Monthly Archives: November 2012

Cyberfamily activities

The blog Cyber Families: Connect, Create, Care (http://cyberfamilies.blogspot.com) provides biweekly thematic online activities for the whole family to do together. Each theme includes projects that family members connect, create, care, and explore careers. Themes include virtual museums, forensics, mass media, animals, nutrition, poetry, and more. Dr. Lesley Farmer developed this site to help librarians reach out to families by providing them with top-quality websites that promote information literacy and digital citizenship.

Intergenerational literacy programs

Here are three examples of successful intergenerational literacy programs (submitted by Sabine Uehlein, Stiftung Lesen)

1.       USA:  Intergenerational penpals write about books in the USA

Connecting young library visitors with elderly people at the Clare Oaks Retirement Community in Bartlett. With this idea in mind started the youth librarian Kimberley Gotches the project Pages Across the Ages at the Bartlett Public Library. Bartlett is an U.S. American town located in Illinois.

Only starting in February 2012, the project has already 49 participants. The idea: Old and young become penpals and write each other letters about the same books they read. Children and parents get aware of this project via the library newsletter, in-house posters, fliers, a display board with all the partner’s pictures and by word-of-mouth. The project has been entirely funded by the library itself. According to Susan Westgate, the library’s assistant director, other libraries have shown interest in imitating the project.

Organisations

 

2.       Estonia: Storiegrannies

Storygrannies is a project aimed at the involvement of grandparents in the activities of nursery schools. The project will be launched together with the Grandparents’ Society and day centres for retired people and will comprise joint activities and events involving grandparents (not necessarily biological grandparents of children) and children of pre-school age on a regular basis. The retired people read, tell stories and carry out educational activities.

Goals of the project:

1.            to engage with the experience and skills of the older generation for the purpose of developing children

2.            to increase the quality of life of the elderly by offering them opportunities for communication and activities

3.            to diversify activities in nursery schools

4.            to foster closer contacts between nursery schools and community.

Organisations

 

3.       Canada

i2i Intergenerational Society British Columbia, Canada

The ‘i2i’ is an abbreviation of an ‘invitation (i) to intergenerational immersion (2i)’. The i2i Intergenerational Society of Canada, based out of British Columbia, was created in 2008 to assist Canadians in the building of bridges between generations.

As the founder and leader of The Meadows School Project Sharon Mackenzie had become aware of, and concerned about, the increasing alienation between generations in our society. It appeared that various ages of people were growing farther apart, physically, socially, and emotionally, particularly the young and the elderly. As a result of this concern, the Meadows School Project was launched, in Coldstream, B.C.

The Meadows School Project moved the classroom to the Heritage Chapel in Coldstream Meadows Retirement Community. Students moved out of the traditional classroom for five weeks in the fall semester and three weeks in the spring semester, and were placed in an ‘immersion’ situation within the Retirement Community. After this time the integration of seniors and youth continued with bi-weekly cross-over visits for the rest of the school year.

The intent of the project was to begin the dissolution of unspoken beliefs and prejudices held by youth about seniors, and seniors about youth.

 

Call for Proposals: Intergenerational Literacies

WORLD LIBRARY AND INFORMATION CONGRESS

79th IFLA General Conference and Council: Future libraries: Infinite Possibilities

Singapore, August 17-23, 2013.

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

Programme: Intergenerational Literacies: texto↔techno.

The IFLA Literacy and Reading and Information Literacy Sections are seeking proposals for  a joint programme to be held at the IFLA Conference in Singapore in August 2013.

The challenge of new information and learning landscape can lead to all sorts of information gaps. One of them is a gap between texto and techno generations which can cause intergenerational isolation and separation. The program will showcase innovative and effective library programmes that intend to bridge this gap.

Proposals are requested for as many as ten tabletop presentations which will be given simultaneously. After an opening plenary keynote address, audience members will rotate to three different fifteen-minute presentations of their choice.  Presenters will therefore be asked to repeat their presentation three times for three different sets of people.

Proposals chosen for presentation will be specific about how libraries and/or associations have tackled issues related to texto and techno literacies in their particular setting, thus developing intergenerational literacies, dialogue, digital inclusion and social cohesion. They should be grounded in theory, research, and/or practical applications.  Because these projects will be presented in an informal, small group setting, speakers should plan some visual accompaniment such as a poster that can be set up on the table.  Presenters may also want to bring brochures or flyers to hand out.  People submitting successful proposals will be asked to write a brief paper summarizing their library programme or project  for publication in the IFLA Proceedings.  All chosen presenters will be listed in the official Conference programme.

Proposals in English are required, and should provide the following information:

Name and institution of speaker(s)

Brief biographical information

Proposal title

Brief (300 to 500 word) description of project and presentation format  Language of presentation

 

Proposals should be sent to Elena Corradini (Secretary of the Literacy and Reading Section) at ecorradini67@gmail.com by November 30, 2012.

Please indicate “IFLA Proposal WLIC 2013” on the subject line. Finalists will be notified by December 15, 2012, and will be expected to submit final versions of their papers in one of the official IFLA languages by May 15, 2013.

For more information, please contact Leikny Haga Indergaard (Chair of Literacy and Reading Section) at: Leikny.Indergaard@bergen.kommune.no

Please note that it is the speakers’ responsibility to find funding for their participation.

Russian discussion group

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