August
2007
SAYL Mail August 23, 20071
SAYL Mail
August 23, 2007
WELCOME / NEW POSITIONS – JOB ANNOUNCEMENT / SCHOOL LIBRARY LEADERSHIP ACADEMY / BLOG
WELCOME BACK
Greetings to all the Alaska school librarians and school library assistants. I hope the start of your new school year is going well.
Congratulations to all the Youth Services librarians for completion of another successful summer reading program. If you work in a district library office or serve as district library media coordinator, please send me a list of your district’s new librarians and library aides so that I can update the SAYL Mail list and make contact with new personnel. If you are not a district coordinator, but know of a new librarian or library aide in your part of the state, please send me a note with names and email addresses. I appreciate your cooperation in keeping the State Library up-to-date on new librarians and other staff changes.
NEW POSITIONS
The two largest school districts in the state have new people heading their school library media programs:
- Ann Morgester is the newly appointed Library Curriculum Coordinator for the Anchorage School District. A long-time teacher librarian in the district, Ann is the first to hold this newly-created position in ASD. (Advocacy does work!)
- Katie Sanders, formerly Ladd Elementary School Librarian, was named as Fairbanks North Star Borough School District Library Media Services Director in June. Her predecessor, Helen Clark, was appointed as head of instructional technology, for the FNSB School District.
Congratulations to all three outstanding school librarians!
I also will have a new position, beginning September 17. I will then be the Head of Library Development, a position previously held by Nina Malyshev. Below is a notice of my position that was just posted today on Workplace
Alaska: http://notes4.state.ak.us/wa/mainentry.nsf/WebData/1hp1HomePage/?Open
Look under View Job Postings. Search for School Library Coordinator or Librarian III. The job is listed both ways, but is just one job. The deadline is September 12, 2007 at 5:00 PM. The site explains exactly how to apply for the job if you are interested. Below is the main position description. Be sure to check the website above for complete details.
Do you like to work with the school librarians of
Alaska to improve services to students and teachers? Then this may be the job for you!
The position is part of the Library Development team of the Alaska State Library. The Alaska State Library is comprised of two special libraries (Information Services and Historical Collections) and Library Development. The three sections have a combined mission: to work together for the good of the libraries of the State of
Alaska.This position is the School Library Coordinator. The Library Development team provides support and consultation to libraries throughout
Alaska. This position works primarily with school and combined school/community libraries.The position offers consultation and plans training for school library personnel. The key responsibilities of this position include:
- Consultation services to school libraries, including providing general information about school library organization, materials acquisition, budget development, and automation issues as well as copyright, statistics, grant writing, media selection and reading program support;
- Communications and information dissemination, including providing an electronic newsletter for school librarians and writing a regular column for the Alaska Association of School Librarians newsletter, required internal reports, and training materials including revisions of the Handbook for Alaska K-12 School Libraries;
- Training and continuing education activities, including developing and delivering training at workshops and in-services for school librarians and school library para-educators, presenting programs at meetings of the Alaska Library Association, the Alaska Society for Technology in Education, and other related associations. Examples of training offered could be basic library operations, children’s and young adult literature, online electronic resources and other topics related to current library practices and issues; and
- Monitoring and promoting state and national standards for school library programs, survey current programs and assess overall trends and levels of service, advise individuals who wish to become professional librarians, assess potential online services and work to regularize and publicize state school librarian certification standards.
Minimum Qualifications:
Master’s degree from an accredited college in library or information science, media services, or a closely related field;
AND
Two years of advanced level professional librarian experience with independent responsibility for multiple functional areas of library work, such as classification and cataloging, reference services, circulation, collection acquisition, development and preservation, or library webpage services. This experience is met by service as a Librarian II with the State of
Alaska or the equivalent with another employer.
See the blog post below this one for more details about what I will be doing in my new capacity.
SCHOOL LIBRARIANS LEADERSHIP ACADEMY 2007
Drs. Teri Lesesne and Joyce Valenza headlined the week-long face-to-face portion of this summer’s academy this month.
Ann Morgester unveiled the mysteries of Photoshop Elements and the ALA Read posters software, and Suzanne Metcalfe and Robin Turk are still serving as discussion leaders with me for the 4-week online follow-up portion of the UAA class. Twenty-four teacher librarians from all over the state are still discussing online some of the issues that were raised in the first week of the class, and all made working lunches go quickly as they shared a variety of titles with enthusiasm. (I hope to make those lists available to everyone on the AkASL website or wiki after the class is over on September 30.) It is a great bunch of students and colleagues.
If you haven’t had the opportunity to attend, and you are a certified library media specialist or teacher librarian, consider attending the next one. The new school library coordinator will keep you informed about future academies.
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I am trying this blog again. (I found an spam catching plug-in that claims to offer protection against an avalanche of nasty spam from Italy.) Let me know if you prefer the blog format, and I will pass your interest on to the person who replaces me. Remember that you can comment by clicking on the grey number next to the title above.
Sue Sherif, Alaska State Library
