Virtual Poster sessions: Promote your library’s community involvement August 17, 2008
Posted by Sara Kelly Johns in : Check this out!, Community, Opportunities , add a commentWhen I read this press release on the ALA site, I immediately thought of the many school libraries who are vital to their communities. Here’s a chance to promote your library program (Nov. 15 deadline):
This year, under American Library Association (ALA) President Jim Rettig’s leadership, members will have new opportunities to participate in ALA and to communicate their success stories. One of these opportunities is an ALA-wide virtual poster session.
The first of two poster sessions will debut this fall. Its focus is “Community Central.”
Share your experiences of making your library vital in your community (any kind of community). The possibilities are almost endless. Are you reaching underserved populations? Are you vital to local political activity? Is your library a center of learning? Are you visible outside the building? Demonstrate the specific purpose of your community involvement and the ways that you have achieved that purpose. Photos, images, and sounds may accompany your presentation.
To be considered for inclusion in the poster session, please send a proposal in the form of a summary of your library’s efforts, making sure to address the following points:
- Question or problem (need not be stated as hypotheses)
- Environmental context of the question or problem (such as public libraries, academic libraries)
- Organizational context of the question or problem (internal services, outreach, community analysis, etc.)
- Approaches to address the question or problem (i.e., the specific ways the library and its staff have addressed the kinds of programs and activities mentioned in the Community Central description)
- Outcomes (details on the effects of the approaches, including data, testimonials or other evidence of community involvement)
The summary must be no longer than three pages, double-spaced (one or more photos or images may be included as part of the three pages).
The deadline for submitting proposals is Nov. 15. Approximately 25 submissions will be selected and will be available for viewing during January 2009. Please send the proposals via e-mail to Dr. John M. Budd at BuddJ@missouri.edu.
A second virtual poster session will take place in the spring of 2009.
Rettig’s initiatives for his presidential term are about “Creating Connections” –connections among our libraries; connections between the communities we serve and those who make funding and policy decisions; connections with prospective library workers; connections with ALA members. His initiatives address three critical issues: Advocacy, Diversity and Member Participation.
For more information about ALA President Jim Rettig’s initiatives, please visit http://jimrettig.org/content/initiatives/initiatives.htm .
Congratulations! May 3, 2008
Posted by Laura Pearle in : ALA Council , add a commentThe following AASL members were voted seats on ALA Council:
Mary Biblio
Linda Friel
Carrie Gardner
Dee Gwaltney
Margaret Kirkpatrick
Stephen Matthews
Toni Negro
Barb Stripling
Linda Underwood
Lisa Von Drasek
Ann Weeks
Think about adding your name to this list next year.
A Gathering of Readers unveiled for National Library Week April 16, 2008
Posted by wstephens in : Community , add a commentA Gathering of Readers
by Wendy Stephens
In conjunction with National Library Week, ALA President Loriene Roy has unveiled A Gathering of Readers, an online celebration of indigenous schools and their work to promote literacy.
I caught up with Dr. Roy to find out more about the project.
Dr. Roy became involved with supporting tribal school libraries through her connection with ALA president Sarah Long. Long’s presidential theme was “Libraries Build Community,” and Roy wanted to expand that vision to include tribal schools, what she calls a “forgotten aspects of the library community.” In 1998, Dr. Roy began a service project called “If I Can Read, I Can Do Anything” to support leisure reading within those educational institutions.
A Gathering of Readers grew out of Dr. Roy’s ongoing work with tribal schools. The website serves to recognize the ways in which K-12 schools connect indigenous children with literature around the world. Roy cites the low overhead associated with maintaining an ongoing online presence as an easy way to celebrate the integration of literacy with native cultures.
Named with a nod to the largest pow-wow in the U.S., Gathering of Nations, A Gathering of Readers aims to integrate children’s cultural heritage while promoting reading as a lifelong leisure activity.
The site includes an international map with links to pages showcasing participating schools, collections of resources for children, teens, and educators, and online activities derived from indigenous cultures and languages.
The handmade basket featured as the site’s graphical motif is one from Roy’s own home, and Dr. Roy hopes the animal mascot on the home page will be as familiar as the “res dogs” in those students own communities.
I became involved in one aspect of the site through my own participation in the ALA Emerging Leaders program. Our EL group has been contributing to the biographies in the Honoring Authors portion of the Gathering, a database profiling indigenous writers of books for children and young adults. Dr. Roy’s students at the University of Texas, headed by Kit Pilgrim, have been pulling all aspects of the site together.
Roy said that many librarians have been using the website to support collection development, and it has served as a mechanism to expand the audience for many author’s work beyond their own particular geographic area. Roy said the author profiles and book synopses have attracted teachers and librarians in non-tribal schools looking for “authentic voices.” While many of the authors on the site are well-known, other are better-known regionally, and many inquiries related to the site come from those looking for vendor sources for these titles.
Assessment for learning and the library program April 2, 2008
Posted by Debbie Stafford in : Community , add a commentWe had a faculty meeting today. During the meeting each department had one member give examples of “assessment for learning” or formative assessment. As a school this has been a topic of discussion.
This is the time of year that students are doing some sort of research paper. In varying degrees I have been working with teachers on the research process. At the end, students will receive a grade. The question to myself, how can I use formative assessments in helping students with standard research project? I do help them and I work with teachers on these projects but still, I wonder about my role in assessment.
First of all there are loads of rubrics and other assessment devices to “grade” the final product. I did some searches using (information literacy rubric) as well as (term paper rubric) with lots of results. I looked at a number of them, there were similarities: citations, thesis statement, uses of resources etc. But they are all assessments of the final product or assessment of learning.
Searching for just one component of a typical term paper the bibliography also resulted in lots of hits. I tried looking for another component, evaluating sources and rubrics. None of ones I found seemed to me to be useful for formative assessment, looking to see if the students understand before the paper gets turned in.
One resource (remembered from a session at AASL) is Deb Logan’s siteand especially the page on the AASL presentation.
Now for my questions – How can we do assessment for learning without taking the information literacy skills out of context? How can we help teachers with assessment for learning when helping them with research projects? What other sites about formative assessment do our readers recommend?
School Libraries and School Accreditation March 23, 2008
Posted by Debbie Stafford in : Check this out!, Community , 1 comment so farMost, if not all, high school library media specialists are familiar with school accreditation team visits. Middle school and elementary school librarians may also be familiar with these. Many of us remember the days when the paperwork required prior to a visit looked at how many books were in the library, regardless of their age. Now these reports only ask for “adequate” if they look at the library program at all.One of the largest school accreditation organizations is AdvancED which combines NCA CASI and SACS CASI. Last week NCA held their annual convention in Chicago. I was in attendance and while there looked to see what would be of interest to school librarians and whether school librarians were at all represented.One strand was identified as Reading/Writing/Literacy. In the program I found three school librarians making presentations and I found two sessions focusing on Information Literacy and Reading Comprehension. There were a small number of vendors, two of them were programs familiar to school librarians, one a read and test program the other a read and discuss program. Assessment especially formative seemed to be the biggest topics in all strands.
Now my questions; what role should school librarians take in this area of school accreditation? Since we know that school libraries have a big effect on student performance, how can we make sure that school libraries are represented at conferences like these?