School Library Association

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School Librarian of the Year 2010 – Profiles

We are profiling our School Librarian of the Year Honour List - one per week until the announcement at the ceremony on 4^th October - watch the website every week for a new profile.  We hope you will find reading about these exemplary librarians interesting.  We have started with the Scottish librarians who are on the Honour List as they are already back at school....

Summertime....

This summer seems to have flown by - and all the ‘catch up' time I thought I had has gone!  Seems like it was ever thus - and I'm sure many of you feel the same as school starts (in Scotland) and the first day of term looms (in England and Wales).

I have just returned from a stimulating and invigorating IFLA World Library and Information Congress in Sweden.  The variety of libraries represented from all over the world makes this a fascinating and challenging experience.  The programme is still available to view and many of the sessions I attended, including the pre-conference arranged in conjunction with the Swedish School Library Association, are available to watch on the Nordic Ning for School Librarians - do have a look.  I also managed to visit an Upper School library (ages 16-19, equivalent to 6^th Form college combined with FE college), as well as a community library whilst in Sweden - and I am sure the pictures I took there and the information I gleaned will make an interesting talk for the future! 

One of the great advantages of this sort of conference is the opportunity to talk to colleagues from around the world.  To get an appreciation of the Herculean effort people are making the world over to get reading and literacy higher onto all government agendas and to show the immense value that libraries in general, and school libraries in particular, can have on enabling universal literacy.  Plenary speakers included Jan Eliasson, former President of UN General Assembly and Henning Mankell, author and campaigner, both gave impassioned and compelling speeches on the life giving necessity of literacy - you can see these and other presentations on the IFLA video stream.  This was the first IFLA congress where much added activity was available on line as blogs and tweets in multiple languages adding to sessions as they happened.  This all makes interesting reading on the website.

The end of the conference was overshadowed, for the UK delegates, by the news of Bob McKee's untimely death whilst attending the congress.  Bob has been a colleague, as CILIP CEO, for many years whilst I have been involved with Youth Libraries Group and also whilst at SLA - he will be greatly missed within the library community.  The fact that he was looking forward to his retirement from CILIP later this year and taking on new, exciting, different roles within the world library community makes his untimely death so much more shocking and sad.  I am sure you all join me in expressing our commiserations to Bob's family at this time.

Tricia Adams

Kids' Lit Quiz World Final Winners

The 2010 Kids' Lit Quiz came to its exciting conclusion at the World Final in Edinburgh on 14 August. The final results were:

1st.  City of London School for Girls, England

2nd.  Mary Erskine School, Edinburgh, Scotland

3rd.  Belmont Intermediate School, Auckland, New Zealand

4th.  Wheatley Park School, Oxford, England

5th. Wellington College, Belfast, Northern Ireland

6th. The Ridge School, Johannesburg, South Africa

7th. Howells College, Llandaff, Wales.

Congratulations to all who took part, and look out for news of the forthcoming regional heats for 2011.

SLYA 2010 Honour List announced!!

This year we are delighted to announce that there are six exceptional school librarians on the SLA School Librarian of the Year Honour List.

For the first time there are two men on the Honour List and there are also two librarians from Scotland, one from the Isle of Bute and one from Edinburgh.

The 2010 Honour List librarians are:
Sue Bastone - Licensed Victuallers' School, Ascot
Rebecca Jones - Malvern St James, Worcestershire
Shiona Lawson - Rothesay Academy, Isle of Bute
Denise Reed - Hurst Prep School, Hurstpierpoint, Sussex
Kevin Sheehan - Offerton School, Stockport
Duncan Wright - Stewart's Melville College, Edinburgh

Their work will be celebrated on 4th October at a ceremony to be held in London on International School Library Day when the SLA School Librarian of the Year 2010 will be announced.

TES- ICT Spending

Interesting article in the TES this week on spending on ICT and its benefits (or not) to learning.  To quote - 'Books are usually the area that misses out. The study by academics at the Open and Staffordshire universities found evidence that while ICT expenditure had little effect on exam results, spending on books had a significant positive impact.'  Several points made during the article about money wasted might have been helped had the schools asked their librarians for input on purchases!  Read the article here.

E-Petition, National Assembly for Wales

Alison Bagshaw has been successful in getting an e petition on the Welsh assembly website which urges

We the undersigned, call on the National Assembly for Wales to urge the Welsh Government to accept in principle that it will make schools libraries statutory and run by suitably qualified staff, and to prepare the necessary legislation in consultation with the appropriate professional associations and trade unions.

Do have a look and sign up here

SLG Survey of School Libraries published!

There is a growing gap between the best services and those where resources and management support are failing, according to a new CILIP School Libraries Group report, published yesterday.

The national survey of UK school libraries has just been completed, with detailed replies from 1,547 secondary, middle, special and independent schools and exhaustive activity reports from over 1,000 of these, supplemented by information from 655 primary schools.

The final report School Libraries in the UK: a worthwhile past, a difficult present - and a transformed future? concludes that the vision and support of senior management is vital to success. It is crucial that school management recognise the difference that a good school library can make.

Read the full story about the survey and the report on Cilip's website.

SLA Survival Guide - just published

The latest publication from the SLA is now available - SLA Survival Guide: Making it Through Your First Few Years as a School Librarian.

Edited by Anne-Marie Tarter and Geoff Dubber, it includes eleven varied case studies by experienced librarians recounting their "survival" techniques. All the major aspects of running a library are considered - enjoy it and be inspired by their particular stories and advice.

Not just applicable for the new librarian, anyone changing jobs or libraries or just wanting fresh ideas will find the different perspectives useful.

SLA launch new School Library Design Awards

The School Library Association, working with DEMCO Interiors, has created the exciting new School Library Design Awards. Announced at the SLA's 2010 Weekend Course, the award will be made annually to the school library that shows innovation, creativity and resourcefulness in its library design. What matters is not how big the school library is, but what it has achieved with the available resources and the challenges it faces.

The award is open to any school library; there is no requirement to belong to the School Library Association or to have used DEMCO products. Libraries need to have been built or refurbished within the previous year, although in this, the first year of the award, applications from the last two years are welcome.