Kia ora Koutou,
Recently we posted an update to the blog on the SLANZA submission to the Select Committee inquiry into 21st Century Learning Environments and Digital Literacy. You can read that post here, and find links to information about the inquiry itself, and to the SLANZA submission document. Today, Michele Whiting, who presented the submission on behalf of SLANZA, has been invited to appear at the hearing on the morning of Wednesday 20 June. She will be accompanied by Fiona Mackie, our President, and they will have a 20 minute opportunity to give an overview of the content of our submission and raise any additional points. There is an allowance of ten minutes for the Committee to ask questions. We may also submit additional papers at this time. We will provide further updates as information comes to hand, although it is unlikely that we will have anything to report after this session, unless the questions posed by the Select Committee are interesting in themselves. Please contact your local NE representative if, after reading the documentation you believe there are glaring omissions in the points we have raised.
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The SLANZA National Executive has just put out a press release in response to the recent decision to increase class sizes. Full content follows:
The Government’s policy to increase class sizes to release funds for teacher development demonstrates a lack of awareness of the needs of 21st Century learners, according to the School Library Association of New Zealand/ Aotearoa. “Things have changed since the Minister of Education was in school”, said Fiona Mackie, President of SLANZA. “ It is well recognized that we cannot meet the diverse needs of students now and in the future with classes of 41, such as she experienced 40 years ago”. “School librarians understand this as they are working at the cutting edge, where information technology and E-learning meets the classroom”, said Ms. Mackie. “Schools also have to meet diverse needs and these factors combined mean that teaching from the front of the classroom to large numbers of students just won’t make the grade any more”. “The Minister is also mistaken when she relies so heavily on research that says class sizes don’t matter. While the quality of the teacher has the most impact, the work of Russell Bishop and others demonstrates that relationships between teacher and student make the most difference – particularly for Maori. It clearly easier to develop those relationships when the class sizes are smaller,” said Ms. Mackie. “With the changes announced by the government, schools will have to make difficult staffing choices and some may unwisely decide to cut school librarians rather than lose a teacher”, said Ms. Mackie. “If this happens it undermines the goal of raising student achievement in literacy, as well staffed school libraries have a pivotal role to play in this. The National Standards emphasise the need to teach literacy across the curriculum, including information and digital literacy, where experienced librarians are the experts”. “The government needs to rethink its policy”, said Ms. Mackie. SLANZA has made a submission to the Parliamentary Select Committee "Inquiry into 21st century learning environments and digital literacy". You can find the Terms of Reference for the inquiry online here, and SLANZA's submission is available here (pdf). We have asked to appear before the committee to speak to this submission, and will keep you informed of progress.
In an interview recorded by Radio Rhema on Wednesday, SLANZA President Fiona Mackie spoke passionately about libraries, both in our schools and in our communities.
Entitled, School Libraries a waste? the thrust of this interview relates to the fact that across the ditch in Australia, the government has spent 4 billion dollars building new school libraries across the country and that this now appears to be going to waste. According to reports, many Australian schools are now saying they're phasing out their entire catalogue of books and all their shelving because pupils are researching on line and reading e-books instead. (For more on the Australian school library situation, visit The Hub.) Fiona was asked to share her persective, which she did very succinctly, from how librarians are in the best position to help students navigate their way through the research mire to how e-books aren't quite the same as their print versions when it comes to cuddling up with your favourite youngster for story time. To hear Fiona talk about this and more in just 5 minutes click on this link. SLANZA encourages and rewards excellence in school libraries, recognising the success and achievement of those working in and with school libraries, with a series of annual awards.
