The Virginia Hamilton Conference on Multicultural Literature for Children celebrates its 32^nd year in 2016 by exploring the role of multicultural literature in celebrating diversity in poetry prose and pictures. Nearly 200 writers, illustrators, librarians, teachers, students and scholars will gather for this inspiring, informative event, scheduled for April 7-8th, 2016 at Kent State University. Keynote speakers for 2016 include renowned author Nikki Grimes winner of this year’s Virginia Hamilton Literary Award; Margarita Engle, the first Latino author to receive the Newbery Honor award.

The conference board is currently accepting proposals for workshops for the 2016 conference. The deadline for proposals is Sept. 30, 2015. Please submit proposals using the form on the conference website: http://bit.ly/ProposalForm-VHC2016

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.

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

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.

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION Biennial International Conference LIBRARIES IN THE DIGITAL AGE (LIDA) 2016

Conference Theme: Digital Library Curation and Collections

Zadar, Croatia, 13-17 June 2016 University of Zadar, Zadar, Croatia

Full CFP can be found here: http://ozk.unizd.hr/lida/   Email: lida@unizd.hr

Libraries in the Digital Age (LIDA) addresses the changing and challenging environment for libraries and information systems and services in the digital world. This year’s theme “Digital Library Curation and Collections” is divided into two parts. The first part covers research and development, and the second part addresses advances in applications and practice. LIDA is an international biennial conference that brings together researchers, educators, practitioners, and developers from all over the world in a forum for personal exchanges, discussions, and learning, made easier by being held in memorable environs.

The LIDA conference is held at the University of Zadar (Croatia) and the conference’s Guest of Honour is Professor Tefko Saracevic, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Rutgers University, USA.

Deadline for submissions: February 1, 2016 (for all types of contributions)

Types of Contributions Invited:

1. Papers: scholarly studies and reports on practices and advances that will be presented at the conference. Both completed research and early work/preliminary results are invited. Papers will be refereed in a double-blind process. Submit 1,500 word abstract, plus references.

2. Posters: short graphic presentations on research, studies, advances, examples, practices, preliminary work and educational projects that will be presented in a special poster session. Posters will undergo a double-blind review. Awards will be given for Best Poster and Best Student Poster. Submit 750 word abstract, plus references.

3. Panels: up to 90 minute sessions that will be interactive and offer different perspectives and approaches to a specific topic. Organizers propose the format and invite up to five panelists (including the moderator). Submit 750 word abstract, plus references.

4. Demonstrations: live examples of working projects, services, interfaces, commercial products, or developments-in-progress that will be presented during the conference in specialized facilities or presented in special demonstration sessions. Submit 750 word description.

5. Workshops: two to four-hour sessions that will be tutorial and educational in nature, and are intended to foster interactive discussions for attendees who share common interest. Submit 750 word description, plus references.

6. PhD Forum: short presentations by doctoral students, particularly as related to their dissertation, in a session organized by the European Chapter of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (http://www.asis.org/Chapters/europe/). The PhD Forum provides doctoral students the opportunity to present their work to senior faculty in relatively informal setting and to receive feedback on their dissertation by a panel of international educators. Submit 750 word description.

7. Undergraduate/Graduate Student Showcase: short presentations by undergraduate and graduate student, related to their research, practical projects, etc. The showcase will provide students with opportunity to get feedback on their work in informal setting and advice on how to develop their work further and get published. Submit 750 word description, plus references.

Deadlines for all submissions: February 1, 2016.

 All proposals should follow formal LIDA guidelines available at LIDA 2016 website (http://ozk.unizd.hr/lida/submissions/). All work should be in English, original and not previously published. Submission of proposals/extended abstracts should be made using the EasyChair submission system (https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=lida2016

Following the double blind review process all accepted submissions will be published in the scholarly journal Libellarium: Journal for the research of writing, books and cultural heritage institutions. Libellarium is indexed by EBSCO and Erich II and has applied for inclusion into Scopus.

Conference co-directors:

Martina Dragija Ivanović, Ph.D. Department of Library and Information Science University of Zadar, Croatia mdragija@unizd.hr ; Sanjica Faletar Tanackovic, Ph.D. Department of Information Sciences University of Osijek, Croatia sfaletar@ffos.hr  ;  Ross J. Todd, Ph.D.  rtodd@rutgers.edu ; Marie L. Radford, Ph.D. School of Communication and Information Rutgers University, USA

Program chairs: For Part I: Heather Lea Moulaison, Ph.D. The iSchool at the University of Missouri University of Missouri, USA moulaisonhe@missouri.edu For Part II: Michael Seadle, Ph.D. Institute of Library and Information Science Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany seadle@ibi.hu-berlin.de

The entire conference, including all presentations and keynotes,are in English.

ALISE’s Gender Issue SIG and Special Libraries Association’s Education Division is cohosting a free 1-hour webinar August 14 at 1:30pm EDT on Gender construction in youth literature. Registration URL: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/rt/1737632258821230337,

This webinar will cover the construction of gender in our culture and how that construction is enabled by literature for children and adolescents. Our purpose is to increase awareness about the ways our gender socialization prevents us from recognizing messages that are presented to children in literature and to help attendees begin to interrogate the idea that current children’s and adolescent literature presents gender in a more inclusive way.

Dr. Beth Brendler is an Assistant Professor at the iSchool at the University of Missouri. Her teaching interests include gender, socioeconomic status, and race in relation to literacy, sociocultural and critical theory, youth services in libraries, children’s and adolescent literature, and culturally diverse literature. Her research interests include literacy as a social act, literacy in relation to gender, race, and culture, and the use of critical discourse analysis and conversational analysis to investigate the literary experience.