Monthly Archives: September 2014

IASL miniconference call for papers

IASL members in the United States are planning a regional conference to be held in collaboration with the officers of the International Federation of Library Association’s School Library Section and the Texas Library Association (TLA). The IASL event will be held Monday evening, April 13 and all day on April 14.

 

Founded in 1971, IASL is one of the world’s oldest international professional associations for school librarians. IASL’s mission is to provide an international forum for people interested in promoting effective school library programs as viable instruments in the educational process. IASL also provides guidance and advice for the development of school library programs and the school library profession. IASL works in cooperation with other professional associations and agencies.

 

Membership is worldwide, and includes school librarians, teachers, librarians, library advisers, consultants, educational administrators, and others who are responsible for library and information services in schools. The membership also includes professors and instructors in universities and colleges where there are programs for school librarians, and students who are undertaking such programs.

 

The theme of this IASL regional conference mirrors that of TLA: Sync Up: Imagine, Collaborate, and Innovate. Conference participants will have the opportunity to present a professional paper in the Collaborate strand, Imagine strand, or Innovate strand or a Research paper. In addition, the conference program will include a limited number of best practice sessions in which presenters share results and guidelines for effective school library-related activities.

 

Each paper presenter will have 15 minutes to present the content of the paper allowing for questions at the end. The length of the paper is at the discretion of the author who understands that the presentation will be carefully timed.

 

We are planning for four sessions for papers, loosely following the conference themes with one research session. The last session of the conference will be one with examples of outstanding program successes for school librarians to consider.

 

The final format for the papers will be sent when your proposal has been accepted. Instructions for preparing your proposal are below. All papers will be blind referred by the IASL Regional Conference Committee. If you would like to submit a proposal to present a paper for this event, please submit the following information to Lesley Farmer (lesley.farmer@csulb.edu):

 

Important Dates:

Proposals due October 31, 2014

Papers due: March 25, 2015

Proposal Submission Form

 

Author:

Title and Affiliation:

Address:

Phone:

e-mail:

 

Co-author:

Title and Affiliation:

Address

Phone:

e-mail:

 

Title of Paper:

 

Which strand? Imagine

Or        Collaborate

Or        Innovate

Or        Research paper

Or, I would like to present a best practices activity (please describe briefly)

 

Abstract (200 words)

 

We regret we are unable to offer remuneration or conference discount for speakers.

Model School Library Webinar

A free webinar, “The R.O.A.D. I Travel: A Program Model for School Libraries,” will explore how an Indianapolis middle school library partnered with other organizations to develop an innovative genealogy unit for eighth-graders. The program was recently recognized with ALA’s 2014 Sara Jaffarian School Library Program Award for Exemplary Humanities Programming.

Presenting the webinar will be AASL President-Elect Leslie Preddy, school librarian at Perry Meridian Middle School, and Suzanne Walker, children’s services consultant at the Indiana State Library. They will discuss how they created and implemented “R.O.A.D. (Research, Observe, Analyze, Discover) I Travel” in partnership with the Indiana Historical Society in 2013.

Over one semester, librarians assisted nearly 500 eighth-graders in researching their family histories online and in historical newspapers on microfilm, while historians and preservationists taught the students preservation and interview techniques. The unit culminated in a project fair, where students displayed videos, scrapbooks, student-made family cookbooks and demonstrations of unique family hobbies.

The webinar will be held at 2 p.m. CDT Wednesday, Oct. 8. Register online at bit.ly/jaffarian2014.

IFLA 2014 Congress School Libraries Section Activities

School Libraries Section minutes and updated Action Plans are available on the website.

The School Libraries Section had a very productive time at the Lyon World Library and Information Congress – having hosted 2 successful sessions.

Minutes from the Lyon WLIC and the section’s Standing Committee meetings held in Lyon are available on the website, plus an updated action plan, and they include details of the 2 successful sessions held during the WLIC. The first on “IFLA/UNESCO School Library Guidelines: Review and Recommendations.” had members of the School Libraries SC as faciltators for the session for a workshop on the draft international school library guidelines (a revision of the 2002 IFLA/UNESCO School Library Guidelines). An expected 35 participants for the guidelines workshop was in fact 185, including about 50 French-speakers. Organized into 15 groups by language and topic. each group worked on the documents and then the participants reported back, one from each French-speaking group, whose words were then translated into English, and one from each English-speaking groups, whose words were then translated into French, by one of the conference volunteers, Christele Mir. A fantastic amount of work was achieved – and huge thanks to Christele.

The second was entitled School Libraries on the Agenda: Advocacy Initiatives from Around the World.” Members of the School Libraries SC served as faciltators for the session which was a culmination and celebration of the completion of our joint advocacy materials project with 8 presentations followed by roundtable discussions. Again an expected 60 participants was in fact 90 delegates. 8 speakers each give a 5-10 minute overview of his/her paper, and then organized the participants into 8 roundtable groups for discussions with the presenters. Presenters came from France, Norway, USA, Sweden, Malaysia, and South Africa. Presenters from Nigeria and Argentina were unable to come to Lyon, unfortunately. However, all ten of the papers on school library advocacy are available on the IFLA conference website and in the IFLA Library.

The section is now continuing with this work and will report back regularly. Thank you to all participants.

http://www.ifla.org/node/9049

http://www.ifla.org/publications/school-libraries-section-action-plan

http://www.ifla.org/school-libraries/minutes

http://conference.ifla.org/ifla80

http://library.ifla.org/view/conferences/2014/2014-08-21/437.html

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 doberg@ualberta.ca for submission template.​