CILIP Rebranding, my Two Penn'orth

Please note: this is entirely my personal opinion

I've been following the disharmony over the CILIP rebrand since all members were invited to complete a questionnaire which included ranking 6 possible names for the professional body as part of the rebranding.  I didn't like any of the names and, while I don't dispute the need for a rebrand, I question the necessity of changing the name as part of it.

The reason for changing the name seems to be simply that no one knows who CILIP is and it is difficult/boring to explain...that bothers me a lot.  There are so many societies/charities/bodies with initials that need to be explained at first.  I'm sure when the NSPCC first started asking for donations they had to constantly expand "we're the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children" - not a catchy name but encompasses exactly what they do and now everyone recognises it.  The IEEE is probably unknown to most of you but it is the professional body for my husband's line of work - 'The Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers' - but they're not considering changing it just because the layman doesn't recognise it immediately.  So it is a question of whether it is more important to be known by the wider public or to be the respected professional body that, if you look into choosing that certain career, you will discover and value.  I think in CILIP's case it is hard to separate the two ideas because of the vast range of industries or sectors that an 'information professional' might find themselves in, or that someone might drift into without realising that they're doing something that could be under the umbrella of CILIP.

The name does seem to be becoming more widely known, someone commented that the CILIP Carnegie Greenaway Awards were mentioned in the news without an explanation of what CILIP is on the assumption that people know (or don't care I suppose), so capitalise on that instead of starting from scratch.  If people who work for CILIP are constantly having to explain what it is, to rolled eyeballs and boredom, that won't change with a snazzy new name. It will still require explanation, and the second you use the word 'library' or 'librarian' or 'Information Professional' they will look just as glazed as ever. What might change it is a better strapline, smarter logo, wider outreach and publicity and a firm idea of exactly what CILIP's purpose is. It isn't a union for library staff, although it should support it's members interests, but a source of professional development, support, and understanding as well as the mouth piece for the profession.

One thing I saw on twitter, that prompted me to write something, was the statement, quoted by someone listening to speakers at the emergency general meeting, "'Librarian' is known and understood: 'information professional' could be an IT worker".  This made me laugh, because people might assume they know what a Librarian does but I think our working lives are generally pretty different to the stereotype of a librarian 'shh'ing patrons and sitting at a desk reading a book!  But that is why I think CILIP is a good name for the body, Library and Information Professionals, because we don't all work in a physical library and we're not all called Librarians.  If it is doing it's job right then less people will slowly side-step away from us at parties and might actually be interested in what we do.

So that is why I think rebranding is important - and to be fair this is probably the cheapest rebrand since the concept of 'rebranding' began - but please don't change the name.  I for one am quite happy explaining what CILIP is but would be very embarrassed to be known as one of 'The Knowledge People'.

#cpd23 Thing 16

Thing 16: Advocacy, speaking up for the profession and getting published

Advocacy is hugely important, now more than ever before.  It is about making sure as many people as possible, within and outside of the profession, are aware of important events and given an opportunity for involvement.  In a sense it is something I do every day at school - it isn't only about attracting a new audience but about engaging with your existing one - something that sometimes librarians need to be reminded of so as to not alienate people that already support them.

Public libraries have come more into the limelight thanks to regional and national campaigns against all the cuts and closures happening lately, taken on brilliantly by Voices for the Library and others.  In February was a highlight of this: a week of events, including the friday dedicated to school libraries (see my post), leading to National LoveLibraries Day on Saturday 4th.  ASCEL, The SLA and CILIP wanted to bring school libraries to the attention of the public and the media as well with the SHOUTABOUT school libraries/sls campaign that I've supported by using the hashtag for school related tweets.  I'm supporting the Mass Lobby for School Libraries that will happen on 29th October 2012 - I've written to my MP and I will be attending the march on the day.  Attempts have been made by librarians and authors to get school libraries made statutory in English schools, as they are in Scottish schools, but so far have been unsuccessful.  I've not been on a march before, because I feel very uncomfortable with the idea of hooligans joining in just in order to cause trouble, but I think something organised by school librarians should be far more civilised!  It isn't a huge march, just a crowd of people heading to the Houses of Parliament to meet with MPs.  I don't yet know whether my MP would be available but actually I'd almost prefer it if he wasn't because I think I'd forget what I needed to say with the pressure :-/

