Catching up ...

The Miracle of the Ass, by Donatello

The BC Teacher-librarians' Association AGM and CC meeting was held in conjunction with the BC Librarians' Association (our public, academic, and special librarian allies) conference in Burnaby this weekend. TLs who come to the meeting from around the province were able to attend some of the sessions held on Saturday afternoon. First reports are "rave reviews" for the joint venture, so we are hoping to do this again in Penticton next year. Found at the exhibition place during lunch -- the venerable Dr Ken Haycock who will be returning to our northern regions by late summer and who will be in Padua this summer. I don't mention this Padua thing solely to annoy those of you who won't be in Padua this summer ... oh, but I have digressed!

If you'd been in my cubby last week, you'd have seen me under the extreme weight of panic as I was preparing the presentation wiki for a first draft of a "new" approach to Information Literacy K-12. This first-draft model will move away from the traditional scope-and-sequence to the use of benchmarks that are further proscribed by dimensions of student learning. While I am happy to post the presentation wiki, please know that we are already making plans for changes. Michele, Julie from West Van, Lynn from Terrace, and I have been working on this for over a year. Many many thanks to Janet from Churchill who came to the rescue in the re-writing process. School libraries are where angels hang out in schools. And if you missed that part of the training program -- how to be a school angel -- I have a workshop in mind for you.

At the Chapter Councillors meeting, VTLA co-president Chris from Tyee received the Ken Haycock Award for Professional Development to help her on her way to Padua in early September where she will gather information for a Bookmark article. Chris also became the third Vancouver TL on this BCTLA Executive when she agreed to take on the Treasurer's role. We know she is good at that.

All right, so I have to ask: Is anyone else coming to Padua? It will be THE place to be if you are a teacher-librarian this year. Check out the reason we're there -- IASL Conference 2009 and cute guys like Longhi's Jacopo, pictured here but all set to party with us when we get to Padua. Side trips -- like the poet Petrarch's beautiful farmhouse, the Bertiolana and Marciana Bibliotecas, and the boat tour of Padua by night -- these and the fact that Padua is famous for its history, its Basilica of St Anthony and its natural Euganean spas, its being very close to Venice and also being a wonderful place to view Giotto's frescoes and Donatello's bronze sculptures -- promise to make this teacher-librarians' conference a really memorable event in global teacher-librarianship. Above is Donatello's Miracle of the Ass which I am assuming is short for Association, as in BCTLA's AGM or International ASS'n of School Librarians!

Will be sending out details of the ten-day special teacher-librarian and like-minded educators' tour of Tuscany and Northern Italy soon. This tour is being organized via our TL Francesca from Hastings and is customized to TL needs. It features, for example, spa time and one whole day for the outlet mall for D & G, amongst other Italian designer hotspots, for those of us who simply must have those can't-come-back-without and other must-buy fashion items. Conference is optional but available at a very reasonable additional cost! What better way to get in the spirit for the year of the Olympics than a visit to Western classical roots.

The images used in this blog are from a wonderful Western classical art teaching resource called The Web Gallery of Art.