Author Archives: Editor

International Literacy Day September 8

The theme of International Literacy Day 2014 is “Literacy and Sustainable Development”.  Literacy is one of the key elements needed to promote sustainable development, as it empowers people so that they can make the right decisions in the areas of economic growth, social development and environmental integration. Literacy is a basis for lifelong learning and plays a crucial foundational role in the creation of sustainable, prosperous and peaceful societies.

Literacy skills developed from a basic to advanced level throughout life are part of broader competencies required for critical thinking, the sense of responsibility, participatory governance, sustainable consumption and lifestyles, ecological behaviours, biodiversity protection, poverty reduction, and disaster risk reduction.

This year’s International Literacy Day will be celebrated worldwide. A main global celebration will take place in Dhaka, where the Government of Bangladesh in cooperation with UNESCO will organize the International Conference on “Girls’ and women’s literacy and education: Foundations for sustainable development and the awarding of UNESCO Literacy Prizes” in support for the UN Secretary General’s Global Education First Initiative (GEFI).

– See more at: http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/events/prizes-and-celebrations/celebrations/international-days/literacy-day/#sthash.Y5Y8jDTo.dpuf

Call for chapters

You are invited to contribute a chapter to a forthcoming book entitled Global Action on School Library Guidelines. The book will be co-edited by Dr. Barbara Schultz-Jones, from the University of North Texas in the USA, and Dr. Dianne Oberg, from the University of Alberta in Canada, and published in June 2015 by IFLA and d​eGruyter Saur. The Joint Committee of IASL and IFLA School Libraries will serve as the advisory committee for the project.The  focus of the book will be the ways in which members of the school library community worldwide have developed, revised, promoted, and implemented school library guidelines in their country or their province/state/county or their local school district/administrative unit. There will be a chapter about the international IFLA/UNESCO School Library Guidelines as well.

Each chapter will describe, in 3000-4000 words, a specific case of action related to school library guidelines. The description or “case study” will include: a description of the action and its aims or objectives; the context of the action; strategies and resources used to carry out the action; outcomes; assessment and evaluation; and contact/s for further information. These case studies are intended to serve as a guide or an inspiration for others facing similar challenges.
Examples of topics about which you may wish to write include, but are not limited to, the following:​
-Developing national school library standards and/or guidelines
-Efforts to implement new school library standards and/or guidelines
-Transitioning a school library to a learning commons
-Changing school and/or school library culture or expectations to align with guidelines

Here is the planned timetable for the project:
15 September  2014:  Submission of proposals for chapters
​01 October 2014: Notification of acceptance of proposals
15 November 2014:  Submission of full chapters
08 December 2014:  Feedback to authors and requests for​ revisions
15 January 2015:  Submission of the revised final chapter​s​
31 January 2015: Submission of final copy of the entire book to the publisher
​
Contact [email protected] for submission template.​

Call for proposals for IS conference

Librarians are invited to con­tri­bute to the 14th International Symposium of Information Science (ISI 2015). ISI 2015 is a bian­nual gathe­ring of scho­lars, rese­ar­chers and stu­dents from infor­ma­tion sci­ence from Europe and beyond who share a com­mon inte­rest in cri­ti­cal infor­ma­tion issues in con­tem­porary society. The con­fe­rence series ori­gi­na­ted in the German-language infor­ma­tion sci­ence com­mu­nity but has become more and more inter­na­tio­nal in recent years.

This time, ISI 2015 will take place in Zadar, Croatia, from May 19 – 21, 2015 and will be co-organized by the Department of Information Sciences at the University of Zadar and the German Academic Association for Information Science (Hochschulverband Informationswissenschaft e. V.), in asso­cia­tion with the Association of Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T).

FURTHER INFORMATION: For fur­ther infor­ma­tion con­cerning the dif­fe­rent sub­mis­sion types, please have a look at the con­fe­rence home­page at http://isi2015.eu