There's Never Nothing to Do with School Libraries

This Weekend, It's Word on the Street

WOTS: Sunday at Library Square, 11 am to 5 pm. This is a wonderful annual Fall event where you can check out new titles, award-winning authors and spoken-word artists, book bargains, and more ... all for FREE. Who's there? Check here.

Fall Book Harvest, October 16

North Vancouver City Library's Annual Fall Book Harvest brings CWILLBC authors and illustrators, new titles, book prizes, displays, and the chance to meet children's favorites. 1:30 to 3:30 pm, 120 West 14th, North Vancouver.

Vancouver Children's Literature Roundtable Fall Breakfast

Saturday, October 17: University Golf Club, 8:30 Registration: This year, meet Gregory Maguire, author of more than a dozen novels for children -- and Wicked for adults.

BCTLA Conference: Champions of Literacy

October 22-23: Richmond Olympic Oval and Richmond Secondary School. Keynote speaker: none other than Roch Carrier; a national treasure and a champion of Canadian culture. As a Canadian writer, he touched our hearts with books like La Guerre, Yes Sir! He was a director of the Canadian Council for the Arts from 1994 to 1997 and served as National Librarian of Canada from 1997 to 2004. Carrier is an ardent supporter of libraries and children's literacy.

The Thursday night wine and cheese will be at the Legacy Suite of the spectacular Richmond Olympic Oval so you can catch the Olympic excitement! Take a tour of this inspiring and innovative building and meet the Olympic Mascots! This year's themes are Imagination, Inspiration, and Information! Click on Venues or Presenters to get more details.
The main conference is being hosted by Richmond Secondary School, located at 7171 Minoru Blvd., Richmond BC, V6Y1Z3. There'll be exciting workshops, inspiring speakers and great literacy displays from a variety of vendors.

Register now!

DEAR, October 26

On Monday evening this week, Vancouver school trustees supported by District Management, unanimously supported a motion to endorse the annual Drop Everything and Read campaign in which, on October 26 National School Library Day, whole school communities drop everything and read for 20 minutes.

Under the guidance of BCTLA VP (Advocacy) Karen Lindsay, the BCTLA Executive successfully promoted this initiative to celebrate National School Library Day and were honoured nationally with the CASL/Angela Thacker Memorial Award. You should have received your poster for this year's event; it features a photo by BCTLA Exec member Al Smith from Kelowna.

Ideas for the celebration are wonderfully diverse. Last year's event featured prominent Vancouverites, authors, and school board officials reading to children. Then-Education Minister Shirley Bond got into the act as well, dropping what she was doing to read.

The support of our Trustees and District Management Team ensures our district's participation in this high-profile literacy promotion event. Many of our schools already have a daily sustained silent reading component. An added "celebration" of reading for National School Library Day, along with a vision that one day, all British Columbians -- all Canadians -- will "drop everything and read" to honour the importance of both school libraries and the importance of free voluntary reading remains before us. Ideally, all would include this reading daily as the research is clear: reading improves with reading and makes a significant difference in student success. For more, read Stephen Krashen, guru of free voluntary reading, in School Library Journal, 2006.

This event coincides with the IASL proclamation in 2008 that October is International School Library Month. This year's theme mirrors the 2009 Conference in Padua: School Libraries - The Big Picture.

Thanks, Jane, Val, et al, for your on-going and ready support. Let's get planning for the celebrations at schools and other education centres ....

Multivendor Display, November 4-5

Start planning for a half-day to peruse books from our various vendors at the Firefighters' Hall at Metrotown in Burnaby. Mark this on your calendar. New TLs are encouraged not to book for the first morning and to plan as well to attend Maryann's Selection and Acquisition workshop scheduled for the venue.

November 14-21, Canadian Children's Book Week

The Grade 1 (along with the children in their classes) TD Book Giveaway takes place during the TD-sponsored week, so plan now for this event. The books should be arriving in your schools this week. You can order kits. Check your numbers.

QUICK READINGS of INTEREST

Pass this blog or readings along to your administrator and/or staff and/or parents.

South African Children Push for School Libraries

Read about The New York Times article about the march of school children to remedy a failing school system for the least priviliged young citizens. “We want more information and knowledge,” said one young marcher for Equal Education who learns in an environment where access to school libraries and the desperate need for building repairs constrains students' learning.

Place Priority on Teaching Internet Skills

Kids may be more Internet savvy than ever before, but their ability to perform online research and evaluate Web sites remains weak. How can parents and teachers help? Read this.

Literacy Accountability in a New-Media Age

Paul Barnwell, in Education Week (September 22, 2009), points to the limitations of assessments that are "stuck on a notion of literacy that does not reflect the reality of our time." Our focus on testing students' understanding of print materials ignores the reality that they learn from new media and need to be able to read and think critically about text in relation to multimodal formats, that skills they develop can be transferred to understanding text in traditional formats, and that this is about empowering students. Writes Barnwell, "Unleashing and teaching media skills results in student empowerment. This is scary to some, who are comfortable sorting students by their ability to perform traditional literacy tasks.These same students might be effective media consumers and producers, but not according to our current accountability system."

At The End of the Week

I believe I am about to return to a life of normalcy. I am on my first day off today since mid-August. This weekend was the BCTLA Executive where we welcomed new members Michele and Chris, both of whom are perfect "fits" for this wonderful group.

