The annual conference of the International Association of School Librarianship (IASL) opened on Friday 8th July at the University of Hong Kong (HKU). Following the opening ceremony, which was addressed by Mrs Fanny Law, Permanent Secretary for Education and Manpower for Hong Kong, a variety of sessions have taken place. These have included a keynote address from Prof. Stephen Heppell, formerly of Ultralab, UK; workshops and papers in both English and Mandarin; and research papers for the Annual Research Forum. The annual International Baccalaureate (IB) PALMS conference was also held concurrently on Sunday.

At the conference dinner on Saturday evening IASL awards were presented:

• Leadership Development Awards:
  Jabu Hlophe, Swaziland
  Mahdu Bhargava, India
  Pradeepa Wijetunge, Sri Lanka
  
  
• IASL Books for Children:
  Mdlazi Primary School, Murchison, South Africa
  Mikes Keleman High School, Covasna, Romania
  
  
• Support a Member Grant:
  Eugiene Neville, Kwa Zulu Natal
  True Nguyen, Vietnam
  Nasiruddin Munshi, Bangladesh
  Hewn Borja, Ethiopia
  
  
• ProQuest E-library Award:
  Dianne Oberg and Jennifer Branch, University of Alberta, for 'Focus on Inquiry: A teacher's guide to implementing inquiry-based learning'
  
  
• IASL/Softlink Excellence Award:
  Margaret Spillman, Lorraine Todd and Claire Grandcourt of Mackay West State School and Mackay City Council Library Service, Queensland, Australia for 'Productive Partnerships - Learning for Life'
  
  

With many more important and interesting sessions still to run, and lots of networking among delegates, the conference will close on Tuesday July 12th. For more information, see the conference webpages.
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Next year's conference will be held in Lisbon, Portugal, from 3rd - 7th July. The title is: The Multiple Faces of Literacy: Reading, Knowing, Doing. More information shortly on the IASL website