Author Archives: Editor

Literacy Day Action

Call to Action: International Literacy Day

“Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope. It is a tool for daily life in modern society. It is a bulwark against poverty, and a building block of development, an essential complement to investments in roads, dams, clinics and factories. Literacy is a platform for democratization, and a vehicle for the promotion of cultural and national identity. Especially for girls and women, it is an agent of family health and nutrition. For everyone, everywhere, literacy is, along with education in general, a basic human right…. Literacy is, finally, the road to human progress and the means through which every man, woman and child can realize his or her full potential.”
– Kofi Annan

IFLA, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, together with the International Publishers Association (IPA), the International Authors Forum (IAF) and the Reading & Writing Foundation (RWF) has put together a joint statement on literacy and reading which calls on United Nations Member States to support the Sustainable Development Goals by implementing coherent and appropriately resourced national comprehensive literacy strategies.

Read: Joint Statement on Literacy and Reading

On International Literacy Day, 8 September 2015,we would like to ask the United Nations Member States to go further in their ambitions to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all as stated in the Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, Goal 4.

In 2011, the adult illiterate population was estimated at 773.5 million. This poses a challenge for the success of all the Sustainable Development Goals, therefore is vital that libraries, authors and publishers are made central to improving literacy across the board and ensuring that no one is left behind.

For this reason we call on the United Nations Member States to:

  • Support coherent and appropriately resourced national comprehensive literacy strategies;
  • Recognize libraries as  central in supporting literacy activities for everyone at any level of education;
  • Ensure every human being has access to books and literacy programmes by 2030 by making libraries, publishers and authors central to these strategies and ensuring no one is left behind;
  • Support, defend and promote intellectual freedom as defined in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

For more information on these issues please visit IFLA, Libraries and Development.

Literacy Day September 8

International Literacy Day is being celebrated across the world on 8 September, with this year’s theme being Literacy and Sustainable Societies.  School libraries play an important part in the development of literacy by through their services and access to resources. Please help promote the ILD, and the role of school libraries.

See also IFLA’s Call to Action: International Literacy Day http://www.ifla.org/node/9861

 UNESCO International Literacy Day http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/events/prizes-and-celebrations/celebrations/international-days/literacy-day#.Ve7r4v0Vh48

and the many other resources available on International Literacy Day

IASL 2017 conference site

California State University Long Beach has been chosen to host the 2017 International Association of School Librarianship conference. Tentative dates are 3-7 August 2017. The theme is “Learning without borders.” Stay tuned for details, and get ready for a future that’s so bright you need (sun)shades — and sunscreen.

IFLA School Library Guidelines approved

dition

IFLA School Library Guidelines, 2nd editionThe IFLA School Library Guidelines, 2nd edition, was endorsed by the Professional Committee on advice by the Committee of Standards in June 2015. The standard was revised and written by the School Libraries Section over a period of more than two years and replaces the IFLA/UNESCO School Library Guidelines which were published in 2002.

The guidelines have been developed to assist school library professionals and educational decision-makers in their efforts to ensure that all students and teachers have access to effective school library programmes and services, delivered by qualified school library personnel.

The drafting of these revised guidelines involved input and discussion at various workshops, events and meetings, some of which received funding support from the IFLA Professional Committee, and through ongoing writing and review in person and online.

School Libraries in South Africa

Extracted from The state of libraries in South Africa. (2015). Pretoria, South Africa: Arts and Culture Department.

 

The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) held their Congress August 13-19 in Cape Town, South Africa. Besides enjoying the wonderful scenery and graciousness of the local population, librarians from around the world shared their professional situations. Part of that experience was learning about libraries in South Africa.

School libraries have witnessed great fluctuations over the past twenty years. With the overhaul of government in 1994 all teacher librarian post were abolished, with private funds being one of the few ways to ensure professional school librarian staffing.

Government priorities have changed since then, largely due to grassroots efforts and the involvement of NGOs. Organizations have donated books and provided training, as well as converted spaces into school libraries.

As this point about two-thirds of schools have some kind of library: 14% have a central library with resources, another 9% have a library without resources, a third have a classroom collection of library resources, and 4% have mobile/bookmobile library service. About a fifth of schools are located near public libraries, so the need is great. Particularly as the poor reading level of learners has been documented, government is seeing the importance of student access to rich library collections.

School libraries tend for focus on providing appropriate circulating collections: print books, periodical, and some CD/DVDs and imagers. Highly supported libraries provide Internet access. Most materials are in English, and some libraries provide books in Afrikaans or other local languages. Nevertheless, budgets are problematic and uneven throughout the country. The biggest challenge remains the lack of staffing. School librarians are often part-time or temporary.

