Message from the CASL President
Richard Beaudry
Richard Beaudry is President of the Canadian Association for School Libraries. He can be reached at the following email
Richard Beaudry est le président de l'Association Canadienne pour les Bibliothèques Scolaires. Vous pouvez le contacter ici
Issue Contents
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Welcome back,
I realize that there has been a long delay since our last issue was published and I will explain the circumstances surrounding this further on in this issue under my editor's column. In this column, I would like to recap our activities since we last met online.
Our work in the past few years has been one of advocacy across Canada on behalf of school libraries, teacher librarians, and for increasing funds to school libraries so that each student in Canada has the advantage of a full time teacher librarian and an up to date library collection to assist them in learning the multiple literacy skills needed to be lifelong learners. Sandra Hughes, our past-president, took on the task of advocating on behalf of CASL across Canada. She has worked on a national survey of members of Parliament, met with Heather Reismann, CEO of Indigo Books, and has been in contact with Teacher Librarian Associations across the country.
This past October, I attended the National Summit on Human Resources in Libraries. Like most fields, librarianship is looking at replacing a large number of baby boomers that are set to retire between now and 2020 with a limited number of graduates coming out of librarianship programs across North America. Now would be a good time to encourage people to start working towards a diplome or masters program in school librarianship.
New Developments across Canada
Saskatchewan has published a new document for school libraries: Connections: Policy and Guidelines for School Libraries in Saskatchewan, 2008. Part of the document refer to the school library standards in Achieving Information Literacy: Standards for School Library Programs in Canada.
Ontario has a first draft of "Together for Learning: Transforming School Libraries in Ontario." A committee of OSLA teacher librarians and a group from the Ministry of Education wrote it. It is considered a draft resolution at this time and they have now released it to the general membership. They are in the process of reviewing it to add or delete components. The committee is hoping to have the document approved as an official document by the Ministry soon.
Alberta Education has hired Judith Sykes as a resource manager to write a new policy for school library standards for our Alberta (The current document is from 1984.). This is a significant accomplishment based on the hard work of many in this province to draw attention to the need for a re-evaluation/crisis of school libraries in our province. Judith has contributed significantly in the area of school libraries and was a writer and committee member for Achieving InformationLiteracy: Standards for School Library Programs in Canada (2003).
Achieving Information Literacy
We are beginning work on a second edition of Achieving Information Literacy: Standards for School Libraries in Canada. We hope to have it ready for printing at the end of 2009 for a launch early in 2010
Like other divisions within the CLA we launched a new membership pamphlet. Hopefully you have had a chance to see it.
We continue to meet with CASL-PAC by teleconference 4 times a year plus one face-to-face meeting at the CLA Conference to support provincial associations and offer a means of discussion and dialogue at the national level.
The CASL Executive met at the OLA/OSLA Superconference in Toronto on January 30th, 2009 to upgrade our strategic plan and review conference sessions in Montreal and the CLA Executive Council met at the same conference on January 30th and February 1st, 2009 to discuss issues of national importance to libraries.
CASL Collaboration
We continued working with the CLA Network Coordinator and Webmaster on streamlining our online resources within the framework of the CLA website.
I will continue in my role of liaison with the CLA on the maintenance of the CASL websites for the next two years.
CASL continues to use the listsev as a major communication tool with our membership. As you have certainly noticed, Donna Desroches, the Learning Resources Consultant for the Living Sky School Division in North Battleford, Saskatchewan has joined me in posting information on the CASL Listserv. It is a pleasure to share this work with her.
And you are all invited to join us in Montreal for the CLA's 64th National Conference and Tradeshow from May 29th to June 1st, 2009.
Richard Beaudry , CASL President
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ISSN 1710-8535 School Libraries in Canada Online
