The future of libraries is in the hands of librarians

So says R. David Lankes in the opening moments of his presentation School Librarians as Facilitators for Learning embedded below.  We represent the fundamentals of the future of libraries.  Yes!  High Five Folks!  His Atlas of  New Librarianship is a bible, a book to take so much out of.

He says:  The mission of librarians is to improve society through facilitating knowledge creation in their communities.  And he is talking to you school librarians.

I’m quite a lot in love with his messages, pretty much all of them.  Watch this presentation and take on board what he is saying.  He is going to give you lots of examples of how you can think about why you do the things you do.  Not the what you do.  Yes, it takes an hour but yes it is an hour well spent.  Great PD.  Really great PD.

It comes from here.

What I did in the holidays

My summer break for 2012/2013 has come to an end, and it will be back to work as usual from Monday. I’ve had a lovely break away from school, spending time with family and friends, reading, getting things done around the house. For me, the school holidays over the last few years have also included doing a bunch of stuff for SLANZA, and this break is no different.

Soon we will be launching the next iteration of the SLANZA wiki – a new website that will stand alongside the recently redeveloped main site, so that’s been one of my holiday projects. Here’s a sneak preview of how it’s looking so far (click to embiggen):

The other project that’s taking shape is a new Professional Development programme for SLANZA members, urged on by our survey last year that showed 80% of respondents want PD around the use of online tools in school libraries. It’s a big project, and one that the SLANZA PD team are keen to deliver ASAP. As part of the programme design, we’ve been investigating the use of OpenBadges as a method of recognising and displaying the skills that  participants will learn as they progress through the course. Here’s a diagram I’ve made (using Triptico’s ‘hexagonal thinking’ tool Think Link) to show my thoughts about how this PD might connect with ‘what school librarians do’.

I’d love to get your feedback on this, so please leave a comment with any thoughts or suggestions that you think could be incorporated. I tend to get a bit tunnel-vision-y at times, so if there are glaringly obvious omissions please help me fill them in!

Top 100 blogs for school librarians – musings on culling and adding

Yes, it is best of the blogs season.  Here comes another list of the best and brightest.  This one from OnlineCollege.org.  This list is well respected, and has been updated from this older list which was published in 2009, there are still some good ones to check out on there.

Why are these things worth looking at?  Because they are chock full of juicy ideas worth looking at and which you can use in your libraries to enhance the way you do your thing and connect with your students.  I also thing that you should cull your lists of blogs you follow.  People move on, change jobs, retire, their interests change and they stop updating their blogs.  To keep fresh I think you should update your reader – or however you follow the blogs in  your life – and cull the stagnant and add new exciting voices to your library life.  The way it works for me is that if I don’t see new blog posts on the blogs I’m following I tend to delete them after three months.  There have been some tragic losses in my blog life, Skerricks is a blog have I loved and admired for a long time, but it’s owner is on a leave of absence, and while I hope she comes back soon I’m putting it in a holding pattern until she does.

I think it is worthwhile going through and having a cull – just like you do with your irritating Facebook friends and their oversharingness (some people may have done that to me to be fair) and have a revisit of what is still good and what you’ve moved on from.

New to me in the update of the list is:

Hi Miss Julie – primary school librarian with lots to say!  I like very much.  Especially this post!

Archipelago – if you are into iPads you find much to see here.

K-M the librarian – you want relentless optimism?  See this blog first!  Awesome.

 

Lighting the Future (presentations)

In early June, the weekend course “Lighting the future – Libraries, learning, reading:  Access and opportunity for children and young people” was held in the UK, a joint venture put together by the School Library Association, with CILIP’s Youth Library Group and School Library SIGs.

Many of the presentations from the weekend are now available online. Lots of great material there – definitely worth a look.

The best blogs

Every year Salem Press names it’s top library blogs of the year for all the fields above.  This year the fabulous In the Library with the Lead Pipe is the overall winner.  I’m a little in love with this blog and yep, I’m going to all it a deserving winner!  In other highlights (actually every one of the nominated blogs is a highlight to be fair) one of my absolute fave is School Librarian Blog of the year.  Jennifer LaGarde is all kinds of awesome.  Her musings on school librarianship give me much to mull over, process and then try to put into action in my daily library life.  I am a huge admirer.  Here she is delivering a keynote recently.  I’m also delighted to note that Cathy Nelson and her professional thoughts was the highly commended blog in this category.  If you are looking for awesomeness in school library blogging these guys are the bomb!  Add them to your RSS feeds and get inspired.

Here is the full list of award winners.  The blog centre will take you to lists of blogs of many types where you find find lots of inspiration.

School Libraries and Diverse Student Needs

Dr Ross Todd discusses school libraries and diverse student needs.

Raising Maori Achievement

The elusive BOK11 Indigenous Knowledge Paradigms, so difficult to get meaningful PD for a price your average school librarian can afford and yet to vital to your registration.  Thank goodness for online PD I say!  This might just be something you can use.  Yet another gift from Core.  This is one to share with your SMT, with your Maori Dean, with all your staff.   In this video, two key elements for raising Māori achievement: forming relationships with students and whanau; and being culturally located are discussed.

Stephen Abram – Sharing the foundation of social institutions

I’ve never heard Stephen Abram in the flesh giving a keynote, Stephen’s Lighthouse is one of my favourite blogs, for wise, insightful and sometimes pointy commentary on matters library.  The next best thing to bring at a conference where he is presenting is to watch him give a keynote on a video.  Here is your chance.  You’ll need 44 minutes of uninterrupted peace to enjoy, but worth every minute.

The Horizon Report 2012

It’s out.  One of the reports worth paying attention to.

The New Media Consortium (NMC) and EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) jointly released the NMC Horizon Report: 2012 Higher Education Edition. This ninth edition describes annual findings from the NMC Horizon Project, a decade-long research project designed to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have an impact on learning, teaching, and creative inquiry in higher education. Six emerging technologies are identified across three adoption horizons over the next one to five years, as well as key trends and challenges expected to continue over the same period, giving campus leaders and practitioners a valuable guide for strategic technology planning.

This one, and the Core Trends in Education would be great to share with your staff and SMTs. Even if your school isn’t adopting mobile technology or Game Based Learning yet, you can bet that at least some of your staff will be paying attention.  Link to the report here.

Learning@School and Ed Talks – a conference in your lounge

Here is your chance to attend Learning@School and other conferences too from your sofa, listen to the keynotes and seminars of some of New Zealand’s formost movers and shakers in Education.  The Ed Talks Channel also includes  presentations from Ulearn, Educators Leaders Forum, Nuthall Symposium and Nethui, seriously there is enough here to keep you professionally stimulated and developed for a goodly long time.

If you are looking for things to fill in on your Professional Registration BOKs and especially the hard to find good things for BOK 11 then you will find plenty of good stuff here.