Libguide CMS training at CIS TK

Due to popular request we'll be holding some Libguide CMS training in January 2018. 

This is not for absolute beginners in Libguides, so if you're just starting out, it's suggested you follow some of the courses by Springshare first (Link only works if you're signed in). You will also need the CMS version of Libguides to be able to participate.

Please also download a web text-editor such as Atom so you are able to customise what you're learning to your own situation.

Dates: JANUARY 9, 23 and 30 (Tuesdays)
Location: Canadian International School, 371 Tanjong Katong Road, Singapore
Time: 4.30pm-6.00pm
Bring: Laptop, your login details for Libguides (administrator level authorisation needed); a snack to share
Compensation: Course is free of charge, but we would expect you to pay the community back in kind with help on ISLN committees, book selections for the Red Dot Books for 2018/9 etc.

Creating Red Dot Excitement at Dulwich College Singapore

As everyone is aware, last year we had a hiatus in the Readers' Cup Competition, but many school still purchased the Red Dot books and arranged activities around this.

Here is a contribution from Sarah Mounsey about how they promoted the books and did an internal competition.  As they say, there is more than one way to skin a cat, so we welcome contributions from our member schools on practical and logistical details of how they worked with their Red Dot Books last year, or how they plan to do it this year. All can be used as inspiration and adapted for your personal library / situation.

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Red Dot timeline / event 2016/7 - Dulwich College Singapore

By Sarah Mounsey

The students from the book club ECA's started reading the books as soon as they arrived from September/October. So did the reading ambassadors (Year 6) and Library Assistants (Year 5).  Most of these students read all or most of the books in their age category.

In December Jane Hayes and I organised a wine, cheese, chocolate and books afternoon in the library to entice staff to read at least one read dot book over the Christmas break.

I went to each year group's meeting and tried to get them excited about the books, telling them all about each book and encouraging them all to choose one to do as a class reader.

January: We launched the books in a whole school assembly and the reading ambassadors did a short book talk about each book.

The students had a house meeting and in their year groups and had to form teams of between 8 and 10. In their team they had to ensure that each book would be read by at least one person. All students were asked to choose one book they would like to read and they had to put their name in a list in the library to read this book. 

Many students read more than one, in fact I would say 70% of students did.

Most books we had only 8 copies of so we spent a lot of time delivering books to classes as soon as someone had returned a book. We used parent volunteers and students library assistants to support with this because I only have one library assistant.

Almost every child read a red dot book, there were a few who slipped through the gaps. This year it will be easier because for younger readers I will ensure every class listens to Burt Munro and  for older readers parts of Stormy Seas.

At the end of April we had our huge house event. Each year group (year 3-6) had an afternoon event which went over two lessons. I have attached the instructions for this (they're at the bottom of the blog).  This was such a fun, high energy event and worth all of the hard work.

The house spirit in our school is huge so regardless of whether students ended up in the final, they were delighted to be cheering on their team and also could participate on whiteboards from the audience. 

The Kahoot round was the most popular and I may change it this year to use Kahoot for the first round also.

It has really resulted in the students being excited by the red dots books earlier this year also.  I have not decided exactly how I will choose my teams for Readers Cup, but I know it will be a challenge because the excitement over red dot books is now huge.

Instructions:

First round – In houses in classrooms

Staffing / space needed

One classroom per grade participating with two staff members per room; 7 judges running between classes and marking long form answers

Round 1: By the end of this round there will be a winning team for each house who will represent their house on the stage in lesson 6.

Students all to have a reading book with them for DEAR (drop everything and read) to be done whilst judges are marking. IT MUST NOT BE A RED DOT BOOK! :)

The students all chose teams last term and I will share them with you on Monday. Some of them have team names, some do not.  If they don’t have a team name ask them to come up with a quick name at the start of the lesson.  Also there may be some students who are absent and there may be the odd student who was not allocated to a team.  Please place them in any team where the numbers are lower. There should be 6- 8 students in each team. 

