2014 SLANZA Otago Weekend School - 5-7 July 2014

Hi SLANZA Te Tai Tokerau members - A message from SLANZA Otago just in case some of you would like a trip down South.


We are very excited to announce that the 2014 SLANZA Otago Weekend School (incorporating the SLANZA 2014 AGM) will be held at the beginning of July.

The SLANZA Otago committee are hard at work putting together a fantastic programme for everyone who has a passion for school libraries of all kinds.  We are especially delighted to be able to bring you so much quality professional development for the amazingly low registration price of $40 for SLANZA members.

 Details are  available on the SLANZA website here<http://www.slanza.org.nz/otago>.

We need to receive your registration and payment by 27th of June so please don't delay - mark the 5th to the 7th of July in your diaries now!

If you have any questions, please get in touch.  We are very much looking forward to seeing you in July.

Carole Gardiner
Secretary, SLANZA Otago
(on behalf of the SLANZA Otago committee)


Carole Gardiner
Librarian

Information Centre | Queen's High School |195 Surrey Street | Dunedin 9012 | www.queens.school.nz
caroleg@queens.school.nz<mailto:caroleg@queens.school.nz> | t 03 455 7212,  ext 831 | f 03 455 8644

Queen's High School Information Centre qhsinfocentre.weebly.com

Another Connected Librarians course due to start in week 4

I would thoroughly recommend this course, so get your registration in quickly :)

 

 

We are pleased to announce that registrations for the fourth round of SLANZA’s online professional development course - Connected Librarians - will open TODAY  Monday 19 May. Because we have a waiting list for course places, there are currently only 10 places available.  In order 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. Because Term 2 is somewhat shorter than normal, successful applicants will receive invitations to our learning community during Week 3, and the course will begin in Week 4. If your registration is accepted, it is essential that you ensure you have access to Google Plus using the email account you have registered with, before the course starts.

The Connected Librarians course is designed by New Zealand school librarians, for school librarians. It is aimed at those just starting out with online tools in their library. Participants will be required to sign up for, and use a selection of 6 online tools (1 new tool each week). Each week’s work contains background readings and/or videos, tasks to complete using that week’s tool, and participation in discussions to share and reflect on your learning for the week.

The course is free for SLANZA members.

More information about the course is available here, or you can contact me directly with any questions.

 

Miriam Tuohy

 

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.

2013 Summary

Calling for contributions to Collected magazine

There is much talk and some action regarding MLEs (Modern Learning Environments) and MLLEs (Modern Library Learning Environments), especially in the Canterbury region and in pockets around the country.  What does this mean to us and how will it affect us?  That is a big question.  Whether it is around the corner for you or on a distant horizon, school librarians need to be aware of changing thinking in schools and be prepared with a way forward.  Having an idea of how your library fits in the scheme of things before the need arises is the best way forward.  

We are now calling for contributions to our first issue of Collected for the year with the theme “MLE, MLLE; What, Who and How” and will be looking at the big picture.  If you have knowledge in this area we hope you will share your experience with our readers.

And in every issue we like to include reviews of books suitable for students.  Please consider sending in a review for this issue. 

Deadline is Wednesday 14 May and we plan to print mid-June.  

Any questions or offers to Lisa Salter - slanzacollected@gmail.com

Thank you

Lisa Salter 

SLANZA Communications Leader

SLANZA Awards and Life Membership 2014 - Nominations are now open

Once again  SLANZA is pleased to open applications for nominations for the 2014 SLANZA Awards to be awarded at our AGM at the 2014  Otago Weekend School in Dunedin in July. Nominations close on Friday 20 June.
You can nominate in the following categories:

Award of merit for information literacy
Award of merit for literacy and enjoyment of reading
Award of merit for promotion
Award of merit for research
Award of merit for library assistant
Principal's award
Certificate of appreciation
Certificate of recognition

Eligibility criteria for the awards  and directions for nominations can be found at
the  SLANZA website under the Advocacy banner in Resources

This is a chance to recognize excellence among your peers, in your region  Please consider those around you who are worthy of recognition and either nominate them or encourage them to apply.
Thanks!

Greig Daniels  SLANZA Advocacy Team Leader

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

Happy New Year/SLANZA Planning meeting

Happy New Year and welcome back to the SLANZA Te Tai Tokerau blog.

I hope that all of you have had a relaxing break and a chance to read lots of books.  The highlight of my reading was "The Luminaries" by Eleanor Catton.

We are holding a meeting to plan SLANZA events for 2014 at the Whangarei Libraries at 10 am on Friday 24 January 2014.  We would love to have as many SLANZA members attend as possible.  Please RSVP Lisa Salter ruawailibrary@gmail.com

If you are unable to attend you are welcome to email Lisa with any suggestions for SLANZA activities.