Activism aside, as far as pure advocacy is concerned I am getting better at it as I gain confidence in my skills and importance - it includes sharing library related information with friends and family, and blogging about libraries but a hugely important use of advocacy is far more low key - keeping my school community aware of me and what I can provide.  Talking in a whole staff assembly was brilliant advocacy.  Creating a termly newsletter for staff and contributing to the parents' newsletter, talking to individual teachers and departments, regularly putting things in the staff bulletin, putting posters all over the school, talking to pupils...all of that is advocacy.  On a wider scale, getting information to people that have no real connection to my world and 'out of the echo chamber', it is much harder to get messages across.  My blog helps, or will as the follower count increases (hopefully), as do the articles I've written for Information Today Europe but of course they'll always be read by people who are already interested in libraries to some extent.  Further afield: I haven't yet tried!

Lighting the Future

The 2012 Joint YLG, SLG and SLA Conference

For those of you not in the know, this weekend was the joint conference of three bodies that care greatly about children and reading:

CILIP Youth Libraries Group

CILIP School Libraries Group

School Library Association

I am a member of all three, and on the London Committee of the YLG.  Each group usually holds their own annual conference, but for the first time since 2000 they decided to join forces for a mega conference and came up with a really packed programme.  Inspirational speakers from all sides of youth librarianship and literacy gave ringing war cries to promote our services 'outisde the echo chamber' and 'shout about' school libraries.  Authors, poets and storytellers entertained us with their creative minds and made clear their support for what we do (they judged their audience well for roaring rounds of applause!).  Enthusiastic publishers loaded us down with tonnes of proof copies and promotional materials for their Carnegie and Greenaway hopefuls of the future...it was non-stop, from checking in at noon on Friday to leaving at 2.30pm today.  I don't want to regurgitate everything I heard so if you're interested in detail it is worth searching #LTF12 on twitter or looking at the tweets collated by John Iona, taking out some of the more irreverent observations, on storify.  I just thought I'd share a few of my highlights:

I really enjoyed the panel discussion about reading and technology on Friday afternoon with three very eloquent and knowledgeable panelists.  Bev Humphrey talked about using new technologies to support literacy while Jonathan Douglas made the point that the Reading Agency's research into reading habits have shown a decline in reading in all formats, but that children are accessing story in new ways that still promote language and creativity.  Dave Coplin, from Microsoft, won the crowd over talking about how what he does should support what we do and that, if anything, the existence of the Internet makes a Librarian more important for curating and finding knowledge.  He said he doesn't see the point in teaching how to use particular software, but teaching children critical thinking and research skills is vital.

Storytelling over dinner capped off the evening wonderfully, I enjoyed listening to John Agard so much that I had to rush to the bookshop to buy a book of his poetry for him to sign.

Friday's haul of books, bags, posters,
mug, postcards and bookmarks

Saturday's intense but rousing panel discussion around 'Reading in the political spotlight' with a stellar panel was excellent.  My favourite quotes were from Aidan Chambers, who made it clear that he disagreed with government interference in the work of specialists, and that we must not confuse the profession of teacher with the act of teaching because as Librarians we can teach more!  Simon Mayo chaired the panel and made some great points himself about the tangible difference between a school which holds it's library at it's heart and one that doesn't have one.  Again, the after dinner entertainment was fantastic, with Morris Gleitzman keeping the room silent for an hour with his fascinating life story.

Saturday's many books...

Kevin Crossley-Holland, in his role as President of the SLA, gave a wonderful closing speech on Sunday, telling us he firmly believes that a well stocked, well-funded library should be the cornerstone of every school in the country and he is prepared to work hard for us during his presidency.

