SAYL Mail for April 27th, 2017

In this issue…

  • SAYL News in Brief
  • Scholarships, Grants and Awards Opportunities
  • Employment Opportunities
  • Training and Continuing Education Opportunities
  • As Seen on Alaska School Librarians Facebook
  • Almanac

SAYL News in Brief

 

“My BrainPOP” Management Suite Now Available

BrainPOP is now able to offer schools and districts in the state of Alaska My BrainPOP access.  An overview of the My BrainPOP features can be found here.

The process requires obtaining permission/cooperation from school or district official to turn off local IP Authentication.  In order to use My BrainPOP, each teacher and student must enter their own individual username and password.  Users would still have the ability to use a generic login under the existing statewide username and password.  For more information and to request this service, contact Cassandra Fostik.

AkASL Delegate Sought 

Alaska Association of School Librarians (AkASL) is in need of a volunteer Alaskan school library professional willing to commit to a three-year term as the Alaska delegate to the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) Affiliate Assembly. The term will run June 1st, 2017 through May 31st, 2020.

AASL State Delegates are the intermediary between Alaskan School library staff and the AASL Board of Directors, via the AASL Affiliate Assembly.

The AkASL delegate will

  • Provide a channel of communication for reporting concerns of AkASL and its membership to AASL.
  • Participate as a voting member of the AASL Affiliate Assembly.
  • Make reports to the AkASL Executive Board (E-Board) regarding AASL governance, initiatives, and concerns affecting AkASL.

This position requires:

  • A clear, working knowledge of the issues, trends, and concerns Alaska school librarians are facing.
  • The ability to promote activities and communicate concerns passed by the AASL Affiliate Assembly back to AkASL Members.
  • Attendance at the AkASL Executive Board Face-to-Face meetings, usually held in September (Anchorage) and February/March (at location of AkLA conference).
  • Online attendance at AkASL E-Board monthly meetings held via videoconference.
  • Attendance and participation in AASL Affiliate Assemblies held at ALA National Conference (June), and AASL National Conferences (biennually, November of odd years)
  • Regular communication with AASL Affiliate Assembly, AkASL E-Board, and AkASL general members.

Travel to required meetings and conferences will be provided by AkASL. The delegate will need professional leave for 3-6 days during the school year (depending on travel logistics and conference schedule) arranged through their district.

Contact AkASL President, Karla Barkman for more information.

2017 Teens’ Top Ten Nominees announced! (YALSA)

Books N Bros: African-American Boy Starts Book Club for Kids like Him (CNN)

Baltimore County Public Schools named National School Library Program of the Year (ALA)

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Scholarship, Grant, and Award Opportunities

Closing May 5thSara Jaffarian School Library Program Award for Exemplary Humanities Programming.  $5000 to recognize, promote, and support excellence in humanities programming in elementary and middle school libraries that serve children K–8.

Closing May 12th –
2017 Banned Books Week Grants Offered through Freedom to Read Foundation’s Krug Fund. $1,000 and/or $2,500 in support of activities celebrating Banned Books Week (Sept. 25–30th, 2017).

Closing May 20th – SLJ School Librarian of the Year Nominations. $2,500 cash award, plus $2,500 worth of print and digital materials from Scholastic Library Publishing.

For the complete record of scholarships, grants, and other award opportunities posted in SAYL Mail, visit the SGA Archives.

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Employment Opportunities

Librarian, Fairview Elementary, Anchorage

Librarian, Chester Valley Elementary, Anchorage

Librarian, College Gate Elementary, Anchorage

Librarian, Trailside Elementary, Anchorage

Media Specialist, North Slope Borough School District

Additional and up-to-date information at Alaska Teacher Placement

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Training and Continuing Education Opportunities

Using Data to Tell Your Library’s Story-Juneau

Date: Monday, May 8, 2017
Time: All Day Event
Presenter: Linda Hofschire
Campus: Alaska State Library~Juneau