At the National Executive meeting in March it was decided that we should re-instate annual SLANZA Awards and present at every AGM rather than just at conference. This year's AGM is in Wellington on 21 July. Nominations are open now and close 21 June. The Award's are listed below:
For information about eligibility criteria, and how to apply or nominate someone for an award go tohttp://slanza.org.nz/awards.html. Please note the cut off for nominations will be Thursday 21 June and the new SLANZA mailing address is: Lily O'Donovan SLANZA Executive Officer c/- PO Box 27 321 Wellington 6011 [email protected] Please contact me if you require any further information. Lisa Salter RLIANZA Library Manager Ruawai College and Community Library PO Box 7, Ruawai 0549 Phone 09 439 2216 [email protected] SLANZA Te Tai Tokerau representative www.slanza.org.nz SLANZA is pleased to offer Honorary Life Membership to recognize those whose contribution to school librarianship or a closely related field is so outstanding that it is of lasting importance to the advancement of the whole field of school library service. Please think about those in our field who deserve to be rewarded in this way. Applications are open now and close Thursday 21 June 2012. The first Honorary Life Memberships will be presented at our 2012 AGM in Wellington on Saturday 21 July. An application form may be obtained from Lisa Salter, email [email protected]. This new form of membership will be up on our website in the near future. WHAT IS SLANZA HONORARY LIFE MEMBERSHIP? Honorary Life Membership is considered to be SLANZA’s highest honor. Honorary life membership may be conferred on a living member whose contribution to school librarianship or a closely related field is so outstanding that it is of lasting importance to the advancement of the whole field of school library service. It is intended to reflect honor upon the SLANZA as well as upon the individual. NOMINATIONS PROCEDURE: Any SLANZA personal member (except current members of the SLANZA Executive Board) may nominate an individual for Honorary Life Membership. The nominee will be a member of SLANZA. Please do not hesitate to contact me for further clarification. Lisa Salter Phone 09 439 2216 [email protected] Te Tai Tokerau NE School Library Association of New Zealand Aotearoa The School Library Association New Zealand Aotearoa (SLANZA) is pleased to announce the launch of Business Memberships for those businesses who would like to enter into a productive relationship with our members.
Features and benefits to for all Business Memberships include article/s in SLANZA Collected Magazine with your logo and a live link to your website or current promotion on a banner at the bottom of the article’s page. Our magazine Collected has a readership of over 800 with more than 10,000 unique page views per issue. Our readers are mainly from New Zealand but we also have readers in the UK, USA and Australia. Collected is developing as a leading source of information for school librarians in New Zealand. This is your opportunity to reach those readers and inform them of an idea, trend or service that may interest them. The article must be informational, providing reviews or commentary on new products or innovations, and will not be a paid advertisement. The most recent issue of Collected is available to read at http://www.slanza.org.nz/collected.html We are offering four tiers of membership: Platinum Membership - Top Shelf -
Gold Membership - Circulator -
Silver Membership - Reserved
Bronze Membership - Periodical
For further details, questions or suggestions please contact Lisa Salter [email protected] or phone 021 116 1080. ** the first 2012 issue of Collected is nearly ready. If you do not join prior to our first issue in 2012 you may join as Top Shelf for the adjusted price of $425.00. Lisa Salter Te Tai Tokerau SLANZA National Executive Representative [email protected] Hi-
Thank you to everyone who has already done this year's National Library Profile survey. If you haven't had time to complete this years survey I am writing to beg you to do it today. We all need good information to support our libraries and our roles in schools. To do this we need solid facts to base our goals and arguments on. Last year's survey did not get enough response to provide these vital statistics. To me that was a year lost of opportunities to see where my school fits in the realm of things. I want my reports/goals to be able to compare where I am with the rest of NZ. I want my reports/goals to have valid information to base realistic goals on and I want my reports/goals to celebrate all the things that I and my supporters (BOT, Sr Mgmt, students) are doing above average. Without a significant response to the survey from NZ school library staff, this will not happen. So PLEASE take the time to complete the survey urgently! Information below: School Library Profile Survey 2012 Services to Schools provide support to all New Zealand schools, helping schools develop quality library services that support your students. The annual school survey enables us to fulfill two important goals; to build a nationwide picture of NZ school libraries and to ensure we have current information about your school library. The collated information will help us shape our current and future services. We invite the person with library management responsibility to complete this survey. It takes about 10 minutes to complete this survey. The survey will be online until 31 March 2012. Survey link If you have problems accessing the survey online there is a pdf version available for print at http://schools.natlib.govt.nz/news All the best for the Easter holidays. I look forward to catching up with you all next term. Lisa Salter - RLIANZA Library Manager Ruawai College and Community Library In an attempt to gather information on our members' needs regarding Professional Development, SLANZA National Executive has prepared a survey to gauge your specific needs.
