International School Library Month is fast approaching and may be celebrated for the whole month of October or for any time span within that month that suits a school or library. The theme this year is: The school library rocks.

International projects that are underway for 2015 are the ISLM Bookmark Project where schools exchange bookmarks and make contact with children in other countries and the ISLM Skype Project. Many school libraries will choose to have local or national celebrations, promoting the value libraries bring to the lives of children through reading, information literacy, transmission of cultural heritage and engagement with the community.

Ideas for how school libraries have celebrated internationally last year may be found on the IASL website on the ISLM 2014 Projects page. Reports came in from Croatia, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Palestine, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Seychelles, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain and Ukraine. It would be great to see even more countries reporting on their celebrations in 2015. Please send ISLM reports to the IASL Secretariat by 15 November, 2015.

IASL is very grateful to their ISLM Coordinator, Marie O’Brien, for all her work in facilitating the projects and celebrations, and IASL wish all school libraries a wonderful time of celebration in October.