I will deliver all question sheets to the 4 classrooms for the start of lesson 5.

• 4 questions per book, 32 questions altogether.
• All completed on paper, team converse to record the answers. Please do one book at a time, not all at once.
• Teams to fill in their house and team name at the top before starting.
• As soon as they have finished each sheet, send to the judges to mark (we will ‘run’ between the classrooms or you can also bring them to the library). Judges/markers I will have answer sheets for you and results tables to fill in with the scores.
• If there is a draw within a house. Extra long answer questions done.
• As soon as there is a clear winner for your house we will advise you to start moving the students to the theatre.  It would be ideal if this is done during lesson 5 so that there is more time for the finals on the stage.  

Can students all bring whiteboards and pens if they wish to take part from the audience and also bring their books for DEAR.

Please sit all of your house together in the theatre.

If your house is the first there start DEAR.  

Second round - In the theatre

Staffing / space needed

Auditorium with one person per house on stage. Five staff members in the audience. A photographer, 3 judges and someone in charge overall.   

Audience to have whiteboards to take part and keep score. Children also to bring a book to read (NOT a red dot book) because we will do DEAR while judges are conferring.

Sarah M to be running this in the theatre.  If you are only teaching lesson 5, please stay until the end of lesson 5 in the theatre with your house to help supervise the students.  Feel free to bring a book and DEAR with the students.

The winning book trailers and/or covers will be shown on the screen whilst the individual markers finish marking and bring score sheets to the theatre. 

The winning team from each house is announced and the children will come on to the stage to compete.

The teams will need to nominate a different person to ‘lead’ each round, with a total of 4 rounds, plus a possible tie breaker. 

Staff on the stage to be there to support each team and ensure they are being gracious to each other. :)

Staff in the audience on crowd control

Staff judging to be sitting at tables at the back of the front tier (like in the spelling bee).

Extra information for staff on stage.

I will be explaining this to the students as we go so it will all be obvious and you do not need to worry too much about it.

• Round 2. Team Chat. There will be 1 question per book. As a group write the answer on a whiteboard and then show it to the judges. 30 seconds per question. (8 questions short answer).
• Round 3. Kahoot round- fastest finger first. (if kahoot doesn’t work, buzzers or bells as a backup) 
• Round 4. Written round: 8 questions. 5 mins. Children work as a team to answer all 8 questions in the time given. While this is happening DEAR OR if book trailers and posters have not all been shown, show the rest at this point.  (Short answer)
• Round 5 What's in the box (fast and furious). Nominate 2 people  to answer on the microphone at the front of the stage.
• Tie Breaker.  If it is a tie at this stage. Repeat question from the box- sudden death. 

Learning journey from SMU Libraries to SOTA Library

Reach out to your neighbor – and literally we did. This was a mutual objective shared by Singapore Management University (SMU) Libraries and School of the Arts (SOTA) Library as we bonded over a learning journey in the afternoon of Friday 25 August 2017.

A university with a key focus on business and law – and a pre-tertiary specialized arts school – what do we have in common? How different are we? More importantly, what challenges do the libraries in these 2 institutions face? Read on to find out more!

In part due to physical proximity, SMU Libraries thought it a great idea to visit SOTA Library as part of their Learning Circle activities to share and learn good practices. The Learning Circle is a series of continuous professional development for staff of SMU. These could be in the form of faculty talk, conference sharing, learning journey, training, development, and the like. These activities aim to support the SMU librarians in helping them to keep abreast of the latest library and information industry trends. These trends are constantly evolving in today’s increasingly digital age.

About 25 visitors from the SMU Libraries team visited SOTA Library. They were from both the Li Ka Shing Library and Kwa Geok Choo Law Library. The visit started with an introduction by Ms Adeline Neo (Senior Manager, SOTA Library) on the library layout and its range of facilities, before bringing the visitors on a tour to the various venues in the library. She also shared on new initiatives to optimize space usage and improve ease of retrieval of library items for users, such as building of new shelves to house the teachers’ resource collection. This collection had been housed in a room that had, over time, been used more for meetings and other activities.

