|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Just like that it is the end of the year! In this edition of our newsletter we chat with Bronwyn Jackson about life in libraries beyond the classroom, reflect on some insightful professional development and we chat with author Markus Zusak. See you all in 2025!
|
|
|
|
|
|
Join us!
|
We are looking for new members to join the ALIA Schools Special Interest Group. Could this be you??? Email our convenor to find out more!
|
|
|
|
|
|
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT WRAP UP
|
|
|
|
|
Professional development is an important part of any library personnel's journey. We can only offer the best service to our students and work places when we have the best knowledge.
|
|
|
|
|
|
PD REFLECTION: Dr Helen Weston
|
|
|
|
Earlier this year, the ALIA Schools Convenor, Dr Helen Weston attended the
|
|
|
|
This dynamic weekend was co-hosted by the Libraries for Children & Young Adults, School Libraries, Literacy & Reading, and Environment, Sustainability and Libraries Sections of IFLA. Public, university and school librarians met to consider how libraries and their staff might contribute to the UNs SDGs in our sectors.
|
- Access picture books from all over the world using World Cat see more here and Claire Stuckey also shared how we might host an exhibition of those books.
- Embark on an immersive story telling journey using VR technology as Catherine Barnes shared her school'd approach to telling stories using immersive technology.
- Embrace truth telling as we listened to Tylissa Elisara tell her truth and discovered her book Wurrtoo, written for her son.
- Involve sustainable practices in our libraries and celebrated the launch of Libraries Driving Education for Sustainable Development - available soon through Open Access.
- Learn from the successes of Tasmanian Libraries and New Zealand National Library.
- Connect school and public libraries as Marika Simon present CSU's School of Information and Communications Studies work regarding collaborative practices.
- Include Bibliotherapy into our practice to promote wellbeing with Dr. Susan McLaine.
- Delight in the Punggol Regional Library in Singapore as Huey Bin Heng shared the many features of the spaces in this future forward library.
|
The attendees were given so many options to appreciate, it will be wonderful to see how these practices will be considered back in our home libraries.
|
|
|
|
SPOTLIGHT ON: BRONWYN JACKSON
|
|
|
Tell us a bit about your yourself. How did you end up working in school libraries and what is your current role?
|
I was a library monitor in high school and loved every aspect of it - the welfare, the organisation, the helpfulness of the role, the reading and the learning, both mine and my peers. When I went to university to study teaching, Macquarie University had a library method, which I devoured.
|
Photo: Bronwyn, Jocelyn and Ee Ling.
|
|
|
|
|
At the time, we graduated from card catalogues, book cards and print resources to computers, enquiry terminals and the internet with all the new skills and variety of research techniques. It’s been a wonderful career with never ending learning…Over my 50 year teaching span, there isn't a curriculum subject I haven't taught! I retired fully in 2018, and have volunteered at the Book Bunker, the dedicated Library at Children's Hospital Westmead for 17 years. I have been Coordinator since 2017. It’s very satisfying, I’m still doing my best for the kids and their carers.
|
|
|
What is a day in the Book Bunker like?
|
|
The Book Bunker is a recreational library. Scholastic are our sponsors, and they are very generous. Our major goal is to take our patients away from their situation, and into the world of imagination. That is different for every child who enters our doors. Our mornings also involve visiting the wards to see patients who are not yet mobile with a trolley load of books. We can also then take requests and go back and get them from our collection. In the afternoons we process books, do displays, get ourselves up to date on our latest resources and interact with our visitors. We use Oliver, so there are the normal library jobs to do. Our priority is to know what we have, and to get it to the patient who wants it. We hope to get things back but it’s not anywhere near as important.
|
|
|
|
What is your space like and what type of books do your customers like reading?
|
The Book Bunker is the most colourful room in the hospital. There are wonderful creative ladies who work there. We have a Very Hungry Caterpillar and a witch’s broom with very little room left on it! We cater for newborns up to 16 year olds and it’s quite a challenge in our limited space. We also have a basket of books for carers who need something to read! Everyone who walks in the door is surprised and delighted by our area.
