. (Pay attention to everything - there is a test!). This course discusses several cooperative ventures that are being done in Texas and elsewhere in the U.S. Most of the material is done in audio so you do need speakers to finish this course.
I found several sites that have good assignment alert forms for public libraries. Assignment alerts are done by teachers or school librarians. They fill out an online alert for the public library before the students begin flooding the library for materials. Tulsa Public Library's is here http://teens.tulsalibrary.org/virtual/assignment.asp and Wichita Falls Public Library's is here www.wfpl.net/assignmentalert.htm. Both of these forms are simple to fill out and give enough information for the receiving public library to reserve those materials for the class. You could easily adapt either form to your Web site.
There is an article in the May/June issue of Public Libraries, "A Common Purpose: Public/School Library Cooperation and Collaboration." The author discusses the elements of success (communication, cooperation and respect) and give a solid list of practical suggestions such as summer reading, educating teachers on public libraries and school reading lists.