The visitors had a good time exploring the facilities in the numerous discussion rooms, which are also equipped to be used as classrooms. We learnt that SMU Libraries has many open spaces for individual use, as well as for research and collaborative pedagogy. The range of facilities include 24/7 Learning Commons, Investment Studio, Learning Labs, Project Rooms – all of which are designed to be conducive for learning.

One of the highlights of the library tour was when our visitors tried on the node school chairs in the newly furbished Learning Centre – where they enjoyed manoeuvring these flexible and mobile chairs, which are designed to enable quicker transition from one teaching mode to the next, as compared to the conventional school tables and chairs.

As we came to the Cool Stuff Zone, which is the library’s main display area and often doubled up as a venue for talks and programmes, Adeline pointed out on the specially designed book display shelves showcasing a selection of Singapore Art Museum (SAM) publications. Earlier in 2017, SAM and SOTA had entered into a Memorandum of Understanding to work together so as to provide greater access to quality resources on Southeast Asian contemporary visual art. Initiated by the Visual Arts faculty in SOTA, SAM would extend copies of its publication to SOTA Library. SOTA Library would include these into its collection to support teaching and research of Southeast Asian contemporary art, develop student knowledge of the visual arts sector, as well as generate greater awareness of and participation in SAM programmes.

Our SMU guests then sat down for a quick break of refreshing fruit platters at the Teacher’s Resource Centre. After which, I conducted a presentation on SOTA's background, curriculum and programmes. At this point, our guests let on that they used to have the impression that SOTA is a vocational school for secondary school students. They were glad to quash their misconception and learn that it is the only national pre-tertiary specialised arts school with a six-year integrated arts and academic curriculum, which leads to the International Baccalaureate Diploma or Career-related Programme for youths aged 13 to 18 years old.

I further spoke about the ongoing partnership between SOTA Library and the various faculties to identify, select and source for relevant materials that support informational, research, curriculum and reading needs of the SOTA community. Beyond print, SOTA Library is looking towards the direction of leveraging more on electronic resources. Database trials for Infobase’s Science Online, Bloom’s Literature and Classroom Video On Demand are recent potential additions to SOTA’s range of subscribed online resources.

Following that, I briefly explained SOTA’s pedagogy and teaching philosophy - one that celebrates experimentation, expression and discovery as a school of the future - and how it nurtures the students into tomorrow’s artists and leaders. The visitors were impressed to learn that a SOTA alumnus, Ms Cheri Wee, was among the five students who had been awarded the 2017 President’s Scholarship, making her the first SOTA alumnus to receive this highly prestigious award.

The presentation concluded with recent events organized by SOTA Library for its users, such as National Library Board librarians showcasing their resources as part of professional development for teaching staff on 6 July 2017, Chinese writer’s sharing session for students by library committee on 4 August 2017, amongst others.

The presentation sparked off interest and a lively dialogue ensued. Together with Adeline, I led a discussion with our SMU guests on the sharing of best practices in support of teaching and learning needs. One of the many interesting points raised was the feasibility of libraries leveraging more on electronic resources to support information literacy and research needs of its users.

While SMU and SOTA differ in several aspects such as the age group of students, type of courses offered and so on, we found that the libraries of the 2 institutions share the same commitment to provide a user-centric learning space and support the information needs of our users. Both libraries agreed that there are certainly common areas that we could possibly explore further together that are mutually beneficial. The visit ended with a group photograph at the spiral staircase near the library entrance as a backdrop, as we bade goodbye to each other.

SOTA Library had received compliments on the visit and our SMU guests thought that it was planned well, such that they had an enjoyable learning experience. The goodwill was reciprocal, and SMU Libraries team had expressed their interest to host the SOTA Library team in the future.

