Episode 20: Escape Rooms and the AASL Standards

The recent American Association of School Librarians (AASL) national conference in Phoenix served as the launch site for the updated National School Library Standards for Learners, School Librarians, and School Libraries—a fascinating matrix of shared foundations and competencies that allows librarians and educators to address and meet the needs of 21st-century learners. The Standards were the talk of the conference. They even infiltrated it in an unlikely place—an escape room. The escape room at the AASL conference found participants using elements of the Standards to solve clues: collaboration, investigation, exploration, engaging with others, sharing, and so on. In Episode 20, we explore the intersection between the Standards and escape rooms. First, host Phil Morehart speaks with Marcia Mardis, associate professor and assistant dean of interdisciplinary research and education in the College of Communication and Information at Florida State University and chair of the Standards editorial board, about the Standards, why they were updated, and what’s in the new edition. Then we report from Phoenix where ALA Editions editor Jamie Santoro talks to former AASL president Terri Grief about the escape room before joining a team of librarians from Oklahoma as they tackle the AASL escape room. Finally, Santoro talks with Patty Jimenez, a teacher-librarian at Sunnyslope High School in Phoenix, about an escape room that she set up for her students in the library.