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Having friends over for dinner: Circulating Ideas podcast

It was a crazy busy summer for me and I didn’t notice this wonderful new podcast by Steve Thomas until last week. Circulating Ideas is a monthly interview with librarians from all walks of our profession.

From Steve:

This show is my meager attempt to get the word out on what we’re doing as a profession to remain relevant and to push the boundaries of learning and collating information, getting our ideas out there in the world, circulating them like we circulate our collections.  I hope it will also be enlightening to my fellow librarians to learn more about what other librarians are doing to push the profession forward.  I’ll be interviewing librarians and other people relevant to the profession and getting their points of view out to you, the listeners, and I hope that they spark discussions, whether you agree with the interview subject’s views or not. (from Epsiode Zero)

Not at all “meager” Steve! Those interviewed so far include: Buffy Hamilton, Kate Sheehan, Lori Reed, Paul Signorelli and the guys from Unshelved. There’s also a fun and informative show on how Steve creates the podcast, a “Library Day in the Life 7″ special episode. Coming up on Oct 11, Justin Hoenke.

Listening to podcasts & cooking go together for me. So when I get hooked on a great podcast, I tend to find excuses to spend more time in the kitchen cooking dinner. Thanks for bringing so many wonderful people into my kitchen! And thanks for all the great dinners. :)

Keep me cooking! What are your favorite podcasts?

 

And the Winners Are…

The New York Library Association is pleased to announce the winners of the National Library Week Snapshot Contest. Please feel free to contact Johanna at events@nyla.org with any questions you may have.  Winners in each category will receive a $50 gift certificate to be used to purchase items in NYLA’s Fundraising Store or toward registration costs for the 2009 Annual Conference or for a NYLA Institute.

School Library Systems and the New York State Budget Crisis

New York State’s School Library Systems are taking quite a financial hit in the current economic crisis. There will be cuts to many of the important support and training services they provide to school library media centers throughout the state.

I received this from Linda Fox of the Capital Region BOCES SLS today:

The Capital Region BOCES School Library System joins all other SLS’s in the state in concern about the state’s fiscal crisis. At this writing, funding for systems is at a standstill. Part of the funding has been received, but there is no indication that the remainder of the approved funding will arrive any time soon. This has a direct impact on staffing and programs. (more…)

Growing Into Inquiry workshops for School Library Media Specialists

I sent out a plea for help today to my school library buddies, asking for some curriculum links for an upcoming workshop. Mary Ratzer, a former School Library Media Specialist, now a consultant (Learning Curve Associates) sent me a wonderful list of Inquiry Lesson Plan Sites that she uses in her workshops.

“We use these sites in a workshop called Growing Into Inquiry where we transform flat, task oriented, fact detecting research tasks into inquiry process gold. It is our strategy to thereby implement the Information Inquiry Curriculum that 50 SLMS wrote with Linda Fox and me in 2006.”

I’ve had the pleasure of attending presentations given by Mary and am in awe of her knowledge, enthusiasm and ability to engage an audience. I’ve also co-presented some workshops with her and learned so many new things in the process.

Don’t pass up a chance to attend a presentation or workshop by her!