Article By: Foo Soo Chin (Manager, SOTA Library)

Regional PD 2017/8

2017/8 School Year

We are spoilt for choice this year for Librarian related PD. Please note the following events with opportunities to attend and to present. Please add a comment if you know of any other opportunities to add to these. The list below is in chronological order. For other events and development opportunities in the region see this page

For good FREE PD consider attending a TeachMeet in Singapore

8-10 September 2017 (Hong Kong):
IBO, Cat 3: The Role of the Librarian, Hong Kong

14-16 October 2017 (Hong Kong): 
IBO, Cat 3: The Role of the Librarian, Hong Kong

2-4 November 2017 (Shanghai, China):
Learning 2.0 at Shanghai American School.  Of particular interest to librarians is Jeff Utecht speaking on "Honing research skills in the age of falsified news & echo chambers"

16-18 November 2017 (HCMC, Vietnam):
LKSW at American International School Ho Chi Min City, Vietnam.  Contact Jennifer Alevy, Coordinator of Library Services, jennifer.alevy@ais.edu.vn for further information

17-19 January 2018 (Hong Kong):
21st Century Learning Hong Kong will have a library pre-conference and library / information literacy strand with Joyce Valenza as keynote. Here is the link if you'd like to submit a presentation proposal.

16-17 February 2018 (Chennai, India):
ECIS Library 2018 in Chennai India. Keynote speakers are ​Shannon McClintock Miller and John Schumacher (a.k.a Mr. Schu).

29-31 March 2018 (Bangkok, Thailand):
EARCOS Teachers' Conference in Bangkok. Diane Mackenzie and Katie Day will be presenting as will Pernille Ripp (Global Read Aloud).

20-22 April 2018 (Shenzhen, China):
IBO, Cat 3: The role of the librarian, Shenzhen, China

6-11 May 2018 (Istanbul, Turkey):
IASL 2018 Istanbul Turkey.

30 July to 2 August 2018 (Queensland, Australia):
Asia-Pacific Library and Information Conference. Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre, Queensland, Australia.
First joint conference of ALIA, Library and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa (LIANZA), and Library Association of Singapore (LAS) 

24-30 August 2018 (KL, Malaysia):
IFLA 84th World Library and Information Congress, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

A thank you note from Doreen at Book Reach

Red Dot shortlists for next year! 2017-2018

Apologies for the delay, but at least we've managed to do this by early June.  Progress!

I've made a new Red Dot website -- see https://sites.google.com/site/reddotbookawards20172018

The domain name -- www.reddotawards.com -- hasn't been transferred to the new site yet, but should be working within a few days.  (For some reason, mapping a GoDaddy domain name to a Google Site is not an instant thing.)

I think we've got a good line-up and balance in the "baskets" of each category.  Go have a look.  Many thanks to the ad-hoc committee members who found time to meet up in the evenings and to read recommendations throughout the process.

For availability, see the Google Spreadsheet where we composed the shortlists -- and know that we will be adding other sources to that, e.g., usually Follett put the shortlists in Titlewave and Denise Tan from Closetful of Books will produce an order sheet.

The Readers Cup Reboot information will also be added to the Red Dot website in the near future.

Happy summer reading!

Winners! Red Dots 2016-2017

Students from 11 different international schools in our network cast almost 8,000 votes in total in the four categories of the 2016-2017 Red Dot Book Awards.

The Singapore-wide 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners in the four categories are:

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Early Years:

• 1st place:  Beep! Beep! Go to Sleep!
  
• 2nd place: Aunt Amelia
  
• 3rd place:  All the Lost Things
  

Younger Readers:

• 1st place:  The Story of Diva and Flea
  
• 2nd place:  Blamehounds
  
• 3rd place:  Freddie Mole Lion Tamer
  

Older Readers:

• 1st place:  The Thing About Jellyfish
  
• 2nd place:  Secrets of Singapore
  
• 3rd place:  Confessions of an Imaginary Friend

Mature Readers:

• 1st place:  Nimona
  
• 2nd place:  Boys Don't Knit
• 3rd place:  Illuminae

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Note that each school also has its own winners -- and participating schools are given those results to advertise as they will.

