We are very excited to bring you the details of our fantastic day of professional learning and networking, to be held on Saturday 17th of March, at Te Manawa, in Palmerston North. We have secured some wonderful speakers:
All this, plus lunch, for only $20 (SLANZA members) or $30 for non-members. So mark the date in your diary now, you won’t want to miss it! Included here are the schedule for the day, including information about the speakers, and a registration form: Central Region SLANZA Day 2012 (pdf) SLANZA Day registration form (Word document) For catering purposes, we ask that you please complete the registration form and return your info to Joyce Richards at Nga Tawa by the 7th of March ([email protected]) If you’d like any further information, please contact either Miriam or Joyce directly.
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Today Christchurch, we are with you more than ever before - in our hearts, memories, thoughts and prayers. We think of those who have lost loved ones, homes, possessions, livelihoods, their way of life and peace of mind, and hope that one day the pain will lessen and ease.
We will stand with you in silence at 12.51 now and always. Kia kaha Christchurch and arohanui to our library whanau. Since I’ve been in the library at my school I’ve been working towards streamlining the stock take process here.
The first thing l did was relabel the entire library as the barcodes were inside the back cover of the books, meaning each book had to be taken off the shelf and opened to scan, what a waste of time! I used relabeling as an opportunity to look at the collection, weed and recover those in need, so it took me over a year to complete. Secondly I looked at the timing of stocktake. I felt that if I could get the scanning out of the way sooner, I’d be able to work on reports and trying to find “missing” books. I had heard of school’s who did theirs during break between terms 2 and 3, but my EO wouldn’t allow this as the timing would effect the stock value. So, I have slowly worked back from Week 9 and this week completed in Week 5, phew this really takes the pressure off making- me a much happier and less stressed library manager. Now because I am not rushed or stressed I have time to actually look at all the statistics my library programme can produce. What a wonderful resource. I just looked at borrowing by year level and by sex, then I worked out the average borrowed and found that the girls borrow 62% of all issues. This is interesting and leaves me with questions and the possibility of setting targets/goals around the information. There are stats to support me in many ways now that I have time to analyze them properly and I can share with departments in a positive way. Used strategically the results could increase support from teachers and promote the value of the library and it’s contribution to student achievement. Next I am starting on my annual report to the BOT, without the rush. I try to make my reports relevant, informative and readable. The key is to make it as short as possible but to jam pack all the information I want to share and celebrate. I use graphs, photos and try and relate to schools goals and strategic plan. I want the BOT to see how relevant and worthwhile my work is and I want them to know that the investment they make in the library is paying off in many useful ways. This year I did research on NZ school library reporting and there were two notable things I learned. Firstly don’t write a book, no one will read it. Boards are bogged down enough with important bits to read, if you want to make an impact make it short and to the point. Secondly, no matter what your school expects do not write a short breezy letter, take the time to report properly, never complain and try to relate your information to the school’s goals. Enough from me, I’m off to impress my BOT and make them happy to have me looking after their library and using it to improve student achievement as much as I can. Lisa Salter Te Tai Tokerau National Executive Representative Ruawai College Library Manager She has me fired up now!
This is the comment of one of the participants who attended our annual Saturday morning professional development in September. The themes were “Advocating for your school library” and E-learning. Forty seven people attended the workshop and went away with many new ideas for how to promote their libraries (Donna Watt and Miriam Tuohy) as well as issues around technology enhanced learning (Paul du Temple, Jason Murphy and Tom Avery). Donna Watt as a keynote speaker was a definite drawcard. Donna is the communications person on the National Executive of SLANZA and has had many years experience in school libraries. Her message was appropriate to both primary and secondary school library staff and teachers. We recommend that she is invited to share her advocacy ideas to members around the country. Miriam Tuohy (Nat Exec member) ran a workshop after Donna’s keynote and reinforced the ideas, giving relevant and useful advice for untrained library staff who are just starting out in a primary school. Remember you are not alone in this work! Here is some more feedback on the presentations.
Michele Whiting SLANZA National Executive representative Wellington region Good morning everyone. The following is feedback on the content covered at the meeting held in Auckland at the weekend. If you have questions please contact your local regional representative, whose contact details can be found on the SLANZA website. At our July meeting, we set up portfolios which relate to the specific areas of focus identified in the strategic plan : Advocacy, Communication and Professional Development. At this meeting we added another portfolio for Business, to cover the matters which do not neatly fit into the others. The following report will relate specifically to those areas of interest.Communication – this portfolio is led by Donna Watt, and the others working within the portfolio are Miriam Tuohy and Bharathi Char, with support from Senga White in relation to Collected magazine. The matters reported and furthered within the portfolio include:
Kind regards Donna Watt SLANZA Communications Leader The National Executive met in Auckland on Saturday and Sunday. One of our key tasks was to work out ways we can support SLANZA members who are facing employment difficulties - reduced hours, restructuring, job losses etc. We will always contact the person involved, but please understand that as this is a horribly difficult situation for anyone to be faced with, we will not discuss or share it via the list-serv. If you are facing employment problems, please let your regional rep know as soon as you are able to, so you can receive the help and support we can offer you.