|
|
We try to have the popular series and if Scholastic publishes it we have the very latest, which is a thrill for voracious readers. For the less voracious, there is Anh Do for the younger ones and Guinness Book of Records, Where’s Wally and many of the classic teen reads for the older ones. We also have a very good collection of graphic novels, and a lot of easy readers both fiction and nonfiction. We have a fabulous collection of picture books and board books. When readers walk in, they see an excellent range of colourful and clean, new books. As a library in a hospital that is very important to us. We have a trolley to quarantine books when they are returned. We dispose of books that no longer look their best. We also have a cupboard of books that have barely been handled for infectious and immune suppressed patients. These books are gifted to the patients concerned.
|
|
|
|
Can people volunteer to work at the Book Bunker?
|
|
All our staff are volunteers so we love to welcome new people. The hospital requirements take a while to fulfill, including Working With Children Check and vaccinations. Most of our volunteers are school staff - teachers, TLs and clerical staff. Some are not. All are passionate about what we do. Some of us work once a week, some once a month and anything in between. I suggest if you find yourself at the Children's Hospital at Westmead between 10am and 3pm on weekdays, make your way to Level 1 and come visit and talk to us!
|
|
|
|
I love libraries because they are wonderful places to create warmth, passion and shared enthusiasm. Every visitor can be made welcome, and most can be encouraged to make the most of the space. I can’t imagine a better place to work!
|
|
|
|
|
|
CHAT WITH: MARKUS ZUSAK
|
|
|
|
|
Tell us a little bit about yourself.
|
|
I’m really just the most ordinary person – an early riser, a dog walker, a shouter at my kids when it takes them seemingly three hours to put a pair of shoes on (I mean, it’s not that hard!!!) and someone who loves books, surfing, football, animals, but most of all, just my family, whom I laugh and argue with in equal measure. What I love is the idea that to have full and beautiful lives, we have to encounter chaos and laughter and good times and terrible times. Our best stories come from entering the unknown.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I decided I wanted to be a writer when I realised I was reading novels and just believing them. What I mean is that I could relate to the idea that I was reading things that were completely made up, but I was believing them when I was in them. It was spectacular. Black words on white paper had transformed my world with these mystical, made-up truths, and I thought, ‘I want to do that too.’.
|
|
|
|
|
What is your favorite part of being a storyteller?
|
I love the idea that I live in two worlds. There’s the real world and then the imagined world – where I go to write and just be somewhere else. I like waking up in the morning and feeling like I can roll out of bed and land there, in that other place, where I get to play with words and form all kinds of combinations. I feel at my best when I’m writing well.
|
|
Assuming you were a big reader as a child, what was your favourite book as a child?
|
|
I’m going to talk about two influential books when I was a kid, but not a little kid. It’s when I was fourteen. I was a lover of two things at that age: footy and English. So on one hand, I was reading Sterlo: the Story of a Champion by the Rugby League great, Peter Sterling. On the other, I became Ponyboy Curtis (like about six million other kids) when I tore through The Outsiders. And I look back so happily. Talk about staying gold! The important point, I think, is that we can have all sorts of books in our reading diet, so to speak. I don’t want to act like I’m some high-brow reader. I’m just a guy who loves books and where they can take us. (And Sterlo’s autobiography was very well-written, to tell you the truth. He's a smart guy!).
|
|
|
|
|
Where do you write? (This is always a question students ask visiting authors).
|
I have a work room at home, which has my desk, big piles of books (on the bookshelves and the floor), two dog beds, and my chair. There’s other stuff as well, but you know, they’re the primary colours. I also like just sitting at the kitchen table and working there, too. I try not to be precious about noise and people talking. It’s only when I’m editing and doing read-throughs that I shut my office door. I do my edits reading out loud – so it’s as much so that other family members aren’t put off by all my mumbling.
|
|
|
|
|
Finally, how do school libraries fit into your world and what value do you place on them for students?
|
|
They’re not only safe havens for some kids, they’re a catalogue of somewhere elses – and by that I just mean that I remember going into my school library and finding those little hallways of books to be like caves of perfect solitude. I used to love standing, leaning forward into a book, resting on those shelves. I wasn’t in school anymore; I wasn’t even in the library. The library gave me the world – and I did have to pay fines for late returns. Every cent worth it!
|
|
|
|
|
|
Importance of Media Literacy
|
Dr Kay Oddone most recent blog post has us all thinking about the importance of media literacy for our students. Read here.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
