Ottakar's children's Book Prize winner announced

Julia Golding, UN campaigner, former diplomat and first time children's author, has won the second Ottakar's Children's Book Prize with her atmospheric novel, The Diamond of Drury Lane. (Egmont Press).

Set in Georgian London the book tells of Cat Royal and her life in the world of the London theatre.

The shortlist also included:
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne (Random House)
Shakespeare’s Secret by Elise Broach (Walker)
The Quantum Prophecy by Michael Carroll (Harper Collins)
Gregor and the Rats of Underland by Suzanne Collins (Chicken House )
Jack Slater Monster Investigator by John Doghety (Random House)
Ralph the Magic Rabbit by Adam Frost (Macmillan)
The Lottery by Beth Goobie (Faber)
North Child by Edith Pattou (Usborne)
Spymice by Heather Vogel Frederick (Penguin)

The award was set up last year to celebrate exciting new or not yet established authors of children's books. It is unique in that booksellers and children select the shortlist and ultimate winner from books not yet published. The award was the idea of Wayne Winstone, Ottakar's Children's Book Director and presented yesterday evening at the Putney Branch of Ottakar's by Children's Laureate Jacqueline Wilson.

New Ofsted Inspections prove positive

Ofsted conducted 2,054 new-style school inspections in the autumn term 2005 - almost as many as were inspected in the whole of the academic year 04/05. While it is still early days, initial feedback from schools found nearly all head teachers thought inspectors used the school's self-evaluation well and most thought that the judgment they received was fair and accurate. Almost all schools were also positive about the short notice they received.

The SLA encourages all school library staff in England to use the DfES Self Evaluation models in some way, to contribute to the school's self-evaluation and raise awareness of the role the library has in supporting learning and teaching.

Provisional inspection grades from the first term of the new-style inspections revealed that more than 60% of schools were judged to be good or outstanding - 11% of schools received an outstanding judgment (grade 1) and 50% a good judgment (grade 2). The proportion of schools judged to be satisfactory (grade 3) was 30%.

This announcement was made yesterday by Maurice Smith, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools, while delivering a keynote speech at the Lowry Centre in Manchester about the impact of the new school inspection system.

Speaking to head teachers of successful northern schools and colleges, Mr Smith looked back at the first term of the new-style inspections and highlighted how well they have been received by schools, but went on to say that inspection must not stand still. He said that in accordance with proposals in the White Paper, Higher Standards, Better Schools for All, now is the time to consider moving to a more proportionate inspection system that enables resources to be targeted at the weaker schools. Suggested measures include a good school having one inspector visit for one day and schools that are not performing well receiving more focused monitoring to bring about quicker improvements.

Google launches e-newsletter for librarians

If you missed the first edition in all the preparations for Christmas, don't worry, as Google recently published the second issue of its newsletter for librarians. It contains only two articles: Beyond Algorithms: A Librarian's Guide to Finding Web Sites You Can Trust and How does Google Determine Which Websites Are the Most "Trusted"? but it is nevertheless an interesting read. The first issue contained only one article: How does Google Rank Results (sic)

There is an opportunity to sign up receive future issues of the newsletter directly, and it may turn into an interesting read if more librarians and web engineers contribute to it.

Bolton Children's Book Award short-list

The shortlist for the Bolton Children’s Book Award was announced recently at the University of Bolton to an audience of students, librarians and teachers representing the 15 secondary schools taking part. 4 schools in nearby Bury are also 'shadowing' the Award.

The short-listed books are:

Invisible Friend by Louise Arnold
Worm in the Blood by Thomas Bloor
Indigo Blue by Cathy Cassidy
Jimmy Coates: Killer by Joe Craig
Sign of the Angel by Alan MacDonald
Vampirates: Demons of the Ocean by Justin Somper
Stuff by Jeremy Strong

The winner will be announced on Saturday 17th June at Bolton's Festival Hall.

For further details contact:
Kath Morgan
Schools Library Service
Castle Hill Centre
Bolton
Tel. 01204 338121

Jan Mark 1943 - 2006

Jan Mark, the well respected and award winning writer for young people died on Sunday January 15th 2006. Jan's first novel, Thunder and Lightenings, written at the age of 33, won the Penguin/ Guardian competition for the best children's novel by an unpublished writer and the then Library Association's Carnegie Medal for 1976.

Author of many excellent and admired novels and short stories, Mark made her home in Oxford and was well known for working with students in schools locally and around the UK. She will be much missed by adult and young adult readers.

Obituary from Nicholas Tucker, Independent On-line

ITALICS e-journal focusses on Information Literacy

Italics is the e-journal from the Information and Computer Sciences Department of The Higher Education Academy. The latest edition is devoted to a subject of great importance to school librarians. Although it is aimed at Higher Education, there is much here that will be of interest.

Susie Andretta (London Metropolitan University) is the guest editor of this issue which focuses on Information Literacy and the challenges of implementation. The issue includes 6 papers which look at experiences of information practices that highlight the concerns of educators from diverse professional backgrounds.

As Andretta notes in her editorial, 'One of the key issues presented here is that information literacy is a fundamental requirement for a learning society. As a result Higher Education Institutions need to implement information literacy education as a top-down initiative, where lifelong learning initiatives are promoted by institutional learning and teaching policies, and as a bottom-up approach to fully integrate these strategies in curricular activities that facilitate a dynamic investigation of the disciplines.'

Volume 5 Issue 1, Information Literacy: challenges of implementation

British Library announces new free workshops for schools

In the January Learning Newsletter from the British Library, new free workshops for students at both primary and secondary levels are announced, including one which can be brought to the classroom if you cannot bring the class to London. A Place for Everything? is for a maximum of 100 students aged 9+, and in this 20 minute interactive performance, two actors challenge students to question what knowledge is and how it is organised.

The highlight of the programme this term is perhaps the Beautiful Minds workshop, to support the current exhibition on Nobel Prizewinners. This is only available until 15th March so needs to be booked quickly.

Sign up for your own copy of the Learning Newsletter
Full list of workshops
British Library Education Services

Kate Thompson wins Whitbread Children's Book Award

Irish author Kate Thompson has won this year's Whitbread Children's Book Award with her novel The New Policeman.

Already the winner of The Guardian Children's Book Prize 2005, The New Policeman is a novel about time, or the lack of it, magic and music, from the winner who has won the Irish Children's Book of the Year Bisto Award three times.

The winners of the other categories were:
Poetry - Christopher Logue for The Iliad
Novel - Ali Smith for The Accidental
First Novel - Tash Aw for The Harmony Silk Factory
Biography - Hilary Spurling for Matisse the Master

How the media covered the award:
RTE
The Times
The Guardian
National Business Review