Using Data to Tell Your Library’s Story-Anchorage

Alaska State Library LibCal: Events

Date: Wednesday, May 10, 2017
Time: 9:00am – 5:00pm
Presenter: Linda Hofschire

Using Data to Tell Your Library’s Story-Fairbanks

Alaska State Library LibCal: Events

Date: Friday, May 12, 2017
Time: 9:00am – 5:00pm
Presenter: Linda Hofschire

Alaska State Library sponsored event

Libraries collect a lot of data: circulation, program attendance, user satisfaction, etc.  In this daylong workshop, you will learn how to go beyond simply collecting and reporting on these numbers. Through a series of interactive exercises, you will discover how to analyze your data, use your results to inform your strategic planning, management, and communication with stakeholders, and visually present your statistics in infographics and other formats to demonstrate your library’s impact.

At the end of the workshop, participants will:
*Be able to conduct standard types of public library analysis.
*Have increased skills and confidence in using data for strategic planning, management, and communication with stakeholders.
*Be able to visually present data so that it tells a powerful story about their library


The following webinars are no cost and run approximately one hour unless otherwise noted. Opportunities not fitting your schedule?  Many of these webinars will later be available as archives.

Tuesday, May 8th, 11am – “Fake News” and the Case for Media Literacy Across All Grades (edWeb)

Thursday, May 10th, 10 am – Where Does Readers’ Advisory Fit in Your 21st Century Library? (Novelist)

Additional and up-to-date opportunities at the Library Development Training and Continuing Education Calendar

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As Seen on Alaska School Librarians Facebook

Alaska_School_Librarians

A roundup of resources shared and questions asked on the Alaska School Librarians Facebook group.  This is intended to give readers the chance to access resources at work if Facebook is filtered.  Only timely questions, announcements, and links to non-Facebook resources are listed here.

4/14 – Well, for the 6th (maybe longer) year in a row, library assistants are on the chopping block in the FNSBSD budget. Some in scenario A, some more in scenario B, and so on. I don’t know if I have the energy to wage this fight one more time. I don’t know what I can say that I haven’t said 20 times before. It’s disheartening and demoralizing.

4/18 – [Ten Ways to Ditch that Reading Log]

4/20 – Register to attend the live training webinar, “Government Media for Children,” on Tuesday, May 23, 2017.

Time: 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. (Eastern)
Speaker: Susanne Caro, Government Information Librarian at the University of Montana
Learning outcomes: Participants will learn where to look for Government media appropriate for children, including podcasts, oral histories, and STEM materials that can be incorporated into websites and the classroom.
Expected level of knowledge for participants: No prerequisite knowledge required

4/22 – [10 Reasons Librarians Are More Important Than Ever]

4/27 – The Alaska State Library and the Governor’s Advisory Council on Libraries is asking for additional input on the LSTA State Plan for Alaska. This plan guides how the State Library uses the Library Services and Technology Act funds we receive each year from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to support library development and library services across the state. Please ask your staff and patrons to submit their ideas on how to improve libraries across Alaska.

Instructions

1. Go to: http://alaskalibrary.collectiveinnovation.com/ or click the link below.
2. Click the green LOG IN button on the top left corner
3. Sign in anonymously by typing librarian@alaska.gov for EMAIL and librariesrock1 for PASSWORD
4. Press SIGN IN button
5. Click on the CATEGORIES button to see the three goals in the draft state plan
6. Click on each goal in the categories list to view the objectives and to add new activities libraries can undertake to make each objective a reality
7. People can also vote yea or nay on any activities that have been entered by other people

This survey closes on May 26, 2017.

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Almanac

May is Get Caught Reading MonthJewish American Heritage Month, and Asian American Heritage Month

Check It Out Next Time!

The next issue of SAYL Mail will be May 11th.

To share news, success stories, resources, and opportunities, please contact Jared Shucha.  To get SAYL Mail updates sent to your inbox, request a subscription to the AkASL listserv and ask a colleague to do the same!

[su_frame]Jared Shucha
Alaska School Library Consultant
jared.shucha@alaska.gov
(907) 885-0660[/su_frame]