Thank you!

Thanks, Meredyth, for comment posted to last blog entry and many others, especially TL colleagues, for notes of congratulation.  For those who haven't heard, I had the pleasure of opening my email this week to find that I have been awarded the Angela Thacker Award in which CASL (national body for TLs, a ) recognizes leadership in the field demonstrated in publications, productions or professional development activities that deal with topics relevant to teacher-librarianship and/or information literacy.  What an honour.  From everything I have heard, Angela was remarkable.  Thank you to nominators Parungao and Zubke, and thank you to selection committee of CASL for this recognition.

My thanks, too, to VSB Board Chair Patti Bacchus whose tweet I just read and to Trustee Mike Lombardi, Gino Bondi, administrator extraordinaire @JO, and Aaron Mueller, ever encouraging, whose re-tweets I do so much appreciate.  Being a member of the VSB Tweeps Team @VSB39 is always educational but reading "RT @pattibacchus: Congrats to @VSB39's Moira Ekdahl @tlspecial the 2011 CASL Angela Thacker Mem.Award recipient! #bced Long time coming" is really special.  Your support for teachers' and teacher-librarians' work, Gino, Mike, and Patti, really makes a difference.  Right, Aaron?

I would like to congratulate Coquitlam TL Judith Comfort for her winning the CLA/CASL's Follett-International TL of the Year Award; Judith joins an amazing group of TLs from across Canada in receiving this recognition, including our own Michele Farquharson, Pat Parungao, Mary Locke, and Karen Cordiner.  And congratulations are due to Heather Daly, for leading BC's TLs into another year as President of the BCTLA.  We are all inspired by your commitment as well as your visionary and dedicated leadership.

I'm sure Judith will agree that such honours in April are a wonderful way to end a bleak winter and begin to anticipate Spring which can't be far behind! There are more good things coming for BC TLs, I just know it. Can't you feel it, an end to the "10-year winter"? The Supreme Court decision which finds for the BCTF in the Charter challenge around Bills 26 and 27 which stripped our hard-won ratios and numbers for class size and composition and thus, our rights to representation, bodes well for a return to a system where educators can set aside the fight to speak for what's best for our students and return to a focus on building the capacity of schools and school libraries to deliver quality education. 

The new Ning is gathering our rank and file; thanks, Arlene Anderson, for giving us a place to meet and share.  Need an invite?  Contact a member of the BCTLA Executive.  We rise again!

BCTLA Spring Conference

It's Saturday morning and we are a group of 30 teacher-librarians representing the whole province, assembled for professional purposes, joyful at the recent announcement of the results of the BCTF's Charter Challenge that affords prospects of improvements in working and learning conditions and, in particular, the return of the stripped language that will ensure restoration of teacher-librarians in BC public schools, 1 for every 702 students.  The key tenet of our plan for the next three years, announces President Heather Daly, was accomplished in just three days since the Plan was developed.  She is clearly moved by the hopefulness and by the prospect of an end to our fiercely fought battle to ensure children had access to quality literature and digital resources, as well as instruction from a qualified teacher-librarian.

Arlene Anderson, TL, West Vancouver, our Pro D chair, is leading our group forward with social media for teacher-librarians, her direction empowered now by the recent development (Arlene working with Jeff Yasinchuk from the Kootenays) of the BC Teacher-librarians' Ning.  We are discussing how schools and TLs are working with the rapidly changing nature of our resources, including anticipation of the place and impact of e-books, e-texts, and associated devices.   As "curators of information," TLs can explore replacing textbooks with multiple sources of information available in print and online, including subscription resources.

Discussion has ended.  Now we are frantically searching the ning -- gotta go -- I'm losing ground!  Working collaboratively with Suzanne (Maple Ridge district librarian) and Gwen (Vancouver), we raced through the ning-search and trounced first over the finish line, then went back to "sabotage" the others by creating groups and signing up new numbers.  It's not about correct answers but about getting to understand how the ning works.  Very very cool, and tons of potential for provincial TLs and professional growth.

Next is the envisioning process:  for those of us who will find ourselves still working in school libraries in 2016, what will TLs be doing? what will TLs still be doing, and what will be new in the role? how prepared are TLs for the "21C change" that is engulfing education?