By Diana Maliszewski
Treasure Mountain Canada is the name of the biennial school library learning commons research symposium and think tank, supported by Canadian School Libraries. The original moniker comes from the location of the very first American version of the event in 1989. It may not be clear to outsiders what TMC is all about but the title is still appropriate because participants will metaphorically climb to new heights and discover riches thanks to the experience.
and Carol Koechlin at TMC5 in Winnipeg, 2017.
As of 2022, I have written five TMC papers and plan on writing two more for TMC7. I have traveled to Edmonton and Winnipeg as part of my involvement with TMC. Even if train, plane or automobile journeys are not part of the agenda, TMC can be a rewarding event. Here are my suggestions for maximizing your TMC time.
Before TMC
Contributing to the field of school librarianship is a great accomplishment and necessary to the growth of the profession. Consider submitting something. In one of my most recent blog posts (Maliszewski, 2022), I provided three tips to creating a paper or other media text:
- Pick something you are interested in exploring.
- Find someone to chat with about it.
- Don’t sweat the research or final product.
If you choose not to write a paper, you can still be a part of the Treasure Mountain Canada experience. Register to attend. If you can, also register for the event that TMC partners with. For 2022, it’s the British Columbia Teacher Librarians’ Association Conference. This year’s theme is “Leading Forward”.
Closer to the official event, try your best to read as many of the submissions as possible. It may feel overwhelming but having prior knowledge about the submissions can help you determine what “table talks” to attend (more on that later). All papers are published well before the actual symposium on TMC Blog. This is a great opportunity for professional learning and participation even if you cannot attend TMC in person.
I also found it helpful to plan to attend (virtually or in-person) with other educators. As you peruse the action research projects, post comments and start conversations with fellow school library professionals. This can help you digest some of the topics and understand them at a deeper level, like I needed to do with Garfield and Laura Gini-Newman’s paper, “Powerful Instruction and Powerful Assessment: The Double Helix of Learning” for TMC6 (Maliszewski, 2020).
All papers are published well before the actual symposium on TMC Blog. This is a great opportunity for professional learning and participation even if you cannot attend TMC in person. Also plan to follow discussions and news on CSL social media accounts. On Twitter the hashtag for sharing is #TMCanada2022.
During TMC
If you decide to physically journey to TMC, make sure to take the opportunity to explore the host city before or after TMC. Conferences have allowed me to visit almost every province in Canada and it is a huge privilege to see other parts of the country I might not have visited otherwise. Travel with friends and share accommodations to reduce costs. Have your favorite method of recording ideas handy so you can capture all the key points. If you have technology, make sure it’s charged and you are connected to the wifi. You might think you’ll remember it all, but there’s too much information to rely on your brain cells for storage, which is why I made notes even while in my hotel room in Winnipeg back at TMC5 (Maliszewski 2017).
Treasure Mountain Canada is intense! Expect that you will be tired. (Maliszewski 2016). Wear comfortable clothes and don’t forget to eat. (The in-person event provides meals and snacks – a bonus!) Every minute is accounted for with keynote speeches (where the entire assembly hears a single address), table talks (where participants select one of a half-dozen TMC contributors to engage with about his/her/their papers), and the famous Big Thinks (where David Loertscher, Carol Koechlin, and Anita Brooks Kirkland provide a collaborative consolidation task that forces participants to “synthesize, prepare next steps, and think beyond”). (Maliszewski 2020).
Network, network, network! Sit with strangers. Select table talks with papers you have already read if you want to ask more probing questions, or with papers that you have not yet read but sound interesting. There’s no need to feel guilty about attending a table talk for a project you have not yet checked out, because contributors expect it and ensure that they provide an oral summary of their work. If you are invited to be a table talk lead, be ready to prepare a promotional single slide that woos people to your discussion. This is a great opportunity to meet other library folk that you may want to maintain a connection with for the future.
After TMC
Record as many of your thoughts and the thoughts of others as you can. Use the Big Think to spread the main messages gleaned from the TMC conversations further afield. If you use social media, post photos (after obtaining consent from those in the pictures) and talk about what you learned (Maliszewski 2010). Read or re-read some of the TMC contributions. Share your experience with people both familiar and unfamiliar with school libraries. It might be intimidating to be surrounded by some of the “big names” in Canadian school librarianship but they are just as eager to learn from you as you are from them. Reach out to them if you have ideas or suggestions or plans that you want feedback for. Keep in touch with some of those new contacts.
Treasure Mountain Canada is worth the effort to seek that treasure and climb that mountain. Hope to see you on-screen or in-person in 2022 and beyond.
Works Cited
Maliszewski, D. (2010) June 7, 2010 – Now the Twittering’s a Melody. Monday Molly Musings blog https://mondaymollymusings.blogspot.com/2010/08/june-7-2010-now-twitterings-melody.html
Maliszewski, D. (2016) OLA SuperConference 2016 and Treasure Mountain Canada 4. Monday Molly Musings blog https://mondaymollymusings.blogspot.com/2016/02/ola-superconference-2016-treasure.html
Maliszewski, D. (2017) Reflections from TDSB Teachers Read and TMC5. Monday Molly Musings blog https://mondaymollymusings.blogspot.com/2017/10/reflections-from-tdsb-teachers-read-and.html
Maliszewski, D. (2020) OLA SC Day 4 aka TMC6 Reflections. Monday Molly Musings blog https://mondaymollymusings.blogspot.com/2020/02/ola-sc-2020-day-4-aka-tmc6-reflections.htm
Maliszewski, D. (2022) Reading and Writing TMC Texts. Monday Molly Musings blog http://mondaymollymusings.blogspot.com/2022/04/reading-and-writing-tmc-texts.html
Diana Maliszewski OCT, BA, BEd, MEd (she/her) is a teacher-librarian in the Toronto District School Board in Scarborough, Ontario. This is her twenty-fifth year in teaching, with twenty-four of those years working in a school library learning commons. Diana is the one of the vice-presidents of the Association for Media Literacy. She was the editor-in-chief of The Teaching Librarian, the award-winning official publication of the Ontario School Library Association, from 2006-2018 and now is a course instructor for the Teacher Librarianship Additional Qualification courses for York University and Queen’s University. She has presented workshops at conferences all over North America on topics such as gaming in education, graphic novels, popular culture, professional learning communities, and children’s literature. She has written five Treasure Mountain Canada papers, with two more planned for 2022.You can read her blog at http://mondaymollymusings.blogspot.com or catch her on Twitter as @MzMollyTL.