School Librarians of Aotearoa - interview with Julia Smith

I was honoured to be interviewed for 'School Librarians of Aotearoa' column in the The Sapling, a New Zealand website dedicated to children’s literature. 

The interview, where I was sent questions to answer on my role, philosophy, library organisation and other things, went live today. If you are interested in reading it you can find it here

Term 3 Event - Empowering Library Support Staff

Northland’s Term 3 SLANZA event focuses on Library support staff and volunteers. The idea is to provide professional development for those library folks who may be working in primary schools particularly, without support, skills or confidence to make the most of their library hours. Empowering Support Staff in the School Library will be jointly run by Jeannie Skinner (National Library), Liz Christensen (Ohaiaewai Primary), and Jenny Puckey (Kaitaia Primary) and will be held Week 6, Friday 29 August at Kaikohe Primary School. It will cover meeting other support staff, talking about roles and responsibilities, ideas for creating the right environment to entice students in, displays, labels and signage, processing books, book covering and repairs, National Library support, and building connections with other Library workers. 

Don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

Gamify Your Library With Michelle Simms

Michelle Simms speaking at Kerikeri High School

We were very lucky to get Michelle Simms from Te Totara Primary School to present to SLANZA Te Tai Tokerau members last Saturday at Kerikeri High School.  Librarians and teachers arrived from far and wide to attend.

The first session was on Gamify your Library which Michelle presented to the SLANZA conference in 2013.  This is not using games in your Library but rather building on the appeal of games to create an engaging and dynamic Library.  Michelle had lots of ideas of promotions which could be adapted for your Library.  Here are just some of them:

·         A Genre quiz
·         Blind date with a book
·         A customised Monopoly game
·         A novel murder
·         Reading Bingo
·         A reading quest

After a yummy morning tea with Di Eastwood’s date scones, we convened for the second session of Virtual Librarian with some ideas for online tools and apps for your Library.  Whilst I was familiar with blogs, Facebook, Pinterest (a visual discovery tool that you can use to find ideas), Symbaloo (Access your bookmarks anywhere), Livebinders (Organise your resources in an online binder), Weebly (a web hosting service that gives you an easy way to create a website), I hadn’t heard about Pond http://www.n4l.co.nz/pond/,the network for Leaning portal which is just being rolled out but this sounds like a place which we will all become familiar.

The last session was on the pros and cons and process of Genrification.  Whilst this could be organising your entire Library into genres, in most schools this has been organising your Fiction section into Genres rather than by the authors’ surname.  I think this is an interesting idea and I am keeping an open mind on it. 

We concluded with lunch of home-made soup and freshly baked bread and a raffle for some donated books.  I think we all walked away happy with our choice.

Thanks are due to Michelle Simms, Te Totara Primary School, Jeannie Skinner, National Library and Julia Smith from Kerikeri High School for an interesting and informative morning.

Dee Brooker

For more detail on these sessions, here is the link to Michelle’s presentations http://www.slideshare.net/spaceace40

Adrienne Hannan summary

In the second weekend of March, 2014, SLANZA Te Tai Tokerau successfully hosted the resourceful, multi-talented, high-achieving, Adrienne Hannan from Wellington. 

Adrienne Hannan is the Children's and Youth Services Co-ordinator at Wellington City Libraries as well as a combat medic in the New Zealand Army Reserve. Being a soldier has given Adrienne useful skills and knowledge, particularly flexible thinking. Her talk was a meshing of the two environments she works in. 

Adrienne called her presentation The 10 Commandments of Manoeuvre Warfare, claiming that they are essentially a set of commandments that will enable librarians to achieve success. As the decision makers that our students / community see daily, the librarians need all the information on the running of the library - what the library is trying to achieve, what resources they have and how and when to use them, the history and reasoning of high-level decisions that have been made. This sets the librarian up to make sound strategic decisions without the unnecessary delays of gaining permissions from authority; they can implement the library's objectives and mission, be adaptive, responsive and take initiatives.

Twenty-one people from Northland attended the session to see what librarians can learn from the New Zealand military in the 21st Century. It was an entertaining and engaging presentation, and indeed, the military do have valuable lessons for librarians.