We're close to announcing the shortlists for next year's eight books in each of the four categories..... Watch this space....

Kids' Lit Quiz - now open to International Schools

Until last year, (when we questioned the practice), the Kids’ Lit Quiz™ (KLQ) was only open to MOE schools. They have now opened it to all schools in Singapore.

Schools can send up for 4 members a team (with additional 2 reserves). Members must be between 10 and 13 years old as at 1 July 2016.

The Quiz is based on any book (children and young adult) – no set list is given. More information on the international KLQ and sample quiz questions can be found here: http://www.kidslitquiz.com/home.php

There’s a host of fringe activities for your students to participate in such as Book Out! at the public libraries and online quizzes on discoveReads – you can find more details here.

You can also download the KLQ booklet and booklist here for ideas on promoting reading and literature in your school. 

They allowed entry by international schools with  two conditions:

* The cost is S$132.97 per team (MOE schools are funded by the NLB)

* In the event of your team winning then your school would need to find the funding to travel to the World Final (which was Auckland last year). Actually this is what happens in all the countries. Some receive a subsidy but no team receives the full amount.

Since many schools are no longer doing the Readers' Cup this may be an interesting alternative for your more "elite" readers.

There is now a "Kids' Lit App" as well. 

AFCC 2017 - 10% off

Date: 17 — 21 MAY 2017
Venue: NLB, Victoria Road Singapore

The Asian Festival of Children’s Content (AFCC) is an annual festival in Singapore that celebrates and promotes the creation and appreciation of children’s books and content, with a focus on Asian themes.  Indonesia is the country of focus for this year.  ISLN members are offered a 10% discount.

This year the following ISLN members are taking part:

Ben Farr
20 May, 9am – 10am.

[PANEL] Literacy Bites: Practices in Schools
Looking at four schools, St James’ Church Kindergarten, the Green School Bali, Sarada Kindergarten and Kumon, discuss about literacy practices adopted by their schools and efforts to help children improve their grasp of languages.

Katie Day
17 May, 4.45pm – 6.00pm:
Authors Discussion: Who Gets to Write Asian Stories?
Speakers: Wai Chim, Paolo Fabregas, Holly Thompson, Heidi Shamsuddin


21 May, 11.15am – 12.15pm:
Books from Around the World that Build Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Bridges (and Why Teachers Ought to Know Them) --
Myra Garces-Bacsal, Sarinajit Kaur

Sarah Mounsey

Elaine Fong
21 May 2017 (Sun) 11:15am – 12:15pm
A Mammoth Task: Encouraging Reading in the Digital Age
Elaine will go over the key points she uses as a teacher librarian to encourage reading among students. She will also highlight the pitfalls and challenges that parents should be aware of. This session will provide anecdotal and research based strategies on how to encourage reading.
Part of Parents Forum, Preschool & Primary Teachers Congress

Nadine Bailey
20 May 2017 (Sat) 9:00am – 10:00am
Blokes with Books: Can Social Belonging Impact on Reading Motivation and Skill for Young Boys?
For the past 1 and a half years, something special has been happening at a school campus in Singapore. Boys aged 8-12 are arguing about whose turn it is to read a desired book and rushing to join a book club that’s so full, it’s not taking any more members. How did this happen? More importantly, how can you recreate the magic in your school? Nadine will spill the beans at this session.
Part of Preschool & Primary Teachers Congress

18 May 2017 (Thu) 10:30am – 11:30am
[PANEL] Books Teachers Wish Authors Would Write
Rilla Melati (Director, Creative Content Development, Mini Monsters Limited), Myra Garces-Bacsal (Educator, Reviewer, Blogger), Nadine Bailey (Teacher librarian, Canadian International School)
Creators can step into the shoes of a teacher for one hour and learn what makes a book a treasured find. From beautiful illustrations to didactic language, speakers discuss their views on relevant and useful books children need and love.
Part of Writers & Illustrators Conference

You may also be interested in the talk of Dr. Myra Bacsal Books from Around the World that Build Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Bridges (And Why Teachers Ought to Know Them)

There is a Writers and Illustrators conference, Teachers' Congress, Parents' Forum and Cross Platform Summit - so let your teachers and parents know too.

