A Nation without School Librarians: Shonda's crisis map

NeverEndingSearch - Blog on School Library Journal: 2010 March 27

I've seen maps of devastation before--earthquakes, the spread of AIDS, hunger.  

Shonda Brisco decided to visualize another type of crisis--a crisis for learners--yesterday when she shared her Google Map, A Nation without School Librarians.

Stagnation threatens education system

Victoria: 2010 March 25

Our schools in Canada and in British Columbia are not failing. Canadian students perform well compared with students in 31 other countries, ranking second in reading, sixth in mathematics (the United States is 25th) and fifth in science (the U.S. 24th).

Ken Haycock receives 2010 Beta Phi Mu Award

ALA: 2010 March 29

Dr. Ken Haycock, professor and director at the School of Library and Information Science at San Jose State University, has been selected as the recipient of the American Library Association’s 2010 Beta Phi Mu Award. This annual award, donated by the Beta Phi Mu International Library Science Honorary Society, is presented to a library school faculty member or to an individual for distinguished service to education in librarianship.

Young Learners Need Librarians, Not Just Google

Forbes.com: 2010 March 22

The ubiquity and ease of Google searches could make kids' minds go soft without the ability to critique or contextualize the answers.

A year ago The New York Times presented a multimedia, packaged gift to school librarians everywhere. With its profile of Brooklyn, N.Y., school librarian Stephanie Rosalia, at long last, a major newspaper had chronicled the 21st century school librarian’s role as Web curator and information literacy specialist.

Saving the Google students

LA Times: 2010 March 21

For the Google generation, closing school libraries could be disastrous. Not teaching kids how to sift through sources is like sending them into the world without knowing how to read.

The current generation of kindergartners to 12th graders -- those born between 1991 and 2004 -- has no memory of a time before Google. But although these students are far more tech savvy than their parents and are perpetually connected to the Internet, they know a lot less than they think. And worse, they don't know what they don't know.

Generation B - Father and Daughter Bond by Years of Reading

NYTimes.com: 2010 March 18

WHEN Jim Brozina’s older daughter, Kathy, was in fourth grade, he was reading Beverly Cleary’s “Dear Mr. Henshaw” to her at bedtime, when she announced she’d had enough. “She said, ‘Dad, that’s it, I’ll take over from here,’ ” Mr. Brozina recalled. “I was, ‘Oh no.’ I didn’t want to stop. We really never got back to reading together after that.” 

Mr. Brozina, a single father and an elementary school librarian who reads aloud for a living, did not want the same thing to happen with his younger daughter, Kristen. So when she hit fourth grade, he proposed The Streak: to see if they could read together for 100 straight bedtimes without missing once. They were both big fans of L. Frank Baum’s Oz books, and on Nov. 11, 1997, started The Streak with “The Tin Woodman of Oz.”

VOYA, Teacher Librarian Acquired

School Library Journal: 2010 March 19

E L Kurdyla Publishing has acquired VOYA (Voice of Youth Advocates), a magazine for librarians serving young adults, and Teacher Librarian, a journal for school librarians.

RoseMary Honnold will continue as VOYA’s editor-in-chief, and David Loertscher and Betty Marcoux will remain as co-editors of Teacher Librarian. There are immediate plans to launch interactive Web sites for the two journals, both of which are published bimonthly.

Tories cut funding for library Internet access

The Globe and Mail: 2010 March 16

The Conservative government is quietly cutting funding to hundreds of community groups and even hospitals that provide free Internet access to Canadians who might not otherwise have a chance to get online.

LA Unified School District to Eliminate All Certified Librarians

School Library Journal: 2010 March 15

All certified school librarians in the Los Angeles Unified School District will lose their positions next school year if efforts to close the district’s $640 million budget shortfall fail.

CSLA's new advocacy effort

NeverEndingSearch - Blog on School Library Journal: 2010 March 13

The illustrators have given us their approval to allow the images to be used anywhere and everywhere to support school libraries. I'm hoping they are widely used.

Anyone can download off the wiki: sladvocacy.wikispaces.com

Attribution is of course preferred but we are also able to use on letterhead, etc. w/o attribution...

