What You Can Do To Support School Libraries In Crisis

Carl Harvey III, president of AASL,writes in last week's Huffington Post about the crisis for school libraries across the country. Many readers added comments in which they tell their stories. Have you shared yours? http://huff.to/sukrpZ

Mock Awards to be held January 18th in Sullivan County

Our Mock Awards shortlists came out for the three awards our group will be considering, the Caldecott, the Newbury, and the Printz. For the Newbery, the titles are: Jefferson’s Sons by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley; Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai; Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt; Hound Dog True by Linda Urban; and Pie by Sarah Weeks. For the Printz, we have: Flip by Martyn Bedford; Queen of Hearts by Martha Brooks; This Dark Endeavor: The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein by Kenneth Oppel; Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys; Misfit by Jon Skovron; and Now is the Time for Running by Michael Williams. There are 35 titles on the Caldecott list; I can send you the list as an attachment if you are interested. The Mock Awards will take place on January 18, 2012 (with a snow date of Jan 19) at Sullivan County BOCES. As we are co-sponsoring this event with the Orange-Ulster BOCES SLS, we have quite a few librarians from outside of Sullivan County participating with us. If you are interested in registering, please see the Sullivan or O-U BOCES catalogs on MyLearningPlan. Participants are expected to read all of the books ahead of time, and let Lynn Miller know which book you would like to nominate for the award. We try to run the day as close to the way the actual awards committees function as possible.

Respectully submitted by Livia Sabourin, Sullivan County Representative, 11/26/2011.

livtiv@yahoo.com

OPALS user group in Rockland in January

An OPALS user’s group meeting is being planned for January. It will focus on the features of the new union catalog especially the reference upgrades and will be open to all librarians in the County not just the libraries with OPALS catalogs.

Teaching American History Grant

Sarah Chauncey from Rockland BOCES spoke to the School Library System council about the Teaching American History grant and opportunities for librarians to participate in the grant through professional development. Substitute coverage is also included in the grant eliminating any cost to the districts for subs. She will forward further information about the grant to the librarians.

Webinar: December 1, 21011

Tasha Bergson-Michelson brings Debbie Abilock (of NoodleTools) and Jole Seroff to our device screens tonight as they host a webinar on Search Literacy in Classroom 2.0. The webinar is 1 hour starting at 5pm Pacific (8:00 pm EST).

What sources should students be using?
How do we help them evaluate what they find?
What are the biggest misconceptions about search?
What is the school's role in teaching search literacy and skills?

Join them for what promises to be a great conversation.