International Storytelling Festival

StoryFest: International Storytelling Festival Singapore showcases the best of storytelling from Singapore and around the world.
Dates: Fri – Sun, 2 – 4 June 2017
Venue: The Arts House, Singapore

Presented by The Storytelling Centre Limited and The Arts House, the festival features a variety of performances including family and adult audience shows, workshops and local commissions – a Young Storytellers Mentorship Project Graduation Showcase and Stories for Change showcasing key storytelling and spoken word organisations.  2017 will mark our first edition.

It may be worth while for schools to contact the organisers to see if there are opportunities to get visiting storytellers to come to their schools.

Friday, May 5th: ISLN Celebration Party at the NLB Pod.....

A reminder that we are finalizing the numbers for our End-of-Year ISLN Party on starting at 6:30pm, Friday, May 5, 2017, in The Pod at the top of the National Library Board (NLB) main building, 100 Victoria St.

This is a farewell to three key members -- Katie Day (UWCSEA East), Jacqui Makselon (Tanglin) and Ben Farr (Tanglin).

Two were on the first Hands on Literacy committee that was behind the substantial funds that we hold, and, all of whom were founding members of ISLN.

We also have several members who have or will turn 60 in the past year (Pam Males, Graham Grant, Jane Hayes, Katie Day, Pat Chandler, and Barb Reid).

These seem like great reasons to have a fabulous end-of-year event.

Member schools are invited to bring any or all of their current library staff for free and non-members are welcome to attend for the small amount of $10.   NB:  You must renew your membership before the AGM on April 20th in order to qualify for the free attendance of you and your library staff.

You are also welcome to invite other guests who you feel have been supporters of ISLN or supporters of those people whose contribution we are celebrating.   See the recent email to the ISS-LN Google Group with instructions about how to suggest people to be invited and to confirm you and your library staff's attendance.

Attendance will be limited to the first 150 people.

Red Dot Voting -- has begun!

Yes, it's time again for the winners to be determined.....

March 1 through May 1 is the voting season -- for each school to decide which book in each of the four Red Dot reader categories is the winner for them..... and then we tally all the votes to say which book wins for all of Singapore.

As the Red Dots are a "children's choice" award (after we librarians have come up with the shortlists), only students may vote.  And the rule is one vote per student per category (Early Years, Younger Readers, Older Readers, and Mature Readers). 

There is no minimum number of books that must be read (though we assume you have read at least two - as voting implies comparison between two or more things.)

Simply one vote per student per category.

There is an online Google Form for voting on the Red Dot website:  http://www.reddotawards.com/voting

Or you can direct your students to the voting form via this short URL:   bit.ly/reddotvoting2017

If you collect votes in your school in some other way, there is a form for librarians to tell us what your local votes are (so they can be included in the country-wide tally): https://goo.gl/forms/iiM97QPqgkOyjHlo1

One week later the Singapore-wide winners will be announced on the Red Dot website.

There is a Voting Poster you can use to advertise the event:

 To download a size suitable for A3 printouts, go to the Red Dot Voting webpage:  http://www.reddotawards.com/voting

News about EPIC!

https://www.getepic.com

After the discussions about EPIC at LKSW2017 I have been writing back and forth and finally, have some firm news to report.

My contacts are MaryAnn (Support) & Tahleen (Sales & Marketing), these are the issues we have resolved. 

1. Concerns over international schools signing up when they state that it is only available to educators in USA, Australia, Canada, Great Britain and NZ.

2. How to handle 1:1 devices

Regarding item 1 - I asked

“Can I tell my Network to write to Epic if they want to use the product and request an exception for access? That way you can track who wants it and why. My networks are International School Library Connection and International Schools Libraries Network.

