With this issue of The Bookmark, we focus on celebrating the accomplishments of B.C. teacher-librarians. As this school year comes to a close, I would also like to celebrate the dedication of the award-winning members of the 2008-2009 BC Teacher-Librarians’ Association Executive. I salute Sylvia Zubke, Karen Lindsay, Bonnie McComb, Halia Hirniak, Al Smith, Lauren Craze, Amanda Hufton, Lynn Turner, Angie MacRitchie, Bonnie McComb, Moira Ekdahl, and Val Hamilton, all volunteers who gave thousands of hours of their own time this year. Thank you to our Treasurer, Lauren Craze, who is moving on to other challenges and will be missed on the Executive.
I would also like to extend very special congratulations to our long-time Continuing Education Chair, Lynn Turner, who will be retiring from her teacher-librarian position at Thornhill Junior Secondary School in Terrace this June. I am pleased to report that although Lynn is leaving Thornhill, she is not leaving us, and will be continuing on as Co-Continuing Education Chair as part of the 2009-2010 Executive. The new Executive was elected and appointed at the BCTLA Spring Council and AGM meeting which was held as part of the first annual BC Library Conference in April. In addition to the returning Executive members, we welcome new Executive members Chris Evans (Vancouver) as Treasurer and Michele Farquharson (Vancouver) as Co-Continuing Education Chair. Michele Farquharson may be familiar to you as the 2008 winner of the Diana Poole Memorial Award of Merit (BC Teacher-Librarian of the Year) Award. Michele has also recently been recognized by the Canadian Association for School Libraries as the winner of the 2009 Follett International Teacher-Librarian of the Year award. She is one of several B.C. teacher-librarians who have been honoured with national awards this school year and who are celebrated in this issue of The Bookmark. How about our incredible Karen Lindsay, winner this school year of two awards from the Canadian Library Association and Canadian Association for School Libraries, as well as the 2009 winner of the Diana Poole Memorial Award of Merit (BC Teacher-Librarian of the Year) Award? In addition to the elections, the April BCTLA Spring Council and AGM saw the addition of new publications and opportunities. An important new document, the Book Levelling and School Library Collections Position Statement, was passed unanimously. This position statement is hopefully the first of many and is intended to provide a well-researched defense to support teacher-librarians should they be asked to level school library collections. Another new document introduced this spring was the Chapter Grant application form. The Chapter Grant process will provide funding to BCTLA Chapters to engage in activities and initiatives which will have positive impacts for school libraries and teacher‐librarianship and that will enable the BCTLA to meet our goals. Last but not least, the BCTLA K-12 Information Literacy Benchmark Project continues and an update is available at http://infolitbctla.pbworks.com/. All of the new documents, as well as the 2008-2009 Annual Report on the activities of BCTLA, are available on the newly revised BCTLA website at http://bctf.ca/bctla/. This summer, numerous opportunities are available for teacher-librarians. Several summer institutes and online discussions, courses and conferences are underway, including, “Your School Library, Part 2: Information Literacy with Web 2.0”, which includes as a presenter former BCTLA President Pat Parungao. BCTLA members receive a discount when registering for this online opportunity. In late August, BCTLA’s Liaison Chair, Moira Ekdahl, will be attending the International Association of School Librarianship Conference in Italy on behalf of BCTLA. A team of teacher-librarians from Vancouver will also be attending. The B.C. delegation would welcome any other teacher-librarians who wish to join them. Please contact Moira at mekdahl@vsb.bc.ca for more information. Looking ahead to the fall, October again will be Canadian Library Month and International School Library Month. This year’s Canadian theme is, “Your Library, Your World Now More Than Ever”. For the second year, BCTLA will be distributing Canadian Library Month posters and bookmarks to every public school in B.C. The International Theme is, “School Libraries: The Big Picture”. More information on International School Library Month and related activities is available on the International Association of School Librarianship website at http://www.iasl-online.org/events/islm/. On October 22nd and 23rd, BCTLA welcomes everyone to join us in Richmond for our annual conference. This year’s theme is “Champions of Literacy” and features incredible sessions and a social event at the Richmond Olympic Oval. For more information and to register, visit the conference website at http://bctf.ca/bctla/conference/index.html. We hope to see you there! That’s all for now! For up-to-date BCTLA news and events, visit me anytime on the BCTLA President's Blog, "In Circulation" - http://bctlaincirculation.blogspot.com/!
