NCSLMA Conference Call to Present

The planning has started...speakers have been booked...convention center is getting ready...All we need is you!

 

The 2011 NCSLMA Conference Call to Present is now available at http://tinyurl.com/5uzqmg7.

 

The 2011 theme is "Hello...My Name Is"  What's the reasoning behind this?  Well, it's simple. For years we have advocated for our program, but now it's time to advocate for ourselves.  The easiest way to do this is to make sure everyone knows your name and knows what your speciality is!  So, show us some of those specialities!  Are you good at technology? library promotion? reading programs? professional development?  Strut your stuff at the 2011 Conference and let us get to know your name.

Allan Wolf to Speak at Toast and Tales Breakfast

Toast and Tales Breakfast on Saturday: Allan Wolf, http://www.allanwolf.com/

TEN THINGS YOU (PROBABLY) DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT ALLAN WOLF
10) Allan is a past National Sonnet Slam Champion.

9) Allan can recite hundreds of poems from memory.

8) Allan did not like school.

7) Allan has a pet chicken named Atilla the Hen.

6) Allan has two goldfish named Lewis and Clark.

5) Allan plays drums with a band called The Dead Poets.

4) Allan never watches television. (He doesn’t even own one!)

3) To relax Allan plays guitar or juggles.

2) Allan dreams of one day living in a house with a secret room.

1) Allan can ride a skateboard standing on his hands.

Get Motivated with Conference Luncheon Speaker

Friday's Luncheon speaker (cost included with pre-registration): Jennifer Pharr Davis, http://www.blueridgehikingco.com/index.html

Jennifer Pharr Davis, a native of Henderson County, NC, is the author of the book - Becoming Odyssa: Epic Adventures on the Appalachian Trail. The book chronicles her adventures, experiences and challenges during her first Appalachian Trial thru hike just out of college in 2005. In 2008 she became the women's speed record holder by completing the entire length of the 2175-mile Appalachian Trail in just 57 days, 8 hours and 35 minutes. This summer, Jennifer has plans to break the overall speed record on the Appalachian Trail.

Gwyneth Jones, Keynote Speaker for Fall Conference

Friday's Keynote Speaker will be Gwyneth Jones, The Daring Librarian, http://www.thedaringlibrarian.com/

Gwyneth A. Jones, aka The Daring Librarian, is a blogger, a Tweeter, a Plurker, a speaker, a citizen of Nings and a resident of Second Life. Gwyneth is a teacher librarian at Murray Hill Middle School in Laurel, Maryland, a member of the ISTE Board of Directors, and the author of the award winning Daring Librarian blog. The Daring Librarian is a digitally shifted ed tech teaching ninja with a passion for re-mix mash-up production, transliteracy, cutting edge librarianship, graphic design, & being a change agent within in her learning communities both geographically and within the æthernets. Fearlessly daring to take chances, fight the filters, and ignoring the negative naysayers, all for our most important customers – our students. Admittedly, she’s also a goofball & a geek.

Teachers Spared? Think Again about Proposed Budget Cuts

This is a letter that I sent to the reporter at the News and Observer asking for clear, factual reporting of the proposed budget cuts:

Ms. Stancil,

Your article (http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/02/18/998028/budget-spares-teachers.html#story_tab_comments) indicates that teachers and teaching assistants are spared and that non-teaching positions are reduced, including media specialists.

While for budget purposes media specialists are classified as instructional support, media specialists are TEACHING staff: we are TEACHERS. We INSTRUCT students on a daily basis. We TEACH individual, small group, and whole classes of students. We are evaluated on our TEACHING. We are paid on the TEACHER pay scale (unlike other instructional support staff which are paid on different, higher pay scales).

It is important that we TEACH students to evaluate, analyze, and think critically, to access information and to use it ethically. It is important that we keep TEACHERS whose curriculum includes information literacy. Those TEACHERS are media specialists, and we are responsible for TEACHING students!

Please be sure to report the fact that not all TEACHERS are being spared in the proposed budget cuts.