If they wrote introducing themselves and requesting access you would know that they are genuine users who want to respect your terms and conditions and promote personal subscriptions- most of these people are American, Canadian, Australian or British teachers working in schools that serve students of those nationalities and delivering one of those countries curriculums.”

and MaryAnne replied

“We would be happy to review each request that is sent to Epic! directly and I’ll be sure to alert my team as well. “

So, they are aware and I believe that if you introduce yourselves theynwill answer favourably. If you have a problem please let me know and I will follow-up.

Regarding item 2 - the answer was

“When an educator signs out of the app, students will not have access to the app until their teacher signs back into the app. All the student profiles are contained within the educator account and students would need to access their profile through the educator account. Students have no way of accessing their profile unless the educator is already signed or logged into the Epic! app. If a student is at home attempting to log into their profile without the educator being signed in on their device, the student would not be able to access their student profile.”

Therefore, as long as the devices are signed out of the teachers account before leaving school, students can use EPIC on their 1:1 devices. This would mean that the teacher would need to sign everyone in (we do this - the kids put in the teacher’s email and we quickly scoot around putting in the password) or the teacher could change the password after they had signed out so that each time they use it they input a different password.

My feeling is that EPIC are very happy to work with us as long as we promote their product to parents. It is a great product, so personally, I don’t find this hard to do. I am building some answers to FAQ at our school at http://ask.uwcsea.edu.sg/search/?t=0&q=epic

- please feel free to submit any questions that you might have as to how we use EPIC there as it will help me to build my database.

Happy reading - Barb

Copyright Issues In Libraries, Education and Open Access. - PD at SMU on 25 January

Pam, Safirna, Mathew (UWCSEA Dover) and  & I attended this session on copyright at SMU. These are some notes that I took at the time. Please feel free to ask one of us for more details.

The speakers were -

Derek Whitehead and Paul Ng

Derek discussed changes in in copyright and shared some great resources.

The OEL toolkit is a useful resource for checking how you can use resources

The continuum of openness: http://www.oel.edu.au/resources/uploads/2016/04/OEL-Continuum-of-Openness_web.pdf

Did you know that all ANU press books are free and open access? They even come with MARC records. He recommended What if we could re-imagine copyright? by Rebecca Giblin

Australian National Database provides free data

We may all be aware that copyright belongs to employers, but did you know that an email thread infringes copyright ? Australia has no fair use policy which is a contributing factor in the average Australian breaking copyright about 80 times a day!

The barriers  to copyright are:

• legal 
• technical (drm) 
• accessiblity (geoblocking)

Paul Ng from Ngee Ann Polytechnic says that all teachers are required to take a course on Copyright for Teachers 

Copyright is Singapore is for the life of the creator plus 70 years. Singapore has a fair use policy. 

Ultimately, whether or not something is fair use should be management decision.

He reminded us that plagiarism is about ethics and copyright is about law.

Paul answered specific questions from the audience. Here are some interesting points to note

• Students copyright in Singapore belongs to institution
• You can stream from a YouTube link even if it is pirated - it is YouTubes responsibility to monitor illegal uploads
• Using a VPN is not illegal but might breach terms of use of the site you are accessing
• Ted video by YouTube is copyright 
• Malaysia allows YouTube downloads 
• Australian students can use Australian content (i.e Clickview exchange / ABC videos)
• A video of a lesson that includes a YouTube clip shown on the intranet is okay in not for profit institutions
• If you search in google slides you only get copyright free images
• Hyperlinks are often sufficient attribution
• Images on websites should include a link
• How long do you wait for an email for permission? As long as it takes, but go ahead and use it if the owner is not likely to lose by your use.
• Adding a date of access to your attribution allows use of Internet wayback

Whether you are profit or not-for-profit makes a huge difference

For profit schools do not benefit from any exceptions 

If you make a decision based on fair-dealing you should inform your management

Record keeping important 

Paul tells his students to use Zotero for attribution- it is just good manners and required in academia.

