Monday, January 31, 2011

BC Librarians Rescue Teens!


The B.C. librarians involved with the Teen Reading Club will not take no for an answer. Despite funding cuts that had the organization on the chopping block last summer, a small faction of library workers have persevered and managed to secure the basic funding needed to keep the program in operation in 2011.

vhamilton@shaw.ca

Lieutenant-governor pays students a visit


Literacy is the cornerstone to success, British Columbia lieutenant-governor Steven Point told students, during his visit to Lake Cowichan Secondary School, Wednesday, January 26. 


Sunday, January 30, 2011

The future of Greater Victoria Public libraries

Victoria Times Colonist: 2011 January 30

The Greater Victoria Public Library needs to expand by 58 per cent in the next 15 years to keep up with anticipated growth and use of what is already one of the country's busiest systems


vhamilton@shaw.ca

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Men With Books spotted in Burnaby schools


Two Burnaby elementary schools have introduced a program called Men With Books to encourage boys to read.

DEVELOPING READERS FOR LIFE


Developing literacy skills begins at home. Whether it’s a book, board game, magazine, newspaper or website, all British Columbians are being encouraged to take part in a literacy activity with their families for 15 minutes at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 27 to celebrate Family Literacy Day.

Monday, January 24, 2011

Seeing the story, not the spin


The best line in the movie satire Morning Glory is delivered by Rachel McAdams as a young executive producer to a curmudgeonly Harrison Ford who, in his Morley Saferlike character, still believes that news is a matter of reporting the facts with integrity. 

"The world has been debating news versus entertainment for years, and guess what? You lost," she says. The line is funny, timely and acutely indicative of the brave new world of news as "infotainment" that shapes our kids' understanding of the world around them and its values.

It is also indicative of the critical need for an objective media analysis course as part of a 21st-century social studies or journalism curriculum.



Google-like search site connects 60 million pages of Canadian history


Call it the Google of Canadian history. 
 
An ambitious new search engine has been launched by an alliance of digital heritage advocates designed to allow one-stop searching for centuries of Canadian history.


vhamilton@shaw.ca

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Surrey's new library designed for the people by the people


BTAworks worked with Surrey librarians to create a blog on the library website which, in turn, was linked to a Flickr site where BTAworks posted photos of libraries and other spaces they liked. Pretty soon, members of the community were posting photos of libraries they'd found on vacation. Surrey residents who didn't have computers went to neighbourhood libraries where librarians had committed to helping them post comments and photos.


Monday, January 10, 2011

Vanderpool, Stead, Bacigalupi Win Newbery, Caldecott, Printz


Clare Vanderpool has won the 2011 Newbery Medal for Moon over Manifest (Delacorte), edited by Michelle Poploff. Erin E. Stead has won the 2011 Randolph Caldecott Medal for A Sick Day for Amos McGee (Roaring Brook/Porter), written by Philip C. Stead, edited by Neal Porter. And Paolo Bacigalupi has won the 2011 Michael L. Printz Award for Ship Breaker (Little, Brown), edited by Jennifer Hunt. The awards were announced this morning at the American Library Association’s midwinter conference in San Diego. more...

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Cleaning up the classics: Huck Finn gets the PC treatment



The literary world is in an uproar over a U.S. publisher's decision to release a bowdlerized version of Mark Twain's classic novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.


vhamilton@shaw.ca

School board eyes digital textbooks


Outdated textbooks are common at Toronto’s public high schools and students are lucky to get their hands on them. Often, textbooks are unavailable because they’ve been signed out of a library by other students.

Monday, January 3, 2011

Make every child a reader


Adults sometimes forget what reading means to children. Patsy Aldana of Toronto, publisher of Groundwood Books, who was named a member of the Order of Canada last week, has made children’s reading her life’s work. Reading is healing, she says. Reading is a window into oneself and others. Reading is a bulwark of democracy. And we don’t do enough, she says, to nurture our children’s love of reading.