Gwyneth wins ISTE board seat

Congratulations to Gwyeth Jones for her election to the ISTE Board. I am always thankful when librarians have a voice on that group, especially one as powerful and progressive as Gwyneth's! And now she and Annette Smith can tag-team on discussions!

Good luck to all new and returning ISTE board members. Guide the organization well!

All 10 fingers, all 10 toes - redux

Theodore was born yesterday, April 19th at about 3:00PM. Grandson number three for the LWW and me. I am updating my wishlist that I created for his cousin Miles in 2005.

Theo will start school in 2015 or 2016. Here’s what I hope he finds:

1. A place that cares as much about his happiness as his education.
2. A place that cares more about his love of learning than his test scores.
3. A place where he feels safe and welcome and can’t wait to get to every morning.
4. A place that honors creativity more than memorization.
5. A place that has a library full of stories and a librarian who makes them come alive.
6. A place where technology compliments, rather than replaces, playing with blocks, finger-painting, naps, graham crackers, or a teacher’s soft encouragement.
7. A place where he learns to work and play with kids who make not have been given the blessings of a middle-class lifestyle or a fully-functioning body or brain.
8. A place that teaches kindness along with math, tolerance along with history, and conservation along with science.
9. A place where teachers are excited about teaching and passionate about encouraging the passions in their students.
10. A place where his passions are honored and that he gets a chance to learn in lots of different ways from lots of different kinds of teachers.

Mom and baby are doing fine, but Grandma had to be peeled off the ceiling. - Grandpa Doug

Crisis planning event - well-done

Last evening Chris Harris and Buffy Hamilton presented at an online event hosted by Gwyneth Jones and Carolyn Foote in the "TL Cafe." Check out the full recording here.

Harris gave a harded-eyed look at possible reasons for reduction in library positions (It's not just us geting cut in hard times!) and Hamilton presented some innovative ways to communicate with staff and students. (Next time I am going to figure out how to block the chat feature since I found myself distracted and missing too much!)

One thing that still bothers me is that I have seen no empircal evidence that the profession actually IS in a state of crisis. Certainly there are high profile cases of individual districts reducing library staff, but is this actually a general trend? I have often wondered here in Minnesota that for every librarian cut in a rural district with declining enrollment, if there isn't another librarian hired in a district with increasing enrollment. But I don't know and I couldn't prove to a legislator that there is a general problem in Minnesota (or in the nation.)

For what it's worth, here is a link to a document I developed in this now six year long "crisis:" When Your Job is on the Line." A bit more prosaic than the exciting materials presented last night, but then I am a realist at heart.