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

Social learning... tonight, next week, and in November.....

Tonight is our monthly social (6pm onwards).  The venue -- appropriately called "The Library" -- is a new one for us.  And it does sound interesting.  A review of it on TimeOut Singapore says you need a password to swing the bookshelves open -- to reveal a dimly lit bar with playful cocktails!  I can't attend, but look forward to hearing how it is.

The Library at 47 Keong Saik Road

Address

47 Keong Saik Road089151

Transport
Nearby Stations: Outram Park
Bus Lines: 61, 80, 145, 166, 197

Telephone 6221 8338

---

Next Thursday there's another opportunity for us to get together -- in a bigger group -- for digital learning at the Teach-Meet, Thursday, Oct. 9th at Zsofi Tapas Bar, 68 Dunlop Street (Little India) -- 5:30 to 8:00 pm.

Go to 21c-learning.com/sg-teachmeet/ to register -- especially if you want to present.  The format is a series of Nano-presentations lasting 2 mins or Micro-presentations lasting 7 mins -- by local/international teachers.

I have registered to attend and just got a notification saying these are the presentations lined up for next week:

• Learning Group Leader
• Learning blogs and standards
• Blended PD For staff
• Spreadsheets are the calculators of the 21st Century
• Creativity
• Tell Me with a Graphic
• Lo Mo Learner profile
• Using Time Lapse in the Classroom
• Using online math tools to rethink the way we teach 

Next time maybe I'll get around to signing up to present something.  This time I'll sit back and enjoy.

---

Fri-Sat, November 21-22 is a two-day School Librarian Connection collaborative initiative in Hong Kong, which I'm helping Dianne McKenzie organize.  As for the Teach-Meets, you can choose the mode and duration of whatever you want to share, if anything.  Mini, macro, nano, or even just a digital post presentation.

Click here to see the programme so far.  It's reasonably priced at SGD$130.  And less if you only want to attend one day.

Upcoming AGM and general meeting on Monday, April 28th -- plus a plug for the AFCC in May/June

Don't forget the upcoming ISLN meeting in the secondary school library at UWCSEA East.  That's Tampines (not the Dover campus).  Tampines St. 73 is very short -- you can't miss the building and there's only one entrance.  Yes, there's parking.  We're just off Tampines Avenue 10 -- not far from IKEA.  That's Monday, Apr 28th, 4:00 for 4:00pm start. 

Besides the Annual General Meeting business, we've got Denise Tan from Closetful of Books coming with a display of books, especially regional ones, for us to browse.  She'll undoubtedly have books by many of the authors that you'll get a chance to hear at the AFCC at the end of May (see details further on) -- as Denise is coordinating school visits for the AFCC authors.

There is also going to be a short presentation by Geraldine Reilly, head of sales at Twig, an Australian educational company: 

Tigtag is the one-stop resource with over 600 outstanding films, lesson plans and classroom activities to support your science teaching and inspire students.

If you want to start a free trial of the product before the meeting, contact her via email:  greilly@twig-world.com .

Other information to be imparted includes an update on the Readers Cup competition in May and an outline of the process of determining shortlists for next year's Red Dot Book Awards.

---

A reminder about the AFCC (the Asian Festival of Children's Content), May 31-June 3.  Registration is open.  The cost for the Writers & Illustrators Conference, June 1-3, is $350, but we usually get a 10% discount -- which would make it $315.  You can also get a one-day ticket for $200.

See their website: http://afcc.com.sg/  and this PDF brochure: http://afcc.com.sg/images/uploads/2014/AFCC14-teaser-1.pdf .

The country focus this year is India.

The children's literature lecture will be given on the evening of Monday, June 1, by Fatima Sharafeddine.

Our distinguished speaker is Fatima Sharafeddine, an award-winning Lebanese writer twice been nominated for the prestigious Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award. A writer and translator of children’s books, Fatima has published over 100 books including Grandpa's Donkey (Arab Thought Foundation Award, 2012), The Book of Laughter and Crying (Anna Lindh Foundation Regional Award, 2011), and Princesses of the World (IBBY Translator Honor List, 2012). She lives between Belgium and Lebanon, and participates in several international book fairs as well as offers workshops in writing for children. Most of her books are published in Arabic, and several have been translated to various European languages, among which are Dutch, Danish, Spanish, French, German, and English.

See the full list of speakers here: http://afcc.com.sg/2014/speakers

I note under the "Book and Product Launches" that they have collected essays based on last year's AFCC -- with its focus on Malaysia -- into a book called "One Big Story" edited by Dr. Myra Garces-Bacsal:

AFCC Author Visits via Closetful of Books -- Denise Tan

Denise Tan, formerly of Bookaburra, has started her own business called Closetful of Books.

She's arranging authors visits to schools for the upcoming AFCC (Asian Festival of Children's Literature) in May.  See list of authors (PDF) here -- they're available May 26-30 and June 4-6.

"How was ALA?"

Quite a few of us attended the American Library Association (ALA) conference back at the end of June in Chicago.

• Kate Brundage (SAS)
• Ali Cuthbert (SAS)
• Rosa Shin-Gay (SAS)
• Nancy Johnson (SAS)
• Kim Klein (SAIS)
• Susanne Clower (UWC)
• Katie Day (UWC)

plus (we later found out) one Grade 12 Dover student, Rabiah, went on her own (and picked up over 80 ARCs).  She's a prolific blogger about YA literature -- see"Confessions of a Readaholic", aka  http://iliveforreading.blogspot.sg/ -- and she has over 5,000 books on her Goodreads shelves.  (And, yes, we've invited her to join us on Thursday.....)

As we have the ALA evening coming up, I thought you might be interested in hearing something about the conference.

I have at least started on the process of feedback with this post: "Reporting back: On being with 26,000 librarians".  You'll notice I cleverly promise to write further posts about the individual sessions I attended.  (How many conferences do you attend and intend to write up later?  I have a whole filing cabinet full.)

So Kate, Ali, Rosa, Kim, and Susanne.... feel free to share what you got out of ALA.  You can be a guest blogger here (just send me whatever and I'll post it for you).