Author Archives: Editor

October is International School Library Month

October 1 marks the beginning of International School Library Month (ISLM), a month to celebrate and draw attention to school libraries.  First started as International School Library Day in 1999 by Past President Blanche Woolls, it was changed to International School Library Month in 2008 to give more flexibility to schools around the world to choose a time in the month that best fits their specific situation. During this month, school libraries around the world can choose a day, week, or the entire month to celebrate the importance of libraries.

The theme for ISLM 2014 is Your School Library: Mind-Map Central. The ISLM Committee, under the leadership of Marie O’Brien has worked hard to plan a number of activities (thank you, Marie and all other members!). In addition, there is long list of activities available on the IASL web site that schools have carried out in the past to give you ideas. Please feel free to choose an activity (or more than one) that suits you to celebrate the occasion, including, among other ideas you might have,

  • ISLM Bookmark Exchange Project
  • ISLM Skype Project
  • Exhibitions / Bulletin Boards in schools and prominent places
  • Community donations to school libraries (get the politicians involved – they love publicity!)
  • Recognizing outstanding students who have used the library
  • Honoring those who have contributed to the school library in the past year
  • Posting messages on various listservs
  • Writing to the newspapers, and radio / TV stations
  • Sending greetings to school library friends and non-school librarians through Facebook or other social media

As you carry out your activities, we would love to hear on what you did. Send in your submissions for “What people are doing for ISLM 2014”, with pictures if possible, by email to [email protected]

IASL miniconference call for papers

IASL members in the United States are planning a regional conference to be held in collaboration with the officers of the International Federation of Library Association’s School Library Section and the Texas Library Association (TLA). The IASL event will be held Monday evening, April 13 and all day on April 14.

 

Founded in 1971, IASL is one of the world’s oldest international professional associations for school librarians. IASL’s mission is to provide an international forum for people interested in promoting effective school library programs as viable instruments in the educational process. IASL also provides guidance and advice for the development of school library programs and the school library profession. IASL works in cooperation with other professional associations and agencies.

 

Membership is worldwide, and includes school librarians, teachers, librarians, library advisers, consultants, educational administrators, and others who are responsible for library and information services in schools. The membership also includes professors and instructors in universities and colleges where there are programs for school librarians, and students who are undertaking such programs.

 

The theme of this IASL regional conference mirrors that of TLA: Sync Up: Imagine, Collaborate, and Innovate. Conference participants will have the opportunity to present a professional paper in the Collaborate strand, Imagine strand, or Innovate strand or a Research paper. In addition, the conference program will include a limited number of best practice sessions in which presenters share results and guidelines for effective school library-related activities.

 

Each paper presenter will have 15 minutes to present the content of the paper allowing for questions at the end. The length of the paper is at the discretion of the author who understands that the presentation will be carefully timed.

 

We are planning for four sessions for papers, loosely following the conference themes with one research session. The last session of the conference will be one with examples of outstanding program successes for school librarians to consider.

 

The final format for the papers will be sent when your proposal has been accepted. Instructions for preparing your proposal are below. All papers will be blind referred by the IASL Regional Conference Committee. If you would like to submit a proposal to present a paper for this event, please submit the following information to Lesley Farmer ([email protected]):

 

Important Dates:

Proposals due October 31, 2014

Papers due: March 25, 2015

Proposal Submission Form

 

Author:

Title and Affiliation:

Address:

Phone:

e-mail:

 

Co-author:

Title and Affiliation:

Address

Phone:

e-mail:

 

Title of Paper:

 

Which strand? Imagine

Or        Collaborate

Or        Innovate

Or        Research paper

Or, I would like to present a best practices activity (please describe briefly)

 

Abstract (200 words)

 

We regret we are unable to offer remuneration or conference discount for speakers.

Model School Library Webinar

A free webinar, “The R.O.A.D. I Travel: A Program Model for School Libraries,” will explore how an Indianapolis middle school library partnered with other organizations to develop an innovative genealogy unit for eighth-graders. The program was recently recognized with ALA’s 2014 Sara Jaffarian School Library Program Award for Exemplary Humanities Programming.

Presenting the webinar will be AASL President-Elect Leslie Preddy, school librarian at Perry Meridian Middle School, and Suzanne Walker, children’s services consultant at the Indiana State Library. They will discuss how they created and implemented “R.O.A.D. (Research, Observe, Analyze, Discover) I Travel” in partnership with the Indiana Historical Society in 2013.

Over one semester, librarians assisted nearly 500 eighth-graders in researching their family histories online and in historical newspapers on microfilm, while historians and preservationists taught the students preservation and interview techniques. The unit culminated in a project fair, where students displayed videos, scrapbooks, student-made family cookbooks and demonstrations of unique family hobbies.

The webinar will be held at 2 p.m. CDT Wednesday, Oct. 8. Register online at bit.ly/jaffarian2014.

IFLA 2014 Congress School Libraries Section Activities

School Libraries Section minutes and updated Action Plans are available on the website.

The School Libraries Section had a very productive time at the Lyon World Library and Information Congress – having hosted 2 successful sessions.

Minutes from the Lyon WLIC and the section’s Standing Committee meetings held in Lyon are available on the website, plus an updated action plan, and they include details of the 2 successful sessions held during the WLIC. The first on “IFLA/UNESCO School Library Guidelines: Review and Recommendations.” had members of the School Libraries SC as faciltators for the session for a workshop on the draft international school library guidelines (a revision of the 2002 IFLA/UNESCO School Library Guidelines). An expected 35 participants for the guidelines workshop was in fact 185, including about 50 French-speakers. Organized into 15 groups by language and topic. each group worked on the documents and then the participants reported back, one from each French-speaking group, whose words were then translated into English, and one from each English-speaking groups, whose words were then translated into French, by one of the conference volunteers, Christele Mir. A fantastic amount of work was achieved – and huge thanks to Christele.

The second was entitled School Libraries on the Agenda: Advocacy Initiatives from Around the World.” Members of the School Libraries SC served as faciltators for the session which was a culmination and celebration of the completion of our joint advocacy materials project with 8 presentations followed by roundtable discussions. Again an expected 60 participants was in fact 90 delegates. 8 speakers each give a 5-10 minute overview of his/her paper, and then organized the participants into 8 roundtable groups for discussions with the presenters. Presenters came from France, Norway, USA, Sweden, Malaysia, and South Africa. Presenters from Nigeria and Argentina were unable to come to Lyon, unfortunately. However, all ten of the papers on school library advocacy are available on the IFLA conference website and in the IFLA Library.

The section is now continuing with this work and will report back regularly. Thank you to all participants.

http://www.ifla.org/node/9049

http://www.ifla.org/publications/school-libraries-section-action-plan

http://www.ifla.org/school-libraries/minutes

http://conference.ifla.org/ifla80

http://library.ifla.org/view/conferences/2014/2014-08-21/437.html