I'm also hoping people will use the Hugo Cabret image for their avatar and join the "Friends of CA School Libraries" group on Facebook.

Burnaby teacher-librarian is new BCTF president

Burnaby Now: 2010 March 9

Burnaby teacher Susan Lambert is the new president of the B.C. Teachers' Federation. She takes over the position from local resident Irene Lanzinger, who is stepping down this year to return to her teaching position in Vancouver.

Booksellers take on Ottawa over Amazon's distribution plans

The Globe and Mail: 2010 March 8

Canada's booksellers are urging Ottawa to block Amazon.com from building a distribution network in Canada, raising the stakes in a showdown over government restrictions on foreign control of the cultural industry.

TED for Ed on Saturday and beyond!

NeverEndingSearch - Blog on School Library Journal: 2010 March 4

TEDxNYED, a conference examining the role of new media and technology in shaping the future of education, will take place from 10am-6pm EST on Saturday, March 6, 2010 at Collegiate School in Manhattan.

CLA Announces 2010 Book of the Year for Children Award Shortlist

CLA: 2010 March 2

The Canadian Association of Children’s Librarians, Section of the Canadian Association of Public Libraries, a Division of the CLA, is delighted to announce the shortlist for the 2010 Book of the Year for Children Award.

 

This notable award recognizes a Canadian author of an outstanding book published in Canada in 2009, which appeals to children up to and including age 12.

CLA Announces 2010 Amelia Frances Howard-Gibbon Award Shortlist

CLA: 2010 March 2

The Amelia Frances Howard-Gibbon Illustrator’s Award Committee of the Canadian Library Association / Association canadienne des bibliothèques is pleased to announce the shortlist for the 2010 Amelia Frances Howard-Gibbon Illustrator’s Award.

 

This award recognizes an illustrator of a noteworthy Canadian book, published in 2009, that appeals to children up to the age of 12 years.

CLA Announces 2010 Young Adult Book Award Shortlist

CLA: 2010 March 2

The Young Adult Services Interest Group of the Canadian Library Association is pleased to announce the shortlist for the 2010 Young Adult Book Award.

 

This award recognizes an author of an outstanding English-language Canadian work of fiction (novel, collection of short stories or graphic novel), published in 2009, that appeals to young adults between the ages of 13 and 18.

$107,000 On New Books

SooNews: 2010 March 3

The McGuinty government is investing in elementary school libraries in order to ensure the province’s children have access to valuable resources that support the delivery of new curriculum, David Orazietti MPP announced today.

Concern for school libraries

100 Mile House Free Press

2010 March 2

Because of an anticipated $3.4-million cut by the Ministry of Education to School District 27's 2010/11 funding, the board of trustees has been given the impossible task of cutting the budget again after a long history of previous cuts.

Having served in both teaching and non-teaching capacities in this school district for over 25 years, I have observed first-hand what has happened to our school library services since the cuts started happening in the 1990s. 

In contrast to when I was hired as a full-time teacher-librarian in 1974, library services are now provided in our south-end secondary schools by teaching staff, hired with neither a major in school library services nor with any previous teacher-librarian background, and assigned less than one hour per day in which to provide their limited library services. Furthermore, the half-time library clerical support at both secondary schools has been reduced to six or seven hours per week. 

I must mention our two daughters, who were educated in this school district, thankfully went through the system before the major cuts. I know from their input they benefited greatly during their secondary school years by the services provided by full-time, qualified teacher-librarians, assisted by their half-time clerical support. 

It appears that those days are gone, and sadly our students now do not have the benefits that previous students enjoyed. 

Our school district's No. 1 priority is supposed to be literacy, yet school library services have become crippled by drastic staffing cuts. Having lost an arm and a leg, how could they be dismembered any further? 

More cuts would be a death-blow and would return us to a time when schools did not have library service -- a time that few, if any, of us would remember.

Is this provincial government, by increasingly under funding education, going to set back education to the level of a century ago? 

I sincerely hope not.

Barbara Fyten

108 Mile Ranch

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