With all of this in mind, I used the prospect of winter break as an impetus to remind folks to read. Inspired by Melissa Ahart’s summer checkout party, I threw a “Winter Break Checkout Party” during our flex and lunch periods. To advertise, I made an announcement at morning meeting earlier in the week and reminded students that a great way to get grown-ups to leave you alone during winter break is to have your face in a book. Then the morning of the party, I sent an email with event details and links to our ebook collections. I also used these moments as an opportunity to plug our Mock Printz collection.
Anna Murphy is Upper School Librarian at Berkeley Carroll; she is also HVLA treasurer.
This year’s American Association of School Libraries (AASL) Conference took place in Louisville, Kentucky, from Thursday, November 14th to Saturday, November 16th.
The AASL Conference began on Thursday morning, with an option to register for a two-hours pre-conference session.
The conference kicked up in earnest in the afternoon with the opening of the IdeaLab. The IdeaLab offered a place for librarians to walk around and hear quick presentations on what other librarians are doing in their own spaces. Some presentation topics included opening the library over the summer, research and inquiry units, digital literacy programs, and ways to integrate more technology into our work.
Soon after the IdeaLab closed, the conference officially kicked off with the opening general session! A joyful welcome included special shout-outs to state and regional library associations, who each took a turn (and a bow) on stage.
Ellen Oh, a YA author and co-founder of We Need Diverse Books, then addressed the crowd, sharing her message of how vital diversity is to our work as librarians largely through touching, personal stories of her own life and the lives of her three children.
The following two days were filled with meaningful concurrent sessions, often with so many enthusiastic attendees that you could regularly find participants sitting on the floor. All sessions were categorized according to AASL Shared Foundations: inquire, include, collaborate, curate, explore and engage.
As a first time attendee, I am grateful for such a space, where those of us who do this work can come together and share, be it our struggles or our triumphs, and find a community all our own. I look forward to more experiences to come.
Christine Nassar is a First Program Librarian at Dalton and one of HVLA’s vice-presidents.
On November 7, HVLA members gathered for our Fall Meeting. Hosted by the librarians at Friends Seminary, the meeting showcased new and upcoming titles from small presses. Attendees had the chance to preview titles and talk with publishers, as well as catch up with colleagues from other schools before the Small Press Preview presentation. Everyone was able to take a book from one of the featured presses back to their libraries!
Huge thank you’s to our gracious hosts at Friends Seminary, as well as the publishers who came to share their titles with us:
If you weren’t able to make it to the meeting, or if you’d like another look at the titles presented, take a look at the HVLA Small Press Preview slides. Also, let’s keep the conversation on collection development resources going- don’t forget to add to the Collection Development Tools padlet!
Blackthorne; web source: http://www.comics.org/details.lasso?id=234705
Photo Illustration, PLStamps/Alamy
https://peanuts.fandom.com/wiki/July_1965_comic_strips
https://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury
https://www.cathyguisewite.com/comic-strip
One of the many challenges of school librarians is how to keep these beauties in stock.
As fewer English teachers and parents complain about their children reading graphic novels, as if they were not as good as a classic work of print literature, it is important to teach visual literacy in all of its forms. We are barraged every day with images, and students need to know how to navigate them, how to deconstruct them, and how to enjoy the many excellent new graphic novels coming out, such as my favorite this year:
Jerry Craft makes the experience of being a student of color in a private school familiar and troubling and touching.
After retiring from full-time work at Brearley, Patty Aakre works in the lower school library at PS 89 and with the National Audubon Society’s For the Birds program, teaching lower school students about birds. She is currently the Recording Secretary for HVLA and a reviewer for SLJ. Other favorite graphic novels not mentioned include: Gene Yang’s American Born Chinese and Boxers and Saints, Shannon Hale’s Real Friends, and Emil Ferris’ My Favorite Thing Is Monsters.
