Free Connected Librarians course

Here is a message from Mirium Tuohy about the Connected Librarian course.  If there is one PD you should do this year it is this course and it is FREE.

We are pleased to announce that this term we will once again be running SLANZA's online professional development course - Connected Librarians - for our members.

In this course you will learn about a selection of online tools to use and to share with your school community. Topics include professional reading, social bookmarking, community connections, and more.

This course is designed by New Zealand school librarians, for school librarians - ideal for those just starting out with online tools, who are ready and willing to try new things.

The course is free for SLANZA members. Please contact us if you are not sure of your current membership status.

Registrations will open on Monday March 3rd. However, because we still have registrations from members held over from our previous course, we have only 15 additional places available. To ensure that our participants come from a range of school levels (primary, intermediate and secondary) we will select people from the registration list accordingly.
Successful applicants will receive invitations to our learning community immediately. The course will begin on Monday March 10th and run through to the end of term, Thursday April 17th.
More information about the course is available at http://www.slanza.org.nz/online-pd.html

Please do read the flyer and course introduction on that page, hopefully that will answer any questions you might have about working from home/school and workload etc.

 

The email you can contact me on should you have any questions is:

Miriam.tuohy@gmail.com

 

Mirium Tuohy

 

Guest Speaker Adrienne Hannan - The Strategic Librarian

SLANZA Pool of Talent

Dear Members

We  have  had a good response to our call for volunteers for the SLANZA pool of talent. However we still need more. It’s great chance to get actively working for SLANZA, a chance to extend your skills and to work with other like-minded SLANZA  members.

The main areas in which help is required are:

Revalidation – support for those revalidating. Either online mentoring or face to face in your area. Articles on revalidation and the process

Writing/ Collected- We need articles, reviews,  photographs and proof readers. When it comes to proof readers we need a high level of written English and  grammar and a tendency to be pedantic when needed.   

ITC Skills- To help with online tutorials, the website, communication and other matters

Promotion/library Skills - A willingness to share ideas, promote activities, write about your experiences , attendance at workshops and general advice

If you want to be involved or have skills to offer drop a line to NE member Greig Daniels  greig@tokohigh.school.nz . You’ll be on our list to be shoulder tapped when jobs arise or to work on long term initiatives. Be honest about your skills  but don’t underestimate what you can add to SLANZA. We appreciate all offers of help and will try to keep you busy.

Our thanks to all those already involved and hope other members will become involved too.

 

SLANZA National Executive

 

Welcome back for Term 1, 2014 - A message from Bridget Schaumann

Welcome back for Term 1, 2014

Another year of working with young learners lies before us.  I hope you, like me, are feeling a little thrill of excitement at the thought of all those young minds excitedly heading towards your library doors seeking knowledge, looking for help finding and using resources and new books to read.  I hope that you are entering the year rested, well read and up for anything.


Your SLANZA executive had a good break over the holidays and although we were working quietly on a few projects, which we plan to introduce to you later in the year, we mostly read a lot and spent time having a holiday.  This relaxing time has come to an end now though as we launch into a busy time on our projects.  Our first National Executive meeting for the year is in February on the 22nd and 23rd, and as usual if you have matters you would like discussed at the National Executive level, we encourage you to get your regional representative to bring them to our attention.  Your local representative is your voice on the National Executive.


We were very excited about our project to find out the most popular reads for school students in New Zealand at the end of last year.  We will be doing this project again, possibly taking it larger in 2014.  School librarians are the reading experts in your school, we know what the students like to read and we want everyone to know that.


Our big project early in the year is a membership drive.  We have a team of NE members working on this.  They are targeting new schools, those who have been members and dropped off and also primary schools.  We want to encourage those people who may not work in school libraries, but who are interested in the work we do, to join us as members.  We are also interested in recruiting new business members as they help to pay for our magazine Collected and our planned marketing tools for you to use in your libraries.


Regions have begun planning for their term one events, some of these are very large and impressive events, and I encourage you to attend if you possibly can.  Remember it can be a really valuable experience attending a different regions event, why not get a road trip together!  The AGM this year will be held in July this year in Dunedin as part of our weekend school which was so successful in the past.  There will be lots of detail about this coming your way over the coming months as we organise speakers and workshops.


We have been doing some work on our processes, particularly the way that decisions of the National Executive are recorded.  We hope to make life easier for National Executives of the future.  Many thanks to Rosalba Finnerty for her help with this over the holidays.  We will be offering our very successful professional development courses again this year, and we are looking towards extending these to offer more exciting options.  We are looking at different ways we can deliver courses to our members and using different platforms to allow members access to regular PD regardless of location, targeting those beginning in school librarianship, as well as those who are very experienced.  National Exec members will be presenting at various conferences and workshops during the year and if you are attending one of these presentations do some and say hello and have a chat. We look forward to hearing your thoughts on our activities and we hope that you enjoy and get great value from the community SLANZA provides for you.

Bridget Schaumann
President