Teacher librarian world view and back on the bike

In the latest edition of Knowledge Quest, there’s a very interesting lead article by the guest editors Ann Dutton Ewbank and Judi Moreillon, entitled Is there a teacher-librarian world view? This we believe.. The article asks whether there might be a shared philosophy amongst teacher librarians across the world. The authors think that there is and that this shared view includes providing “access to ideasand information” (my italics) for the school community. There is also the proposition that the TL’s role is a political one in the school – interesting  for me as back in the 1980s, I once gave a paper entitled “The politics of school librarianship“. Another phrase used is “that discovery and inquiry are valued” and this would certainly be on my list of aspects of the worldwide philosophy of teacher librarianship. So read it and think about it.

For the first time in 3 weeks, I am back on my bike and cycling around Pomingalarna which formed part of the recent very successful Wagga Wagga Trail Marathon. This was my first cycle in Australia since last November and I was only on the bike about 5 minutes when an adult and a young kangaroo hopped past me just over the fence. There’s also a wide range of bird sounds as you go around the hills there and you get flashes of multicoloured lorikeets as they fly at speed past you. There was also a lovely sunset over the hill and after my cycle and my friends’ run, we were having a beer under the stars – which seem very close as you’re outside the town – and a shooting star shot across the sky for about 5 seconds. Great place to be.

Study visit (2) and Sydney ferries

The Study Visit to Sydney was an interesting mix of different types of libraries  – from the excellently resourced Reserve Bank Library to the much more moderately resourced public libraries   at Haynmarket and Ultimo. An excellent visit was to Sydney Girls HIgh School  where the very effective teacher Librarian Liz Maxwell gave an insight into catering for a whole school of gifted and talented students. One of the challenges for the TL here is to develop information literacy. The school is interesting in that it is a state school but is highly selective at the same time. The CSU students were fascinated to hear about how an effective TL can make a real difference to learning and teaching in a demanding school. Final visit was to the University of Technology Sydney where the students were given a presentation on the library’s present and future and an interesting tour of the library which is seeking to make more spaces for students to study in groups.

One of the pleasures of going to Sydney is to ride on the ferries and I always advise people coming to Sydney to get the ferry to Manly  when it’s light and come back in the dark, as you get superb views of the city lit up at night and also the Opera House  and Harbour Bridge when it’s dark. The links provided are taken by expert photographers but even the fuzzy ones most people take look good. It’s always good to get advice on photography from a good teacher – who might even be a teacher librarian!

Study visit and Olympics

This week, I’m leading a study visit to Sydney CBD with my colleague Bob Pymm and we’re taking our students – a mixture of Masters TL students, Masters Library and Info management and BA LIM students – to a range of different libraries including the very impressive State Library of NSW where we had very interesting talks by Barry Nunn and his team as well as a tour of the library. This included seeing the magnificent reading room as well as some of the miles of stacks below ground where most of the book collection is kept. We also saw the library’s new online services programme, including the Discover Collections  which have been sponsored and contain videos and other material.

The Olympics of course, roll on and on. A personal disappointment was when Brad Kahlefeldt did not do well in teh triathlon. Bead won the gold medal in Melbourne 2 years ago and is from Wagga Wagga and I know his parents who are both very good runners. However, he is still an Olympian! On the down side, I do feel that the Australian media are starting to sound like the English (i.e. not British) media in bemoaning the fact that they don’t always win. Lighten up, folks.

Enquiring minds and back in Australia

An update from the ever innovative FutureLab  includes some online workshops  from the Enquiring Minds project. This includes some videos of workshop sessions, including Why try Enquiring Minds, The enquiry cycle and a case study from a school. These are very interesting viewing and TLs and teachers can learn a lot from John Morgan and his team. This is very much applicable research and although some of it may sound familiar to TLs engaged in information literacy teaching, it is nonetheless a challenge to what might some of our views and an innovative take on student enquiry. Put it at the top of your list.

I am now based in Australia for the next 6 weeks. I’m spending this week in Wagga Wagga at the very green and attractive Charles Sturt University campus where there are a wide variety of colourful birds as well as kangaroos which come down off the hills on to the campus itself. It’s really good to be back living near the Murrumbidgee River where the first bird call was the laughing kookaburra, followed by the squawking white cockatoos. It’s winter here, so having come from the Scottish summer via the Californian summer, to frosty mornings, it’s time to dig out the warmer clothes.

IASL conference and UC campus

The IASL conference  is now over. It was a very successful conference which took place on the attractive Clark-Kerr campus. The conference fosters international cooperation and while some of the agreements made at the conference are not followed up, some are and this can lead to exciting projects for teacher librarians and those who educate TLs. One very innovative presentation was by Marlene Asselin  and Ray Doiron who talked about a new issue of School Libraries Worldwide. The authors have put together an eclectic but very interesting range of papers on Web 2.0 bu there are also other features in this issue which has been created in the normal publication format (open only to subscribers) but also in this blog format which is open to all. These features include interviews with students about their use of ICT. This is a must read for TLs around the world and Marlene and Ray are to be congratulated on this quality piece of work.

One of hte features of the town of Berkeley is the huge campus of the University of California which has a mix of old and new buildings, wide parks and huge trees. One of the outstanding features of the campus is the campanile which was build in 1914 and can be seen from most parts of the campus. It’s a very relaxing walk through the campus which also has impressive botanical gardens.

IASL conference and video streaming

The IASL conference continues apace. One of the hardest things to do at a conference like this is to decide which parallel sessions to go to. For example, yesterday, you could go to a workshop on the new AASL Standards with an international panel or papers from 3 Australian speakers, a Taiwanese speaker and a US speaker. I did my keynote address in the morning on Reading Websites and I asked the audience to be IASL delegates for part of the talk and a year 7 class for other parts of the talk. I gave examples of text, images and video and asked them to discuss with the year 7 student next to them what they remembered about what I’d shown them. It seemed to go very well from the feedback I got.

One of the features of the conference this year is the presence of the enthusiastic and engaging David diGregorio  who has been videoing some of the sessions with the purpose of videostreaming them via his own school library. David videoed my keynote yesterday and this will be available later but I also did an interview with him – which he had on his website within an hour. You can see the interview in the IASL section of David’s site.  

IASL conference and Berkeley

The blog this week is from Berkeley in California where I’m at the IASL conference. This really is an international conference with people from every continent and a huge number of countries. The keynote paper this morning was by Stephen Krashen who has done a huge amount of work over many years in relation to the value of reading. In an entertaining talk, he cited many examples of how getting kids to read greatly improved not only their test scores at school but also other aspects of their lives. He believes in sharing his academic work and many of his articles are on his website. Some of the statistical stuff is a bit heavy going but he’s a great believer in school libraries, so he’s to be applauded for that. I’m the keynote speaker tomorrow (Tuesday) so I’ll have to go some to match the quality of his presentation. Having organised conferences in the past, I always feel for the organisers but Blanche Woolls  and her team, including Kristin Fontichiaro have done a great job in putting together a varied and high quality programme.

Berkeley itself is very much a university town, with the University of California  campuses making up a significant part. It’s a very affluent looking place with many examples of what I might think as traditonal south western USA houses, some with wooden fronts. It’s also a very cultural place e.g. opposite my hotel is the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. You also notice a few remnants of the hippy generation around – it’s not quite Byron Bay but some of the people here wouldn’t look out of place there. Berkeley is about 18K from San Francisco, of which more later.