All of the whole delegate sessions were fantastic but, to be honest, I was disappointed by the workshops I was allocated. I decided not to tell you which ones I went to because others might have found them useful but I found that they were on matters that I have personally considered a lot already and, one in particular, I felt I could have presented a better session about myself! They hadn't been my first choices so hopefully most people didn't feel the same way as me.

The exhibition of publishers and library suppliers was great fun. Now that I've been on the London Committee for a few years I've talked to a number of the publicists and it was nice to be recognised and have books pushed into my hands almost immediately. Meeting up with Librarians I know well or only see at events, or even that I'd not met in person but have tweeted regularly, was excellent and I left with an awful lot to carry home!

Really impressed with Hot Key Books
efforts to save the environment by giving
memory sticks with their proofs on!

Of all the books I picked up I think the 3 I'm most excited about the Darren Shan, Elen Caldecott, and Sally Gardner.  I also picked up a nice little heap of non-fiction for school.

#cpd23 Thing 2 and Thing 3

Feels very Dr Seuss!
So Thing 2 is to find some other blogs to follow.  I already follow a lot of children's/teen/YA book review sites but not actually all that many Librarians so it was good to look at the cpd23 delicious page to find some other school libbies taking part.  Also interesting to see others reasons for signing up, I'm not the only one doing it as a kick up the bum to further my professional development!  I think one of the best things about 'social networking' is the opportunity to share good practice - obviously most useful if you're sharing it with people in the same field as you!  I commented on a few (can't figure out how to comment on tumblr without creating an account, mind!) but have added a number of new blogs to my blog roll, hopefully I'll have time to keep track of them.  I'm thinking getting on board on delicious might make it easier, lucky that's one of the later Things!

Thing 3 is to consider one's Personal Brand online.
Name: It was easy for me to choose the name for my blog because it has been my online nickname for as long as the internet has existed (almost, since about 1996 anyway).  I have it as my twitter name, and have been on there for a few years now.
Photograph: The photograph was easy as well - I love this weemee - it actually looks a bit like me!
Professional/personal identity: I decided to keep facebook personal and blog/twitter professional and a bit more anonymous (although it isn't hard to figure out who I am) so never tweet or blog about personal things.  It annoys me a little bit actually, when people tweet private things as it is such a public forum - I didn't 'lock' my tweets so that only my followers can see them because I know that I won't say anything that I don't want everyone to know.  That doesn't mean it isn't any fun to follow (hopefully) but it does mean that, although some of my personality comes through, my private life is still private.
Visual brand: My blog is black and red because I love Dennis the Menace, it probably makes it hard to read but meh!  I tried to change it once and got confused by all the add-ons moving around the page...if I get complaints I'll figure out how to change it :-)  My twitter has one of the default backgrounds, but I have the same avatar for both.  Facebook is completely personal so completely separate.  Maybe I'll consider fiddling my twitter background to match the blog.

Activity: Google your name to see what comes up.  I'll do this from a school computer tomorrow - I don't want to log out of everything on here!  I'm sure that nothing terrible will come up, just links to my twitter account and this blog, but it will be interesting to see what comes up!

Optional extra activity: "Try asking someone else (such as one of the other programme participants) what they think your blog says about your personal brand. Are the words they suggest ones that you feel describe you? If not, consider why that might be and how you could change that perception" ~~> so what do you think?

cpd23 Thing 1

Continuing professional development is very important in a Librarian's career - keeping up with developments in the profession - so cpd23 ran last year as a self-directed course to introduce participants to useful tools, both traditional and new.  It is being run again this year and started on May 7th with Thing 1 (of 23, hence cpd23), so I'm already running late but I plan to catch up!