FYI - Ngee Ann Poly pays $7 per head to CLASS. All institutions required to subscribe

Here is Paul's copyright flow chart to help you check if you are within the law

Barb Reid
UWCSEA East

JAW for library staff in KL in December -- a report back from GESS library officers

When we first heard about JAW 2016 @ISKL, we knew we it would be a great opportunity for us to meet people who shares the same profession as us but comes from a different country. We quickly signed up for the workshop and before we know, it was time for us to pack our bags for this trip.

To make it more enjoyable, we decided to bring our spouses along and did a road trip to Malacca and KL before attending the workshop. We got to experience the beautiful KL city and definitely enjoyed the makan there! Buffets after buffets, food trucks – we loved it!

We made our way to ISKL on the morning of 20th Dec 2016. The session started with the groups introducing themselves. The first presentation was on the topic of ‘Readers Advisory’ done by Azlin Library Assistant from ISKL followed by groups discussions on how ‘Readers Advisory’ are handled at the different schools. The different sources librarians use to provide book recommendations for our readers.  In between breaks and the different sessions we had throughout the day, participants were encouraged to try quizzes and participate in ice breaking games which promises great prizes for winners. One of the most interesting activity was the part where we had to guess the total no. of pages from a book tower that was on display! Both Rosnita and myself were happy to walk away as winners for two of the games – Unlock the Ring and Kahoot game.  Another good topic was on Weeding where we shared amongst ourselves some best practices used to give the book that got weeded another chance to ‘live’ and we discovered a few schools there donate their books to refugee centers.

It was enriching to learn from our friends there and we surely picked up some practices that we can apply back in GESS. We also had the opportunity to share our knowledge with the participants and we got to work in groups and everyone was given a chance to present their ideas through active group discussions. We discovered that in KL they also have something like the Red Dot Awards but it’s called Novel Knockout.  Some other topics covered at JAW was ‘how to handle student behaviors in school libraries’, weeding practices, library displays and also what I personally like best is the last topic for the day on how ISKL successfully implemented EzProxy in their school. It’s a one stop sign-on for all the databases that the school have subscribed for their school community.

Last but not least we want to thank ISLN for offering some sponsorship for our trip. It was a great learning experience for the both of us and we look forward to future JAWs!

-- submitted by German European School Singapore (GESS) Library Officers

• Rosnita Mohamad
• Sharifah Nooraiza

LKSW 2017 & Speed Dating Picture Books from around the world

A reminder that Barb and I are closing registration at the end of the week for the Feb 17/18 Librarians' Knowledge Sharing Workshop 2017, being held at UWCSEA East.   Go to http://research.uwcsea.edu.sg/lksw2017 for registration details.

Note that all our network members are invited to join us for any of the social events (even if you don't register for the conference itself).  Details of the social event offerings are here:  http://research.uwcsea.edu.sg/lksw2017/socialevents
where there is a Google Form to fill out to let us know if you want to come along.
 

We have about 70 people attending the conference, plus Dianne McKenzie and Brad Tyrrell, our workshop/keynote speakers.

Note that Dr. Myra Garces-Bacsal, from the National Institute of Education here in Singapore and author of the "Gathering Books" blog, is also going to present.  Her session will be on "Speed Dating: Picture Books from around the world - Expanding the Socio-Emotional Learning (SEL) bookshelf" -- which will be similar to the talk on her ongoing "Social-Emotional Learning Project" which she gave at Tanglin last November.  For those of you who enjoyed that, it will be another chance to look at many of the picture books she has collected.

You can browse Myra's collection online as her group has cataloged all the picture books using LibraryThing.  See her lists and tags here:  https://www.librarything.com/catalog/GatheringBooks/allcollections

The BLISS Bangkok Book Awards

The Bangkok international school librarians -- BLISS -- have started their own annual book awards.

See https://bangkokbookawards.com/

Note that Kim Beeman, now at Shrewsbury Int'l in Bangkok was one of the teacher-librarians leading the BLISS initiative.  She's moving to Tanglin next year to be the Secondary Teacher-Librarian.  So she will undoubtedly get involved in our Red Dot Book Awards.