Professional Development for Librarians: looking ahead in this new academic year

Last weekend there was an International Baccalaureate (IBO) Continuum workshop on libraries held at Tanglin Trust School, led by Dianne McKenzie and Gary Green -- which several ISLN members attended.

You can see the IBO - Asia Pacific workshop planning calendar here -- to look for future ones.  NB:  my IB coordinator, Guy Roberts, says there will be a big regional IB job-alike on a Saturday in May at our campus, and we will definitely have a librarian strand.

Coming up soon, there is the annual Google Apps for Education Summit held at the Singapore American School.  This year it is on the weekend of September 6th and 7th.  See website here.  The cost is approximately S $375 and it's a wonderful chance to catch up on developments in the Google Apps world -- and general digital literacy.  Barb Reid and I are attending from UWCSEA East -- and I expect to see a few others there as well.

At the end of September, Barb and I are traveling to Queensland, Australia, for the first International Library Symposium, held in conjunction with SLAQ.

Learning 2.0 this year is being held October 2-4 at the New International School of Thailand (NIST) in Bangkok.  Doug Johnson of Blue Skunk blog is one of the presenters -- and libraries are one of his specialties.

On November 21-22 [!!!! moved a week later from originally announced Nov. 14-15] (a Fri/Sat) in Hong Kong there's the School Librarian Connection, a two-day collaborative initiative.  Participants can share their expertise on a hot topic in a variety of ways:  Mini presentation (20 min), Micro (10 min), Nano (3-5 min), or simply via a Digital Post (a link to a slideshow or video).  Anyone going over from Singapore should consider touring some international school libraries while there.

Also in Hong Kong, on December 11-13,  is the 7th annual 21st Century Learning Conference, which always has a good number of library and research-related workshop offerings.

On February 6-7, there will be the 3rd annual Librarians Knowledge Sharing Workshop (LKSW) in Bangkok, hosted by Kim Beeman at Shrewsbury International School.  Click here to register your interest via a Google Form.  See last year's LKSW website here.

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Added 24-Aug-14:  Watch for the regular Singapore Teach-Meets -- held at Lowercase, a cafe/bar Lasalle College of the Arts -- the next one is October 9th, 5:30-8pm.

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If anyone knows of any regional PD that should be added to our blog page -- see REGIONAL PD here -- please let me know and I will add the details.

Back after the long break -- and a Red Dot update

Those of us on the northern hemisphere academic schedule are slowly starting up again after the long break.

We look forward to seeing each other at our upcoming meeting, Wednesday, Sept. 10th in the Primary Library at the German European School (GESS), 300 Jalan Jurong Kechil, Singapore, 598668 -- 4:00 pm for a 4:30 pm start.  An agenda will be forthcoming, via the Google Group.

Ranita Smart, our host, says while parking is available, no one is allowed to drive into the campus between 4:00-4:20 pm, as the school buses leave at that time -- so plan to arrive before or after that 20-minute window, if you are driving.

There should be several new faces in the crowd.  Not only do we have a few new schools (e.g., GEMS World Academy and Dulwich College), but also the replacements of our former colleagues, e.g., at the Canadian school (Lisa and Isabel), the German school (Ruth), Eton House (Carla), OFS (Jeroen), UWCSEA East (Debbie), SAS (John Johnson), etc. 

NB:  New school librarians in Singapore:  you as an individual are free to attend our general meetings.  Just come along.  The benefits of having your school join as a paying member are outlined here -- and relate to professional development opportunities that we provide.   We do recommend you join our Google Group in order to receive email updates re meetings and blog updates.  The only requirement is that you sign up with a valid Google Account email.

Re Red Dots:  New people should read the write-up I did of the history and evolution of the Red Dot Book Awards (here).  All schools are encouraged to participate every year.  And all ISLN members are welcome to be on the committee which sets the 8 titles for each of the 4 categories of readers.  Read the May blog post on the longlists here. 

I notice that only 3 of us have signed up to be on the Red Dot committee so far.  Link to Google Doc here.  I'm going to consider this document open for the next week -- and then we will try to settle subcommittee meeting times for Early/Young Readers and Older/Mature Readers before the Sept. 10th meeting.  We have to get going on it.

The goal is to announce the sets of Red Dot titles by the end of September -- and it's always a stretch, time-wise.  October is a no-go month for our network -- because of differing holiday schedules -- so sometimes we don't manage it until the end of October. Yet we know schools need to be ordering the books -- as the voting takes place in early March.

The Readers Cup competition (which is based on a subset of the Red Dot titles) takes place in late May.  We will be asking for a new committee to organize this at the Sept. 10th general meeting.  After last year's event, there were several discussions about how to improve it -- both in content and organization.  I feel if we are going to introduce changes, people need to know by our November meeting.  So if you are interested in the organization of the Readers Cup, be prepared to raise your hand in September!

Looking forward to seeing you all on Sept. 10th -- and to seeing my Red Dot Committee spreadsheet fill up a bit.