I've decided to take part this year because one of the things on my list of 'must do's in my 30th year is to Charter.  I got my MA in Library and Information Studies nearly 5 years ago but was stuck as a Library Assistant in public libraries for a couple of years before getting my current job, in which I feel like I do enough to qualify for Chartership.  I've been working in my school for nearly 3 years now though and have only got as far as printing out the form to register to Charter...stating my intentions publicly might embarrass me into getting on with it!

I'm particularly looking forward to the parts of the course that are about organising and presenting myself and my work/references, I think they'll be most useful in day to day library life as well as getting my Chartership portfolio sorted in a timely fashion.  I've already got the blog for Thing 1, and a reasonable online presence, so I'm not too worried about the first few Things although I'm sure they'll highlight stuff I've never realised/done and remind me of things I've not used effectively yet.  There's nothing in the timetable that I don't think will be worthwhile, the only thing that worries me is keeping up - I should be doing Thing 2 by now!  That can be Sunday's task :-)

Reading Role Models

A belated Happy World Book Night for Monday! On the day, I had 10 minutes to speak in a full staff meeting at school about ‘How to get the most out of the Information Centre’ and I thought I’d share some of what I said.

I started by explaining why I wanted to speak in a staff meeting: to remind them that there is something for everyone, whatever their department. I went on to highlight the aspects of the new OFSTED framework that put a lot of weight on cross-curricula literacy…I talked briefly about finding things themselves in the library, including me in their planning so that I can suggest useful resources, and referenced the DEMOS Truth, Lies and the Internet report and how I can help with evaluating and referencing sources.

The spiel for the final two slides are what I want to share with you, because I think they are crucial:

There are two sides to my role that are equally important. One is supporting the academic life of the school and the other is developing the pupils’ relationship with books and instilling a love of reading. You know that the latter is my favourite part, but as hard as I try it cannot be a one woman battle. The library should not be the only place the pupils see reading.

The OECD, produces league tables of developed countries for all sorts of statistics, including the percentage of 15 year olds that say they regularly read for pleasure. The United Kingdom has been dropping down in the ranking for years, and countries we would think far less developed, such as Hungary and Lithuania are far ahead of us. Many studies have shown that readers do better in life, regardless of their socio-economic background, so everyone that has any influence on children’s lives needs to make a massive effort to encourage reading…

Sometimes children will suddenly take to reading, something sparks an interest and then they’re hooked. Those of you that teach [name] will have noticed last term that it was difficult to get his nose out of a book, in 3 months he read 23 books despite him having borrowed nothing in the entire year and a term previously. All because one book I gave to him in December caught his imagination.

They can’t do it on their own. A lucky few will just naturally have the reading bug but most of them need a gentle shove in the right direction. That’s why it is so important that they see the adults they know as reading role models. There will be relatives that make an effort to do this but for a lot of our pupils you are their best chance. Miss [name] frequently has to renew books I’ve lent her because when she’s shown them to a pupil that child just has to read it immediately – these are children that rarely choose to read getting hooked in because someone they respect is raving about the book.

I finished by explaining about World Book Night and sharing books, and everyone left the meeting inspired and raring to read...well, some of them :-)

Greenaway shadowing

I don't have a Carnegie shadowing group at school, the library is too busy for me to be able to concentrate on a reading group after school so I just make do with informally saying to regulars 'read this, it is amazing and it has been shortlisted for the Carnegie', followed with an explanation as to why that is important.  What I am doing, for the 3rd year now, is shadowing the Kate Greenaway award with a group of Year 7s in their weekly lesson.  Today I told them about the award and showed them some previous winners, then introduced them to the books by making them "Judge a book by it's cover".  Obviously they can't be trusted to just look at the covers and not open the books, so I wrapped them in cling film first and gave them about a minute per book to rate them out of 5.

While I totted up their scores they had a browse of the previous winners and shortlists to see what kind of thing appeals to the Greenaway judges, and then I announced our favourites so far.  Next lesson we will only look at the 4 they liked the least based on the cover, those were 'Solomon Crocodile', 'Wolf Won't Bite', 'Puffin Peter' and 'The Gift'.    We'll discuss the criteria for the award and actually open the books this time, ooo, and get to know them a bit better.