To make sure you contribute to us providing the best opportunities we can, please take just a couple of minutes of your time to fill out the survey by clicking on this link http://goo.gl/TGF@Y We value all feedback and will use it to guide us in our work both regionally and nationally. National Executive meeting 3 March 2012
The National Executive team met this weekend, partly in Wellington as originally planned, and partly online via Skype. Fiona suffered an injury to her foot just over a week ago, so was planning to chair the meeting from a comfortable chair at home, and Senga and I were affected by flight cancellations related to the weather 'bomb' that hit the North Island over the weekend. So it was an interesting experiment, one that we had been talking about trialling as an alternative to some face-to-face meetings anyway. On the face of it, as you will see from the following update, we still managed to cover a lot of ground, and we will be evaluating the experience as one way to potentially save costs. So here goes! Advocacy We have the opportunity to bring Dr Ross Todd to New Zealand in July to deliver his one day seminar on evidence-based practice. Fiona will be going out to the listserv for feedback tomorrow, so please respond to that message so that we can make our decision based on the feedback we receive. It is not a cheap or simple exercise to bring seminars or experts like Todd to our shores, so we will be relying on solid feedback from members before making this decision. The advocacy templates that are being prepared by the Advocacy team are almost ready to go up on the SLANZA website. Letters to Principals, BOTs, and others, advocating for school libraries, are in their final draft form and will be with NE members shortly for final feedback. They will be on the website by the end of this term. Professional development Conference planning is progressing nicely, the over-arching idea has been established, the underlying themes pulled out, and the venue is booked. A wish-list of presenters and keynote speakers is waiting in the wings for follow-up. Look for major announcements coming very soon via the website, listserv and regional communication channels. Well done to the hard-working Wellington team. The final draft of the professional development survey received its last tweaks this weekend, and will be embedded on the website on 19 March. This will be widely publicised. We encourage you to spend a few minutes completing the survey so that we can see where the gaps and needs for professional development are, and work with you to seek or provide appropriate training and resources. Communications Planning for the next issue of Collected is well in hand, and a final call for contributions will be issued in the second week of March. It will be published early in Term Two, and is on the theme of content curation. Miriam shared the progress she has made with the next stage of our website upgrade, and it is looking really good. This upgrade will allow more people to contribute to upkeep, thereby spreading the load, and helping to protect our organisation from risk as NE members step down from the role. Discussions about the wiki and its place in our communications strategy have begun in earnest, and some initial decisions have been made. Key players in the wiki scene will be approached to be involved in the work that is planned. Expect more on this soon. Several blog posts have been scheduled for the remainder of this term so make sure that you are subscribed so that you don't miss these updates. Business The hardworking business portfolio team are nearing completion on the business membership project. Watch for an announcement on the listserv very soon. Discussion about life memberships is continuing, and a resolution has been made that SLANZA will be reinstating annual awards. These will be given at conference, as has been the practice in recent years, and we will resume the practice of giving awards at the AGM in the intervening year. Again, watch for announcements on the website, blog and listserv. The National Executive will meet again, probably in July, depending on decisions made about the Dr Ross Todd seminars. If you would like more information about any of the matters mentioned here, please contact your regional representative. Their contact details can be found here. Kind regards, Donna Watt Communications Leader |
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