Monday
Oct052009

VOTE for SKJ and Librarians in the news!

 

http://www.skj4ala.com/

One of my favorite people, Sara Kelly Johns, is running for the presidency of the American Library Association. Please, when the time comes, take a moment and vote for her. Don't hold my endorsement against her.

AASL (school library media specialists) make up about 1/6th of the total ALA membership. But if we all voted as a block, we'd put Sara in office. School librarians have always been the red-headed stepchild of ALA, but Sara could help change that.

You can read more about Sara and that other candidate here. I know of no other school librarian (or any librarian) who works as hard as Sara does for the good of the profession.

Really, really.

__________________________

And in other news...

Long-time ALA Council Member, Terri Kirk, is featured in the most recent NEA Today newsletter. Check out "Beyond the Stacks: The School Librarian in the Digital Age." She is quoted as saying,

In the information age, who could be more important than a librarian? We specialize in information.

Pass this short and timely article on to your teachers and administrators.

I'd guess one article that is read by the general education population does more for our profession than 100 articles we only write for each other. NEA-member librarians, ideas for your professional publications?

Saturday
Oct032009

Things that keep us up at night

I haven't seen the print version (School Library Journal, October 2009) yet, but the article Things that keep us up at night that I co-authored with my friend Joycie Valenza is online .

In the cover art by Brian Ajhar, it's pretty easy to pick out Joyce. I am guessing I am represented by the cockroach looking fellow in the lower left.

I am not ver good at collaborative writing, but Joyce is always a pleasure to work with and GoogleDocs made the task very simple.

What keeps YOU up at night?

 

Monday
Sep282009

New book coming!

I think it is a little ironic when (mostly) younger teachers and librarians come up to me at conferences and say, "Hey, aren't you that Blue Skunk guy?" For many educators, the fact that I have published four books, written dozens of articles, and hacked out  columns ad nauseum over the years is not salient when it comes to my "claim to fame." It's moments like these that make me feel that the world is moving past me - and I will never catch up.

Still I am excited since I have a new book coming out soon, hopefully in time for it to be available at AASL in Charlotte in early November.

School Libraries Head for the Edge: Rants, Raves and Reflections. Linworth, 2009 is an edited, somewhat updated, collection of my Head for the Edge columns I've been writing since about 1995. My son Brady did the wonderful illustrations for it.

Books are a surprising amount of work, even when they consist of things mostly already written. I took a full week last February of doing nothing but writing and editing to get this one into draft form. I spent another couple full days just going over the first draft. I have a real publisher who is anal about things like footnotes and permissions and such. This is hard for me since when it comes to writing, I am a much better sprinter than marathoner.

Now and then I get asked how one gets started as a conference speaker or consultant. My only advice (which should be considered suspect since I never deliberately planned to be such a low-life) is to write a book or two. Books still cast an aura of credibility on a person that blogs or tweets or other forms of self-publishing do not - at least for many. Often others assume that people who can write can also speak. There is no correlation as far as I can tell.

This may well be changing and I am sure there are other paths to being infamy in educational circles.

Anywho, I am always excited about a new book coming out, even if I have already read it - too many times. I know my mom will be proud and I will send the hometown library a copy so she can look me up in the catalog.

Write a book. I'll bet your mom would be proud too.