The winner will be announced in about 9 weeks, we won't have 9 lessons looking at the books as there are other things to do as well, but I'm planning a few more sessions for us to whittle the shortlist down to our favourite.

I was surprised to see that the overwhelming favourite so far is 'Can we Save the Tiger?', I'll be interested to see how much opinions change when they see what's inside them all!

The Official CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Awards shortlists!

The wait is over and today we know what the judges have chosen as their shortlists from the 100-odd books nominated across the two awards.  Remember, the only nomination criteria were that it had to be written for children or teenagers and have been published in the UK between 1^st September 2010 (seems a long time ago!) and 31^st August 2011 (without having been published more than 3months earlier in another country).

The titles they chose for Carnegie, meaning they think they are “outstanding literature for children and young people” are:

The Midnight Zoo by Sonia Hartnett

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

Between Shades of Grey by Ruta Septys

Small Change for Stuart by Lissa Evans

Everybody Jam by Ali Lewis

My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece by Annabel Pitcher

My Name is Mina by David Almond

Trash by Andy Mulligan

Eight titles this year so I could have chosen two more for my short list!  As you will remember from my previous posts relating to the Carnegie, I loved four of these, with two making it onto my short list.  I posted in November, February and earlier this month.  I didn’t like the other four, though I can understand why people did, but I am surprised that the judges thought they were better than any of the other titles on the list!

A nice variety, they’re all very readable and not too worthy or difficult for your average school child to read, probably the most accessible short list there has been for a long while and I think less for your average School Librarian to criticize.  There are always complaints about the Carnegie short list being full of books that are too difficult but all of these titles are age appropriate for KS3 reading groups.

My prediction for the final winner:

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

I read a proof copy before it was published and at the next YLG London meeting said there’s no point reading any more books because this is the next Carnegie winner!  It is such a beautiful, sad story.  Second choice would be The Midnight Zoo.

The short list for the Greenaway Award for outstanding illustration is:

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness, illustrated by Jim Kay

Wolf Won’t Bite by Emily Gravett

Puffin Peter by Petr Horacek

Slog’s Dad by David Almond, illustrated by David McKean

Solomon Crocodile by Catherine Rayner

The Gift by Carol Anne Duffy, illustrated by Rob Ryan

There are no Cats in this Book by Viviane Schwarz

Can we save the Tiger? By Martin Jenkins, illustrated by Vicky White

I’ll be shadowing the Greenaway with a group of Year 7s at school so I’ll let you know what we think!

World Book Day

I work in a secondary school so World Book Day is a little more low-key than I imagine it is in primary schools - I love the idea of dressing like book characters and doing book related things all day but I can't take pupils off timetable very often and without an excellent reason and I'm not sure that my cool teens would be prepared to dress up!  So I try to do something that doesn't take too much preparation, doesn't disturb teaching at all, and is good fun.  I tend to have a week of little things happening e.g. a pairs competition (find and match up the pairs around the library - different ones each day), or sevens (find seven words/names and tell me the link), quizzes, text tales (write a story in 140 characters)...this year was the simplest yet, but in some ways the most effective.  

I was allowed to take the year 7s off timetable to meet an author on the Monday, Sam Gayton, to talk about his book The Snow Merchant.  They really enjoyed listening to Sam read some of the story and got really involved when he discussed the process of illustrating his characters (the pictures in the book are lovely).  He also treated us to a sneak preview of his new book, a sequel to Gulliver's Travels!

