Monday, April 25, 2011

Joyce Valenza serves us up Spartan Guides.


Guide for Teacher Librarians  by Joyce Valenza 

Curating and remixing the tools that define current professional practice.
Joyce Valenza is an awesome powerhouse of energy and enthusiasm. The amazing, indefatigable Joyce Valenza runs the library at Springfield Township ...(Library Zest) 
Joyce Valenza, teacher-librarian at Springfield Township High School, Erdenheim, Pennsylvania, has been modeling evolving tech-integrated practice for more than 30 years.....(Bolch, 2010) 
Read an interview given by her last year to Tech & Learning contributing editor Matt Bolch.

If you are on twitter you must follow JoyceValenza.
Joyce has many interests: School library media, Youth information-seeking behavior, Young people and technology, Virtual libraries, Online learning, Information literacy, Database use, Searching skills, Evolving role of the teacher-librarian, Internet2 in libraries, Web 2.0/ Library 2.0, Youth services, blogging and social networking.......

  
Joyce also welcomes you to visit: 
Research Tools, a site I use with learners for instruction in the inquiry/research process.

  New Tools, a toolkit of new options in information and communication technologies.
 Databases and Pathfinders, include both free and subscription resources to support research in a variety of disciplines.

Friday, April 15, 2011

Try The Hub for important school library updates.


New statistics available on school libraries in Australia from The Hub 

 

What is The Hub on PhotoPeach
The most recent and comprehensive statistics collected on Australian school libraries was done in March 2010 by the Children’s Book Council of Australia and includes information on:
* BER Libraries
* Comparison of Educational Sector School Library Budgets in Survey (not just BER)
There is a summary of the  information from the survey made by the CBCA summarised by Marj Kirkland, National President available on this page.
Conditions in libraries are found to be poor in the surveys and they highlight major problems with library staffing and budgets. Find out what a sad state our libraries are in.


After the "Inquiry into school libraries and teacher librarians in Australian schools"
the previous Chair of the Committee of Inquiry, Sharon Bird, asked for some brief descriptions of successful TL programs, just 4-5 paragraphs,describing a library where programs have been successful, things that work, success stories for student learning, supporting what has been asked for in hearings. ASLA and The Hub will work jointly on this effort.


Please consider adding a "success story" to the oztl wiki.


As the previous chair, Sharon Bird said: " I appreciate that it will be another task on top of busy lives but if we want the general public to read the report and understand what it is we are talking about then some of those real examples would be very useful."

AusLit is now available free to all school staff and students in Australian schools.

AustLit available free to Australian schools.

 AustLit is a not-for-profit education and  information resource  



Database size: 
- 712,437 works 
- 127,269 agents 
- 29,085 subjects



Teaching Australian Literature (TAL) recently announced that access to this resource for the study and teaching of Australian literature will shortly be available free of charge to the staff and students of all Australian schools.


Access will be managed by the relevant educational authorities in each state and territory. Contact details for these organisations will be posted on the Access AustLit page as soon as they are available. At this time New South Wales Department of Education and Training  Contact: TBA




  • The Broken Shore by Peter Temple showing holdings at Australian libraries, courtesy of the National Library of Australia's Libraries Australia service.
  • A Working Forest: Selected Prose by Les Murray, showing the fully indexed contents with hypertext link to each item.
  • The Rising of the Court and Other Sketches in Prose and Verse by Henry Lawson, linking to the full text of the novel
  • Lilian's Story by Kate Grenville showing a work with a range of versions and numerous publications. The versions include translations of Lilian's Story into languages other than English
  • The periodical Overland, listing its editors and giving a brief organisational history
  • Record for the Arthur Upfield website with a link to the archived copy at PANDORA
  • Arthur Wilson's Songs of Australia : Adapted to Appropriate Melodies, showing link to the digitised copy and the national Library of Australia.
  • Voss by Patrick White, showing a work with a range of versions and numerous publications. The versions include translations of Voss into languages other than English
Check out the example of what you can access re: authors Victor Kelleher

Aus-e-Lit Project

The Aus-e-Lit Project has been developing a number of new services that will extend AustLit by supporting broader searches and by allowing users to collect and annotate relevant internet resources.
An experimental Federated Search (requires access code)  provides results from both AustLit and a selection of external databases
Responding to the growth of internet resources and the potential of open-source software to discover, organise, describe, and share these resources, the Aus-e-Lit Project will deliver a suite of online research tools to AustLit users in June 2011. A collaboration between AustLit and The University of Queensland eResearch Lab, the Aus-e-Lit Project has developed a Federated Search and a Full-text Search that enhance the standard AustLit search with a snapshot of resources available at a selection of relevant databases.

AUS-E-LIT VIDEO DEMONSTRATIONS are available to support your understanding.

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Qr code quest_table

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Caring for our books

A Book Speaks
When you drop me on the floor
 I get stepped on - my sides are sore;
Torn-out pages make me groan;
I feel dizzy if I'm thrown;
 Every mark and every stain 
On my covers gives me pain; 
Please don't bend me,
 if you do I don't want to talk to you;
 But we will both be friends together, 
If you protect me from the weather
 And keep me clean so that I look 
Like a tidy, neat and happy book.