One important avenue of assistance is the NZEI union, but they cannot help you if you are not a member! For your own protection, join now, as you need to have been a member for at least three months to receive assistance with employment issues. The fee is calculated on how much you earn, and the online form will give you an idea of the cost. Once you join you are also covered by the collective employment agreement too - a new settlement has been reached with new pay scales. For more information on the Support Staff settlement and pay scales, go to http://www.nzei.org.nz/Support+Staff.html More details about what the National Executive has been working on and doing recently will be coming soon, so keep checking back. So you keep current with our postings, have you set up an RSS feed using an RSS reader? It is such an easy way to get the posts sent to you, instead of searching for the blog. http://www.squidoo.com/rss-explained is a very clear explanation, so give it a go! Fiona Mackie President Report from SLANZA NE
Meeting 12-13 November 2011 Good morning everyone. The following is feedback on the content covered at the meeting held in Auckland at the weekend. If you have questions please contact your local regional representative, whose contact details can be found here. At our July meeting, we set up portfolios which relate to the specific areas of focus identified in the strategic plan : Advocacy, Communication and Professional Development. At this meeting we added another portfolio for Business, to cover the matters which do not neatly fit into the others. The following report will relate specifically to those areas of interest. Communication – this portfolio is led by Donna Watt, and the others working within the portfolio are Miriam Tuohy and Bharathi Char, with support from Senga White in relation to Collected magazine. The matters reported and furthered within the portfolio include:
Advocacy workshops have and will continue to be available to regional networks as needed – Michele Whiting will be blogging with further information about these. Professional development – this portfolio is led by Michele Ayers, and she is supported by Michele Whiting and Bharathi Char. Michele summarized PD events held or scheduled since the last meeting, thanks to the support of Warwick Ashton from Book Protection Products :
Wellington region shared progress on planning for the 2013 conference which is rapidly getting into gear. The contract with the conference organizer will be signed this week, a venue has been selected, and prospective keynotes are being evaluated. Seed funding was clarified at the NE meeting. The new business portfolio is led by Lisa Salter, supported by Jude Cosson. The matters currently on their agenda are:
If you are aware that you may be changing schools, or your other contact details need to be updated, please let Frances Gibbons at [email protected] know as soon as possible. She is working to update the member database for a busy time at the beginning of next year. We reiterate our advice that regional representatives are here to support you, in good times and in bad, so please contact us if you are in need of support or advice. If you hear of threats to other school libraries, whose staff may not be SLANZA members, we would also appreciate hearing from you. We are working very hard at a number of levels, regionally and nationally, to support and advocate for school libraries. Kind regards Donna Watt SLANZA Communications Leader Kia ora
We have good news about Collected magazine. We have been approached by EBSCO who were seeking to obtain an agreement to include our magazine in their database. It was very nice to be identified as an excellent fit for their databases,and we can take this as acknowledgement of the standards we have set, and the quality of writing from all of our contributors. Fiona has just signed off the licensing agreement and the folk at EBSCO publishing are working through the preliminary steps for getting our content into the appropriate database. This is a process which may take several months, so we will keep you informed as updates come to hand. So now you have even more reason to consider writing for the magazine, and we look forward to being inundated with offers the next time we put out a call! Well done to all who have contributed, assisted with editing and especially to Miriam for the work she does in making it look so digitally fine. Donna Watt SLANZA Communications Leader I hope you've all taken the opportunity to read the articleSchool Libraries the Poor Relation published in the Sunday Star Times on Sept 11th.
This is a good follow up to last month's article in the PPTA News about school library budget concerns for New Zealand schools. What can you do to keep the momentum going? Share this article with your school colleagues, principals, BOT's and encourage them to write in support of suitable and appropriate funding for school libraries and library staffing. Write something yourself and send it to either the editor of the Sunday Star Times or Imogen Neale, the reporter who wrote the article at: [email protected] or write to the editor of the PPTA News with your feedback. We want this conversation to continue. If you would like to do something, but you're unsure what you'd like to say, then maybe you would find the Advocacy Template letter a useful start. SLANZA would love your feedback on this. You can leave your coment here or you can email either myself at [email protected] or our president Fiona Mackie at [email protected] There is no better time than now with the national elections looming. Let's make sure people outside of our own profession know just how passionate we are about libraries and learning. Senga At the recent SLANZA conference, we farewelled several members of the National Executive who have been working for you and the regions, as well as giving up their time to be on the Executive. I'd like to take this opportunity to express my thanks to Bridget Schaumann, Di Eastwood, Wendy Ballard, Kim Slack, Maree Pavletich, Cynthia Francombe, Sarah Fordyce and Joyce Richards, for all the work they've put in to the development of ways to communicate with and support you as members, as well as developing SLANZA as an organisation. Without their dedication and commitment, SLANZA would be poorer indeed.
I'd also like to say a huge thank you to our immediate Past President, Senga White. Senga has led the Executive for two years and represented SLANZA on a number of committees across the library sector, as well as managing a Y7-8 library and a Y9-13 library on two sites, and in her spare time persuading me to stand for President Elect! I'm very fortunate to still have Senga on the Executive and really appreciate her support, knowledge and experience, which continues to benefit all of us. A very warm welcome to the new members on the Executive - Greig Daniels (Otago), Jude Cosson (Waikato/Bay of Plenty) and Bharathi Char (Auckland). I'm looking forward to working with everyone on the Executive as we look to the future of SLANZA and school librarianship in New Zealand. Joyce Valenza and Judy O'Connell gave all of us a very clear message at the recent conference - we cannot afford to be complacent about our role, services or environment, and I know the Executive is very mindful of that too. The fabulous Donna Watt and Miriam Tuohy are working away at putting the next edition of Collected together, which will focus on conference and share lots of what went on and of course some very interesting photos... Midnight feasts in the hostel, lots of laughter and dancing at the dinner, catching up with friends and making new ones, celebrating achievements, being amazed and inspired by our keynotes and presenters - we had a great time! Ka kite ano, Fiona. |
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