Then a small challenge in the library: each break something new on the whiteboard for the kids to write their responses to:

I also had "worst book I've read" but most pupils put down books they've read in English - a good demonstration of why I didn't choose to do English beyond G.C.S.E. - so I didn't take a photo!  My final one, lunch break on Friday, was "my favourite book" but a teacher rubbed it off while I went to have my lunch before coming back with my camera :-(  We had a great time discussing their answers, I gave a raffle ticket to each pupil that put an answer, except to one of my favourite Year11s who insisted on putting 'OCR science revision guide' as his answer to every question, except for the 'best boyfriend' one for which he put himself :-)

I always like to do something that can get the whole school involved on the day itself.  In previous years I've asked for staff to volunteer to wear a badge so that the pupils have to find them and discover the links (e.g. character & their book, job and book title), created a form that the kids have to fill out during the day, and then had prizes for the completed entries handed in.  This year I made it as easy as was humanly possible - I put a sticky label in the pigeon holes of every member of staff on wednesday afternoon and sent them an email saying they need to write their favourite childhood book on it and wear it all day thursday.  On thursday morning I gave the kids that were in the library a form with 2 columns - staff name and book title - and told them to harrass any staff they saw without a label...word spread, lots more forms were collected from me throughout the day.   All except 2 teachers took part and some of them pupils had nearly 70 staff members written on their pages!  I gave raffle tickets out - the more answers the more tickets - and at the end of the day I had a queue of about 1/4 of the pupils in the school with pages of responses.  It took me 40minutes to get through them all and, including those for the whiteboard questions, I gave out over 800 raffle tickets!  All I had for prizes were small chocolates, some boxes of maltesers and half a dozen books, but still, they love winning anything...it doesn't have to cost a lot of money or take a huge amount of time to get everyone involved and recognising the Library

Love Libraries and #libday8

Every time I see the Library Day in the Life project I mean to join in but never find the time, but I felt it was worth making the effort to tell you about today what with it being National Libraries Day tomorrow.  Linking in with the CILIP Shout About School Libraries campaign, today was dedicated to School Libraries, yay!

So, a day in the life of CazApr1, Librarian in a school of approximately 600 pupils.  Normally working alone but 2days a week with a fellow Librarian:

7.30am Pick up the newspaper.
7.45am Unlock the Library: the queue outside can vary from 5 to 20 kids, this morning it was a small crowd - hopefully because they've remembered that Friday mornings are for quiet reading and revision only.  This is because at...
8am my breakfast club convenes: up to 10 Year 9 boys that have been highlighted as needing extra reading support.  Normally I spend the morning helping pupils with homework, chatting with regulars or helping them choose books, but on Fridays I leave the main space in the hands of a colleague while we go round the corner for some peace and quiet.  Today 7 of my group came and we played scrabble.
8.25am First bell - by this time there are normally 50-70 pupils in the room to clear out (up to 100 if it is bad weather) before...
8.30am Period 1: a Year 11 science lesson using the computers and books to research individual projects.
9.30am Period 2: planning a referencing and researching lesson for Year 10s, updating the in-house rewards system, e-mails*, a cuppa.
10.30am Break: again, if it is bad weather we'll get over 100 pupils in the library but that is far too crowded.  A member of teaching staff is in with me to help with crowd control so I spend the 15minutes tackling "low level negative behaviour" in amongst the usual requests for help finding books...today had the added bonus of handing out Love Libraries badges to my faves, and collecting final entries for my week's competiiton**
10.45am Period 3: Tidy up - tend to lend 40-50 books a day but reshelve far more!  Then preparing for the borough's school librarians meeting next week - we're planning a book quiz for March and I'm organising the guest authors and doing some of the quiz questions.
11.45am Period 4: Year 7 literacy group in to choose books, read, and do Accelerated Reader quizzes.  I sneak out to have my lunch for part of the lesson.
12.45am: Lunch break: similar to first break, with a different member of teaching staff, today we had about 80 pupils at any one time.  Loads came begging me for one of the badges but only pupils that regularly use me/the library properly got one - I told the others they need to borrow more books to maybe get something next time!
1.15pm Period 5: Year 8 English class in for their regular reading lesson (at least once a fortnight depending on the teacher's lesson plans) - we use Accelerated Reader for Years 7&8.
2.15pm Pupils in tutor: I update the AR records.
2.30pm End of the school day: About 30 pupils rush into the library -  some to carry on with homework, some to choose books, but lots to play draughts and chess - I often get roped into a game until...
3.30pm Officially my hometime, and actually today I got the last 6th formers out at 3.45pm - as they left they said "We love you Miss, have a nice weekend" - bless!