Adrienne Hannan's 10 Commandments of Manoeuvre Warfare:

Focus on the enemy, not on the ground 

·         ground = environment, enemy = students, the flexible element

·         must have policies and practices that are student focused rather than on the environment

·         need to be adaptive and responsive to students, flexible to change as students change

Act more quickly than your enemy can react 

·       be quick to grab initiatives

·         need to keep up to date

·         be an early adopter, adapter, initialiser

·         don't wait for the students' demands to reach a certain level before implementing a new service, policy or platform

Issue mission-type orders 

·         big picture mission, we are doing this in order to achieve this

·         what is our intent, what is our end state, how do we work to get there

·         specifics of people, resources, timeframes

·         communication is key

 Avoid strengths, attack weakness 

·         identify weaknesses honestly, find the gaps in your services

·         concentrate resources on strengthening those areas, fill the gaps

·         work with the ones who will support you

Exploit tactical opportunities, reinforce success, not failure

·         "success should be seen as a culture, not the result of a task"

·         need to create and celebrate successes no matter how small

·         slowly build up a culture of success (Major Slim) 

·         recognise relative successes of different people, who are your pln 

Always designate the main effort 

·        key push to achieve the mission

·         define the school library's mission

·         clearly defined roles of who is part of main effort and who is supporting it

·         strategic planning

Avoid predictability

·         don't let students get bored as they may well stop using the library

·         capture their attention by doing things they won’t expect

·         show you are a mover and shaker of library world

·         change perceptions, be flexible

Support movement with fire 

·         adequate resources for the mission 

·         coordinated mission with those that are moving forward - evidence based practice

·         back each other up and support each other in a co-ordinated way

Command from the front 

·         management is task and object focused

·         leadership is about setting standards, initiatives, influence, visibility

·         emphasis on leadership rather than management

Act boldly and decisively 

·         create environment that people make decisions

·         praise decision-makers

·         be flexible, change tack if it doesn't work 

·         take risks on board, try them anyway, 

·         reinforce success - specific praise

·         be essential, proactive

We finished the session with group discussions on how we may exploit tactical opportunities to reinforce success in our libraries.

Guest Speaker Adrienne Hannan - The Strategic Librarian

Tour of Auckland school libraries : SLANZA Waikato

Hello Northland school librarians

Would you be interested in visiting some Auckland school libraries in Term 4?

The Waikato SLANZA / NLNZ Annual School Library Tour this year is in Auckland, and there are two dates :

Auckland Secondary school libraries tour: Friday, 8th November, 10:00am-3pm:

• Morning tea and visit to BLENZ (Blind and Low Vision Education Network New Zealand)
• Sir Edmund Hillary Collegiate
• Botany Downs Public Library (lunch at The Botany Downs Town Centre)
• Ormiston Senior College
• Papakura High School.

Auckland Primary school libraries tour: Friday, 15th November, 10:00am-3pm:

• Morning tea and visit to Services to Schools, National Library of New Zealand, Parnell
• St Helier’s Primary School
• Elm Park School (Pakuranga)
• Botany Downs Public Library (lunch at The Botany Downs Town Centre)
• Elim Christian College (Junior Campus)
• Redoubt North School (Manukau).

The tours are jointly organised between SLANZA Waikato Bay of Plenty and the National Library advisers.  They are valuable not only for those of you who are thinking of remodelling or building new libraries, but also just for getting new ideas for your library environment – also a good chance to catch up with people working in other school libraries...

How about car-pooling with some other Northland colleagues, or maybe heading down to Auckland early on Friday and making a weekend of it?

Everyone is welcome – to come on either, or both tours, and on both days you will have an opportunity to visit Botany Downs Public Library in the Botany Downs Town Centre, where you will be able to purchase lunch (your own cost).

A detailed schedule for the whole day will be forwarded to all registrants.
Transport is your own responsibility.
Cost: $5 per person.

For further information and/or registration, please contact Linda McCullough at Services to Schools, National Library Hamilton ph 07 856 9134 or fill in the registration form available at this link, or contact Jeannie Skinner.

Term 2 workshop

"Piece of mind"
creating engaging displays in your library...

Making interesting displays can be a challenge - lack of time, resources and space are often reasons for not creating displays that attract the attention of students. 
 

We are fortunate to have Anita Vandenberghe coming north to present a workshop on library displays, sharing her enthusiasm, expertise and experience with us, talking about finding ideas and putting them into action to create displays that your students will love.
 

You will hear tips and tricks and how you can use materials over and again, and how to find out about and to keep track of important events during the year in order to prepare your displays
ahead of time...

Come and activate your creativity and go home with a world of ideas!

Anita Vandenberghe worked for more than 20 years at a public library in The Netherlands before coming to New Zealand where she now works at St Kentigern College Library.  As well as being a life-long learner, she is an avid reader and information-gatherer, and passionate about libraries and their pivotal role in the community. 

Anita's website http://www.CreativeLibraryDisplays.com is a fabulous resource, containing displays ideas, descriptions of how to get started, lots of photos, tips, and helpful information. 

Anita presented a workshop at the SLANZA Conference about making appealing, timely and relevant displays without spending too much money, time, blood, sweat or tears and people were inspired!

The workshop will be 

• At Kerikeri High School Library 
• On Saturday 9th June 2012 (Term 2, week 7) 
• Start 10am (or come a bit earlier for a cuppa beforehand), finishing about 12 noon.
• $5 for SLANZA members, $15 for non-members
• To register please contact jeannie.skinner@dia.govt.nz

All welcome – library staff, teachers, public library staff, student librarians…