This week as well some of us gathered to say farewell to the retiring "super" Chris Kelly; he has always been a wonderful participant in and supporter of our programs. Who can forget his readings about love at last year's Winter Tonic. I thanked him for "the party," as his leadership has been uplifting, thoughtful, and thought-provoking.

Meeting Reminders: We hope to see lots of you at

• Kerrisdale on Wednesday this week for TL Studio 1 (the season opener)
• Hamber on Thursday at 4 pm for the AGM of the VTLA
• for secondary TLs, the first meeting is on Monday, October 5, 4 pm, Hamber.

See you there!

WINTER TONICS

Have you registered for Winter Tonic?

Here are some other February "tonics" if you are looking for something to replenish your spirit, a little flair or fun or food for thought or passion to enhance your work in school libraries. Why not choose one or two --

• find a great gift or "branding" item for a teacher-librarian or for yourself at Cafepress. Here's where Sylvia got her bumper sticker that reads, "I am the librarian your mother warned you about." A new wardrobe item always helps the spirit.
  
• check out the best source of powerpoint templates at Brainy Betty. Put PIZZAZZ into your presentations.
  
• how about something fun to do on FAT Tuesday (Feb 5) or Mardi Gras? Try heading out to hear The Burke Street Blues Band now booked for Mardi Gras night (8-11 pm) at DaDeO New Orleans Diner and Bar, 3305 Cambie (at 17th-- former Tomato Restaurant location) 604-874-1053 -- and it's our friend Alan Zisman on keyboards!
  
• read this article to affirm the importance of your work as the information literacy specialist in your school: The more things change ... by IVOR TOSSELL from Friday's Globe and Mail, January 24, 2008.
  
• read this Richmond News Community Profile for Family Literacy Day; it's about Richmond TL Carole Wilson who is still making a difference after thirty years in the teaching business. Some of you may know Carole in her capacity as an instructor with the UBC Teacher-Librarianship program.
  
• find out more about blogging and its applications for school libraries: Teacher-Librarians Connect ... by Publishing Online, from Charles Best (Coquitlam) TL Judith Comfort provides lots of ideas. Check out her BCTLA workshop, online resources and activities which are blogs.
  
• register for something -- Feb 8 is Literacy Day at Killarney or Technology Day at Magee; Feb 12 is Winter Tonic at Gladstone; Feb 6 is Shari Graydon here at the VSB; Feb 18 is TL Studio at Kerrisdale; Spring Weeding (two sessions, last week of Feb and first week of March) at Dickens and Cheriee is promising much livelier refreshment to make the session fun... see VSB website and click onto Current Professional Opportunities.
  
• choose to attend one or two events put on by the Vancouver Children's Literature Roundtable: Authorfest 2008 is Feb 6 at UBC. Serendipity 2008 is, this year, to be a celebration of First Nations Children's Authors and Illustrators and is being held at the First Nations Longhouse at UBC all day Saturday, Feb 23. Membership to the Vancouver CLR is $15. For more information, read Tough City Writer's blog.
  
• bone up on the issues around new proposed Canadian copyright legislation which, as secondary TLs heard from Aaron M at their monthly meeting, could seriously affect us in schools because of the omission of educational fair-use clauses and of any educational representation. Aaron referred us to Michael Geist's blog for more information. Dr. Geist is the Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law at the U of Ottawa and was educated at Osgoode Hall Law School, Toronto, Cambridge University, UK and Columbia Law School in New York. He is concerned with internet and technology law as well as privacy issues.
  
• read some more: I am passing along this Michael Geist article "Law Eases Net Snooping: Privacy watchdog fears new copyright regs" (Tuesday's The Tyee). Anne S forwarded it after our discussion at our secondary TL department heads' meeting.
  
• check out this article from eSchool News to consider the perspectives of American educators on educational fair-use clauses: "'Fair Use' confusion threatens media literacy."
  
• attend a lecture at the VPL: Speak Up 2008: My Virtual World, Tuesday Feb 19, 2008, 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM, Alice MacKay Room. The Speak Up series brings together many voices, perspectives and experiences, and provides an opportunity for public dialogue. This year's series explores the role of technology in our lives. "Online Privacy: Is There Any?" will feature panelists Mary Carlson (Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner, Province of BC); Inspector Kevin McQuiggin (Vancouver Police Department); Richard Rosenberg (BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Asosciation). And it's free!
  
• find out who's blogging and what they are talking about. Click onto one or more of the Related Bloggers in the sidebar of this blog to see what the discourse is, more globally, for school libraries. Susan at Magee suggests Kathy Schrock's Kaffeklatsch blog January entry entitled Youtube is Cool! which would follow nicely with the secondary TL department heads discussion last week.
  
  I have recently added Doug Johnson's Blue Skunk blog. I enjoyed reading, amongst his archives, articles with such enticing titles as Rules for Pod People..., "BS" Literacy, and Librarians Behaving Badly. Joyce Valenza's Neverendingsearch on SLJ offers such articles for your consideration as these: Google as white bread? (and ICT lit matters) or Databases: Can We Get Teachers to Love Them? I have also added James Herring's Weblog. Schrock, Valenza, Johnson, Herring ... have I missed any of the BIG names in the world of school libraries?
  
  Thanks, Lana at Byng, for passing along this link to school bloggers with loads of examples, as well. Reading Rules is only one example of a school library application for blogging. And we are awaiting a new blog from one of our own French Immersion TLs, to be launched next week, I believe. I will be linking it here.