*Here's an email I sent to all teachers this morning:
"Tomorrow is National Love Libraries day and there have been things happening up and down the country all week as a build up. Today is dedicated to School Libraries (and School Librarians) so I thought I’d quickly highlight my Top Ten Tasks:

1. Raving about reading to teenagers and staff…talking about books we love, with a surprisingly high % of our pupils
2. Finding something appropriate for boys who ‘never read’ and getting a group of them to regularly come to a breakfast club
3. Providing book and electronic resources for teachers in and out of the Information Centre, and helping during lessons in the IC
4. Working with the transition group
5. Showing pupils better ways of researching and finishing homework
6. Crowd control before school, during breaks and after school
7. Managing the Accelerated Reader programme for years 7&8
8. Getting involved in dyslexia friendly/literacy/anti-bullying/g&t…
9. Choosing, ordering and cataloguing books
10. In recent months…Playing chess!

Not to mention competitions, events (some coming up soon!), newsletters, the CILIP Youth Libraries Group London work I do outside of school, sleuthing, reading and scribing in exams…and occasionally reading a book!"

**I had a Vampires vs Werewolves competition - tell me about your favourite paranormal creature (writing and pictures, made up or one you've read about) - with a few signed books as prizes and a couple of promotional bags.  I'm going to choose the winners on Monday and go to assemblies.

Pretty typical day really, kids often say lovely things but today I got extra because of all the badges I gave out - they didn't just take them as "love libraries badges", they said they wanted them because they love me!

Who Next...?

The new (4th) edition of Who Next...? A Guide to Children's Authors was published last month by LISU, edited by two Librarians, Viv Warren and Mary Yardley.  I just received a copy in the post as thanks for contributing to it.

It is a tool for parents and Librarians (and anyone else interested in children's books) to help them find authors that write in the same genre or on the same theme, so if they've found a book they love they could find similar things through this book.  It is divided into the age ranges 5-7, 8-11, 12-14 and 14+, obviously not a perfect division because every child is different, but it is still a helpful way of determining whether the content might be appropriate.  There is also a section that just separates by genre, and a list of useful websites and prizes worth perusing.

Worth a look methinks.

Building a Dyslexia Friendly Library

As you may have noticed reading is one of my favourite things, and I can't imagine not being able to do it. For some people though the simple pleasure of sitting down with a good book is unthinkable. This may be because they just prefer to do other things with their time, but for 1 in 10 people in the UK it is because they are dyslexic. I wrote an article about making a Library dyslexia friendly, because even though reading might be a struggle for someone with dyslexia a story can still be enjoyed by other means, information still needs to be found, and the Library as a space can still be important to them. Really that applies to people with all sorts of needs, those with visual impairment, any learning 'difference', physical access issues, or simply the reluctant reader, but I focused the article on dyslexic users in a School Library as my school is working towards achieving the British Dyslexia Association's accreditation of Dyslexia Friendly School. An edited version of the article is Information Today Europe, and look out for the full length version in a future edition of Teen Librarian Monthly!

Hello!

I've been thinking about starting a blog for ages, those of you that follow me on twitter will be used to me tweeting my opinion of the book I've just read or sharing my opinion on various literacy and library related happenings, but every now and again I want to say a bit more than I can in 140 characters!

I promised myself, and some others, that I'd start it this summer so here we are, and I thought I'd start by linking to something I wrote for a colleague's online magazine about the pros and cons of School Librarianship: http://www.infotoday.eu/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/The-highs-and-lows-of-school-librarianship-75759.aspx