By Carol Koechlin & Anita Brooks Kirkland
This edition of CSL Journal is dedicated to the memory of Caroline Freibauer, 1961 – 2022.
Please take some time to read the wonderful tributes to Caroline presented in this edition.
Inspired by the creativity and inventiveness of school library professionals over the past few most difficult years, this edition of CSL Journal focuses on the future.
Inspiration from Canadian School Library Day
Monday October 24 was Canadian School Library Day / Journée nationale des bibliothèques scolaires canadiennes (CSLD/JNBSC), a Canadian School Libraries sponsored event. CSL designed this opportunity to celebrate the unique contribution of school libraries to student success and well-being.The theme of CSLD 2022 was Inventing the Future in the Library Learning Commons, a vision that resonated with many despite the challenges of the past few years. Thank you to everyone who celebrated CSLD 2022 and shared their school and community events on social media.
Canadian School Library Day coincides with the British Columbia Teacher Librarians’ Association’s Drop Everything and Read Day, and with Manitoba School Library Day. This year we saw a marked increase in the number of school districts and other large organizations recognizing Canadian School Library Day and showing their support for its future-focused message.
Inspiration from TMC7
Treasure Mountain Canada’s theme for 2022 was Post-Pandemic Library Learning Commons – From Crisis to Invention. The theme was inspired by the amazingly creative and resilient response of school library professionals who essentially reinvented their programs in the face of the pandemic crisis. That inventiveness inspires future thinking about the library learning commons.
Canadian School Libraries honoured award recipients at the TMC7 kick-off dinner. In her acceptance speech for the Leading Learning Implementation Award, which honours school districts, provinces, and territories who have developed and/or enhanced their school library learning commons on a systemic basis, Surrey Schools Director of Instruction Kathy Puharich stated that, “In 2012, Surrey Schools began to strategically implement a district-wide transition from the school library model to the library learning commons model.” Now 10 years later every Library Learning Commons in Surrey School District are creative and collaborative hubs of learning that promote transliteracy, innovation, and inquiry.” They are future focused.
Our teacher librarians, being uniquely positioned to support every student in every school, have played an important role in advancing literacy and learning. We know that we can create spaces with potential for meaningful learning opportunities but without the right people in the space, that learning won’t happen. Our Surrey teacher librarians are those right people and are a collaborative group of educators who engage in regular professional growth leading to intentionally develop programs that impact student learning.
Kathy Puharich, Director of Instruction, Surrey Schools
& CEO, West Vancouver SD.
TMC7 keynote speaker Chris Kennedy commented on the remarkable reinvention of libraries over the past 40 years. Contrary to popular perception of the library’s demise, he believes that libraries have become more central to the work in schools and the community, and they have “defined themselves not by the books they move in and out, but by their role as a gathering place”. Future-thinking librarians have defined our own future, not only adapting to change, but leading it.
Canadian School Libraries is a future focused organization. Keeping libraries at the forefront of change is not only great practice, it is also the best advocacy. Mourning what has been typically does not inspire support. Leading learning does. As Chris Kennedy advises,
If I was giving advice I would tell libraries to keep looking ahead – tell the stories of the next 20 years. They should never forget their core purpose of literacy – but continually define this broadly. And they should be the gathering place for people and ideas. As so much of our world seems to have siloed, we need these common spaces to connect school and community.
Chris Kennedy, Superintendent of Schools & CEO, West Vancouver SD
Common threads from TMC7 converged on new ways of thinking about digital media literacy and its relationship to equity. Every speaker and paper gave us renewed vision for ensuring that school library learning commons are always future focused and ready to prepare students for learning for the future. Plans are underway to use what we learned at the symposium to inform an update to Leading Learning.
TMC7 papers are available for your inspiration on the TMCanada Blog, and the papers will soon be added to the CSL Research Archive website. In this issue also enjoy an on-the-scene report from Lila Armstrong and Marc Crompton as well as acceptance speeches from all our outstanding award winners.
Angela Thacker Memorial Award: Leigh Borden, Rabia Khokhar, Rebeca Rubio, Jonelle St. Aubyn
Leading Learning Implementation Award: Surrey Schools, School District 36, Surrey, BC
We plan to feature TMC7 papers in the next few issues. In this issue enjoy these two: Library Challenges Database: A New Project from the Centre for Freedom of Expression by Dianne Oberg and Sheri Kinney, and Developing a Locally Focused Indigenous Peoples Collection: An Act of Reconciliation by Andrea LaPointe, as well as Nicole Wallace’s inspiring article on the importance of audio-books, based on action research she shared at TMC7.
Please also read and share Chris Kennedy’s inspiring Culture of Yes blog post, Library Reinvention, which he wrote soon after his keynote speech at TMC7.