In the face of these challenges, school librarians continue to work hard to promote quality school library programs of resources and services.

Submitted by Lesley Farmer

Göteborg Book Fair

Several international reading promoters will visit Sweden and Göteborg Book Fair on September 24-27. This year’s laureate of the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (ALMA), the South African organisation PRAESA, and Daniel Goldin, publisher and Director of the Vasconcelos Library in Mexico City, will participate in seminars and programs at the Swedish Art Council’s Young Stage (Ung scen).

“We are excited about this year’s Book Fair,” says ALMA Director Helen Sigeland. “We hope that many visitors will be inspired by PRAESA’s amazing work, which focuses on encouraging children to read for enjoyment, building their self-esteem and helping them connect to their native language through reading and stories, which is highly topical issue today.”

PRAESA is represented by Arabella Koopman, Content Manager for the national reading promotion project Nal’ibali, a network of reading clubs that uses media campaigns to encourage children to read and inspire parents, grandparents and teachers to read with them.

“Daniel Goldin is one of the world’s foremost reading promoters, a brilliant inspirer,” says Helen Sigeland. Daniel Goldin is the publisher who discovered the 2013 ALMA Laureate Isol’s talent for illustrated children’s books.

The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (ALMA) is the world’s largest award for children’s and young adult literature. The award, which amounts to SEK 5 million, is given annually to a single laureate or to several. Authors, illustrators, oral storytellers and reading promoters are eligible. The award is designed to promote interest in children’s and young adult literature. The UN convention of rights of the child is the foundation of our work. An expert jury selects the laureate(s) from candidates nominated by institutions and organisations all over the world. The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award was founded by the Swedish government in 2002 and is administrated by the Swedish Arts Council.

School Libraries WorldWide call for papers

School Libraries Worldwide
January 2016 (Volume 22, Number 1)

Celebrity: Teacher Librarians as Central Figures, Heroes, Key Players

Call for Papers–Due October 1, 2015

Editors: Marcia Mardis and Nancy Everhart
Guest Co-Editor: Rebecca Hunt

School Libraries Worldwide is the official professional and research journal of the International Association of School Librarianship (IASL). It is published twice yearly, in January and July, and is available online and through select periodical databases. School Libraries Worldwide publishes new works of current research and scholarship on any aspect of school librarianship. All papers are double-blind peer reviewed and adhere to the highest editorial standards.

The January 2016 issue of School Libraries Worldwide will center on the theme of Celebrity: Teacher Librarians as Central Figures, Heroes, and Key Players. As Annenberg Fellow Neal Gabler wrote in his seminal 1994 essay Toward a New Definition of Celebrity[1], “Celebrity is a learning process toward self-actualization and realization…celebrity is about gaining attention and acknowledgment —about not being like everyone else.” (pp. 10, 13). For this issue, this definition is our point of departure in considering school librarians’ many celebrity roles. We encourage papers that affirm, refute, or extend this notion.

This issue will provide an opportunity for researchers to share their research relating to the librarian’s role in school libraries. Possible topics include, but are not limited to, research about:
·       Leadership development and enactment;
·       Librarians as educational technology and social media leaders and/or influencers;
·       Professional recruiting and retention strategies, i.e., “selling” teacher librarianship as a career;
·       Marketing and promoting the school library’s programs and services;
·       Advocacy challenges and effective strategies;
·       Effective student, faculty, and/or community programming facilitated by teacher librarians;
·       Librarians as agents of change and innovation;
·       Librarians as characters in history and fiction;
·       Celebrity and youth culture/fandom; and
·       Celebrity authored children’s literature.

School library researchers are invited to submit papers reporting their own original research that has not been published elsewhere. Authors who wish to know more about the issue theme should contact the editors.  School Libraries Worldwide also welcomes submissions of excellent research on any topic relating to school librarianship for the open section of the journal.

Deadline for submissions of full papers: October 1, 2015.
Authors interested in contributing to this issue should contact the editors, Marcia Mardis and Nancy Everhart at slw@cci.fsu.edu and the guest editor, Rebecca Hunt (rhunt@niu.edu).

Submission guidelines are available online at: http://www.iasl-online.org/pubs/slw/slw_guidecontrib.html
Note requirement that all submissions must take place through the online submission system: http://slw.cci.fsu.edu

Questions and suggestions for the journal should be sent to:

Dr. Marcia A. Mardis and Dr. Nancy Everhart
Editors, School Libraries Worldwide
School of Information
College of Communication & Information
Florida State University
Tallahassee FL 32306-2100 USA
E-mail: slw@cci.fsu.edu

[1] Gabler, N. (1994). Toward a new definition of celebrity. Retrieved from http://learcenter.org/pdf/Gabler.pdf