Hello! from ALA Midwinter in San Diego

Sarah Justice, president-elect, and I here in San Diego for the American Library Association Midwinter Conference. This is the time for our meetings with the American Association of School Librarians and Affiliate Assembly where we represent you and the our association at meetings with other delegates from other state school library media organizations.


Sarah and I took this morning to familiarize ourselves with the meeting schedule and convention center. We were even caught on camera by the ALA photographer! (Thanks to my own media assistant who found me on the ALA Flickr site and sent me the link!)

On Saturday, we will represent you and our association at the AASL roundtable discussions, where we will work on topics of interest and importance to school librarians around the country. On Sunday, we will attend the Affiliate Assembly and work with our colleagues in Region 4, continuing to discuss those issues important to our profession.


On Monday morning, we hope to attend the announcement of the book award winners. You can view the program on the ALA website:
http://www.ala.org/ala/newspresscenter/mediapresscenter/presskits/youthmediaawards/alayouthmediaawards.cfm

We hear that you all are bracing for another winter storm while we are enjoying the 60 degree weather here in California. Watch for more updates about the conference and our meetings, and we hope to make it safely back to the east coast without too many snow or ice delays on Monday night!

These are a few of my favorite things...

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens Brown paper packages tied up with strings These are a few of my favorite things

Are these really my favorite things? No, not really, but coincidently enough, this song was playing while I was doing one of my favorite things—shopping for books with my students! Hearing this got me thinking...what are some of your favorite things? Within our libraries, we all have programs, ideas, lessons, etc that fall into the category “favorite things.” One of my favorites happens to fall right at the holiday season which of course heightens the stress, but I think it makes me appreciate the project all the more. So, sit back, relax, and get ready to hear about one of my favorite things...

A few years ago at the NCSLMA conference, someone mentioned taking the students to Barnes and Noble to buy books. A light bulb went off and an idea started brewing. I could take all the freshmen English students to Barnes and Noble, they could pick out books, and I would put them in the library catalog. I would call it the “Fresh Books” program. A week later, I had talked to the English teacher (only one teaches 9^th grade), reserved a bus, found some money, and was ready to hit the road. I made a deal with the kids that they would have a $20 limit, could pick out any book that would be appropriate for the library, and I would put it in the library with a book plate with their name on it in the front cover and allow them to check it out first.

Was it a success? Just ask the kids. Our first group is this year’s senior class. Just the other day, one of the boys was looking up his book in the catalog to see if it was available because he was telling another boy how great it was. That first year, some of the older students complained because they never got to go on any “cool” trips. Later on, I heard a few of the younger students (I serve grades 6-12) discussing what they were going to buy when they got to go. Each semester, as I catalog the books, I have to fight the kids off from the book cart and tell them that the freshman who chose the book gets to check it out first. And before this last trip, one of the sophomores asked me to make sure to get the latest Ranger’s Apprentice book because he had chosen one in the series as his book, and he wanted to make sure we had the next one.

We took our latest group of students to Barnes and Noble on December 3 with a few reservations because they are one of “those classes.” You know what I mean. But, $902 and 50 books later, I was extremely pleased. This trip was also the perfect example of what this can do for my library collection. Before these trips started, recommendations for books really only came from the readers. The non-readers were just that—non-readers. But getting these non-readers into the book store has helped my shelves be populated with books that I never would have thought to buy. I never knew there was a series based on the Halo video game. I definitely never knew there were that many hunting books! And this trip, after two boys approached me with “You ask her.” “No, you ask her.”, I have my first two gaming strategy books on my shelves. During the past two days of cataloging, I’ve had more kids pick up those two books than any others, begging to be allowed to check them out. I think I’ve found something to put in my LSTA grant application! But, my greatest satisfaction came on the day the books were checked out. Seeing the kids’ faces when they opened up their books and saw their names printed on the inside cover reminded me once again why this is one of my favorite things. Happy Holidays and Happy Reading!

Sarah Justice, President Elect