We would like to invite all SLANZA members (and those who would like to see what a SLANZA event is like before signing up), to join us at the Auckland War Memorial Museum in the Auckland Domain on Saturday 15th March.  There will be a presentation from the Passchendaele society; National Library will highlight their World War 1 resources, and the Museum Library team will present their fantastic resources including the online Cenotaph.  Finally there we will have the opportunity to go on a back of house tour.  See the Auckland page for more details

Last weekend the SLANZA National Executive met for the first meeting of the year with a full agenda.

First up membership.  This year our systems are in place and renewal notices went out early.  If you did not receive your renewal notice yet please email a request to admin@slanza.org.nz.  A strong membership will enable us to provide a better service.  As we roll out our membership drive we ask all members to reach out to other schools around them and encourage engagement with SLANZA. There are benefits to all the library team as well as teaching staff.

This year’s budget reflects our priorities as well as living within our means.  Increased membership would be welcome and used to provide more to members.

We had a visit from LIANZA President Laurinda Thomas and Executive Director  Joanna Matthew.  They shared work they are currently undertaking and we discussed areas of common interest.  They welcome SLANZA members to their 2014 conference in Auckland and hope to have a school library stream with an affordable one day rate.  See full conference details at: http://lianzaconference.weebly.com/  SLANZA members thinking of attending should consider presenting, there are flexible opportunities to share your experience with other librarians.

Work has begun on our next SLANZA conference which is scheduled for September 2015 in Christchurch.  The committee is keen and is working towards providing an excellent professional development opportunity to members.

Region reports were generally positive with events planned for this term.  SLANZA aims to provide one professional development opportunity each term and some regions have some very exciting things planned.  The Southland region is struggling for membership and leadership.  If you are in this region it is important that you think about how SLANZA can support you and contact the National Executive if you have any suggestions or offers of assistance.

There is much talk and some action regarding MLEs (Modern Learning Environments) and MLLEs (Modern Library Learning Environments), especially in the Canterbury region and in pockets around the country.  What does this mean to us and how will it affect us?  That is a big question.  Whether it is around the corner for you or on a distant horizon, school librarians need to be aware of changing thinking in schools and be prepared with a way forward.  Having an idea of how your library fits in the scheme of things before the need arises is the best way forward.  We will soon be calling for contributions to our first issues of Collected for the year with the theme “MLE, MLLE; What, Who and How” and will be looking at the big picture.  If you have knowledge in this area we hope you will share your experience with our readers.

We have made progress with our Pool of Talent and the sharing of work.  Any members keen to get involved should contact their region’s representative.  There are many opportunities to expand your professional horizons with SLANZA, maybe you will be the next rep for your region.  We are always looking for keen people, not afraid of a bit of organisational work combined with great contacts, professional development and a few laughs.  

Finally, we compared our progress to our strategic goals.  We are on track providing leadership, responding to the needs of our members and always looking for opportunities to add value to SLANZA membership.  All the best for the rest of a busy Term 1, we look forward to working with you to provide the best service possible to our schools this year.

We are pleased to announce that this term we will once again be running SLANZA's online professional development course - Connected Librarians - for our members.

In this course you will learn about a selection of online tools to use and to share with your school community. Topics include professional reading, social bookmarking, community connections, and more.

This course is designed by New Zealand school librarians, for school librarians - ideal for those just starting out with online tools, who are ready and willing to try new things.

The course is free for SLANZA members. Please contact us if you are not sure of your current membership status.

Registrations will open on Monday March 3rd. However, because we still have registrations from members held over from our previous course, we have only 15 additional places available. People who have already registered will be contacted directly this week. To ensure that our participants come from a range of school levels (primary, intermediate and secondary) we will add new participants from the registration list accordingly.
Successful applicants will receive invitations to our learning community immediately. The course will begin on Monday March 10th and run through to the end of term, Thursday April 17th.

More information about the course is available here, or you can contact me directly with any questions.

Miriam Tuohy
PD Team Leader
miriam.tuohy@gmail.com

Have you considered sharing your knowledge and experience at the LIANZA Conference in Auckland in October this year?  If so, now is the time to get your thoughts together and offer an abstract for consideration.  
This conference is open to all types of library and information professionals and I hope that members will consider sharing their expertise with other professionals and giving them the opportunity to understand the challenges and privileges of working in a school library environment.  
Think of the innovative ways that you market your library, the unique ways that you engage with your users and the things that you do to create a superior environment. Think of the assumptions about the industry that you would like to dispel and the conversations you would like to have with other sectors.  This is an opportunity to share your knowledge and open up conversations that lead to partnership and collaboration. 
Full information is available on their website.
If you have any questions or want some encouragement please do not hesitate to contact me.
Lisa Salter
RLIANZA   l   SLANZA Communications Leader   l   ruawailibrary.wordpress.com

Welcome back for Term 1, 2014

Another year of working with young learners lies before us.  I hope you, like me, are feeling a little thrill of excitement at the thought of all those young minds excitedly heading towards your library doors seeking knowledge, looking for help finding and using resources and new books to read.  I hope that you are entering the year rested, well read and up for anything.


Your SLANZA executive had a good break over the holidays and although we were working quietly on a few projects, which we plan to introduce to you later in the year, we mostly read a lot and spent time having a holiday.  This relaxing time has come to an end now though as we launch into a busy time on our projects.  Our first National Executive meeting for the year is in February on the 22nd and 23rd, and as usual if you have matters you would like discussed at the National Executive level, we encourage you to get your regional representative to bring them to our attention.  Your local representative is your voice on the National Executive.


We were very excited about our project to find out the most popular reads for school students in New Zealand at the end of last year.  We will be doing this project again, possibly taking it larger in 2014.  School librarians are the reading experts in your school, we know what the students like to read and we want everyone to know that.


Our big project early in the year is a membership drive.  We have a team of NE members working on this.  They are targeting new schools, those who have been members and dropped off and also primary schools.  We want to encourage those people who may not work in school libraries, but who are interested in the work we do, to join us as members.  We are also interested in recruiting new business members as they help to pay for our magazine Collected and our planned marketing tools for you to use in your libraries.


Regions have begun planning for their term one events, some of these are very large and impressive events, and I encourage you to attend if you possibly can.  Remember it can be a really valuable experience attending a different regions event, why not get a road trip together!  The AGM this year will be held in July this year in Dunedin as part of our weekend school which was so successful in the past.  There will be lots of detail about this coming your way over the coming months as we organise speakers and workshops.


We have been doing some work on our processes, particularly the way that decisions of the National Executive are recorded.  We hope to make life easier for National Executives of the future.  Many thanks to Rosalba Finnerty for her help with this over the holidays.  We will be offering our very successful professional development courses again this year, and we are looking towards extending these to offer more exciting options.  We are looking at different ways we can deliver courses to our members and using different platforms to allow members access to regular PD regardless of location, targeting those beginning in school librarianship, as well as those who are very experienced.  National Exec members will be presenting at various conferences and workshops during the year and if you are attending one of these presentations do come and say hello and have a chat. We look forward to hearing your thoughts on our activities and we hope that you enjoy and get great value from the community SLANZA provides for you.

Bridget Schaumann
President