By Joseph Jeffery
On a clear and windy day in the BC capital, some 250 teacher librarians descended upon Victoria High. The executive team, led by conference coordinator Kristie Oxley, began their work before 7, corralling traffic, organizing registration and getting ready for the first fall conference outside the lower-mainland since KelownaFresh in 2010. Due to issues with the conference software the BCTLA had used in previous years, they had decided to go with cash and cheques this year. Yup, in 2024 they were kickin’ it old skool, in an old school.
Victoria High is the oldest school west of Winnipeg and North of San Francisco having opened in 1876. Newly renovated, the school is now a mix of old and new, with the outer facade and grand staircase remaining, but much of the inside, including the library, rebuilt to modern standards; though no longer used as such, the school still boasts entries adorned with “Girls Entrance” and “Boys Entrance”. The first thing you see when you arrive at the library learning commons are the cedar doors, created in consultation with Knowledge Keeper and Master Carver Yux’wey’lupton, (Butch Dick) and a team of carvers including Carey Newman (Kwakwaka’wakw), Dylan Thomas (Coast Salish), and Margaret August (Coast Salish) and represent the three island nations, and specifically the Esquimalt and Songhees Nations whose territory the school occupies. Beyond the doors is the library collection and then a teaching space and computer lab, plus a study room. This teaching space can be opened up and combined with the study room to create a giant area with great views of the grounds.
Unfortunately, the new and old layouts need a little work as it is not always obvious how to get where you want, with staircases that didn’t always link up where it made sense, especially when it came to the basement level where the vendors and food were. Also slightly disappointing for both the teacher-librarians and the student volunteers who helped out was that the school’s in-house museum wasn’t open. The students seemed really proud of it and wanted to show it off.
Upstairs, in the rustic theatre with its old wooden chairs, the day began with a keynote from Dr. Wilston (Niemi) who talked about the importance of connection to place; which felt especially pertinent on the beautiful traditional unceded territory of the Esquimalt and Songhees Nation and in a very colonial looking building like Victoria High. A reminder of where we had come from and where we are going together as one.
A lesson learned was that, with such a large and spread out school, it really needed to be made clear to presenters that they stay in their rooms until it was confirmed technology was working. By the time Dev Chudy, the technology coordinator, got around many had already gone to the keynote and then there was a scramble to fix tech issues after the sessions should have begun.
After this the morning session began. The BCTLA offered both online and in-person sessions for the morning, and just in-person for the afternoon. Online the hot sessions were CTRL-F Contemporary Verification Skills Workshop from CIVIX, Unlock your Creativity with Canva for Education from Canva and eLibrary: A Classroom-Friendly Alternative to Google from two Greater Victoria teacher-librarians. On the physical side of our digital conference divide we had standouts from Maple Ridge’s district teacher-librarian Leanne Dunbar presenting on StoryPLAY: Incorporating Purposeful Play into your Library Learning Commons and New TL? Here are some tips to help you survive and thrive this year in the library! from Richmond library coordinator Kelly Johnson.
Not everything was a winner, unfortunately one presentation was beset by issues after they had to change presenters at the last minute. The new presenter was not very knowledgeable, both about the subject matter and what teacher-librarians did. However, TLs are a resilient lot who can McGuyver a situation and turned the session into a discussion on AI where they helped each other with what they knew. Not the intended outcome, but when life gives lemons.
A scrumptious lunch came from the chef training team at Ecole Esquimalt High School. Having the eating area be in the middle of the vendor area was a huge hit. It gave the vendors a lot of visibility.
The afternoon sessions started on time except for one presenter who was missing in action. Once I was reminded (thank you Dev!), I rushed downstairs and got started talking about how our district developed Anti-Racism resources and the rationale behind how we rolled them out.
Later that evening, a large crowd gathered at the Burnside Community Centre for a lovely greek dinner followed by awards and music bingo. The social event, organized by Keely Thornton, was a huge hit. Award winners were KD McArthur (Surrey) and Rebekah Rustad (Prince George) for the New Teacher Librarian of the Year (first 5 years), Lisa Seddon (New Westminster) and Sarah Coull (Comox) for Teacher Librarian of the Year, Geoff Orme (Greater Victoria) and Tina Cousins (Prince George) for the Val Hamilton Lifetime Achievement Award and Sheri Kinney (Cowichan) for the President’s Award. Ironically, the two lifetime achievement award winners are not quite at retirement yet, but Sheri will be retiring at the end of December.
After that it was music bingo time. I helped out the table of ‘foreign’ dignitaries – Maria Martella from tinlids, OSLA president Wendy Burch Jones, and Harold Semenuk from Alberta – understand our eclectic musical choices while conga lines formed and great fun was had.
All in all it was a fantastic experiment proving that a conference didn’t have to stick to the lower mainland to be a success. At the moment we are planning on going further a-field every third year. Next year the conference will be at Gladstone Secondary School in Vancouver proper on October 24, 2025. We would love to see some faces from around Canada come and join us.
Joseph Jeffery is the Chair of Canadian School Libraries. He is the District Learning Commons Teacher-Librarian in School District 57 – Prince George, BC where he supports teacher-librarians in creating and maintaining information literacy rich library learning commons programming, designing participatory and flexible learning spaces, and developing culturally responsive library learning commons. Joseph has worked on the Collection Diversity Toolkit, the updates to Leading Learning, and the Foundations and Frameworks document. Additionally, he helped write the BC Teacher Librarian Association’s School Library Design document. Outside of school, Joseph is an avid gamer of all types from card to tabletop to video games and enjoys being transported to imaginative worlds of science fiction and fantasy as a reader.