DSLMA meeting

January 23, 2007

Meeting started at 5:40pm

Old Business:

 A. Jamie will go to Colorado in February to learn about School Rooms through Sirsi. She will be finding out about:

• Cost
• What will it provide
• Difference between elementary, middle and high school format

B. Katrina totals - $1360 was sent. We received a thank you for the donation.

New Business:

 A. ALA Mid-winter report from Barb and Janet:

• The Information Literacy Standards are being revamped. It is online at AASL site and feedback is welcome. The language is cumbersome and jargon filled.
• AASL in Reno, NV October 25-28, 2007. Barb is on the conference planning committee! www.ala.org/aasl/reno
• Affiliate assembly – school librarians need to vote. We are the biggest group in ALA!
• There will be a longitudinal survey coming out. Please fill it out, it’s very short (20 questions). ALL schools may fill it out, not just librarians! http://www.aaslsurveyorg
• Legislative Day – there’s a virtual Leg Day May1-2. The regular Leg Day will be during the ALA convention in Washington DC in June. If any of your students/parents has a story about how the library has make a difference in their life please, PLEASE send it in to DSLMA to take the Leg Day.
• Grants/awards – 1. ABC Clio $1750 in grants. These grants want new approaches to leadership. 2. $1250 Frances Henry award is given to new ALA member who attends the convention! Anyone interested??? 3.Improving Literacy Through School Libraries (LSL) Eligibility is based on having at least 20% of students from families below the poverty line. www.ed.gov/programs/lsl
• Charter schools many times do NOT have school librarians. This was discussed and is a concern.

B. We still need a secretary!!!

C. Books for Baghdad: Jamie will let us know when we want to start collecting books. http://www.booksforbaghdad.org They would like college level textbooks – I’m sure people on your staff have some they would like to get rid of! These will get shipped sometime in spring 2007.

D. Silver Lake Library position has been filled by Jodie Klein.

E. AASL Vision Summit: Jane shared what went on at the summit. There was one person representing each state. The summit took place despite the snow storm Chicago had – it was just shortened and about 20 people didn’t how up. The history of libraries, the current state of libraries and then what we envision the future of libraries to be was discussed from three different standpoints: librarians, students and parents. This information will be taken back to AASL and incorporated into a vision for the future.

F. Librarians who passed their National Board Certification in November: Suzanne Smith, Mary Kay Hall, Marcia Barbezia, Trish Birch, Christine Smith. Congratulations to all!

G. Mini-grant discussion: Kathy Lindemer in the Cape Henlopen district won. Congratulations!

H. Denise discussed Library initiatives:

• They are moving forward. Ross Todd’s study initiated the Train the Trainer mini-course. Some districts (CR, Delmar, Indian River, NCCVG and Woodbridge) still need to get on board.
• There will be a Train the Trainer II mini-course in the fall 2007. This course will be “unpacking the standards in the library”. There will be a link on each content area page to library information and how it connects to those standards.
• The 2% Collaborative Cluster is being offered again. Get your application in by March 23! The planning time for your unit is built into the sessions. If you need an application e-mail: dallen@doe.k12.de.us or jroussell@doe.k12.de.us.
• There will be a unified PowerPoint available soon to deliver our message. This will be an “anticipation guide” for our vision.

Committee Reports:

 Legislative: Still need a representative. Donna Reed’s name came up as a possible candidate for this job.

DLA Conference: Jane reported that the theme is technology. Peggy Dillner will be presenting one book talk session. A tentative schedule will be coming out soon. The conference is at the Sheraton in Dover on May 8.

Awards: The timeframe for getting the applications out and back and decisions made will be used again this year.

District Reports:

 Brandywine: They are making a 5 year strategic plan with flexible scheduling.

Caesar Rodney: One of the elementary schools has the librarian with a fixed schedule. ALL the other elementary libraries have a mixed flex/fixed schedule. The person at the district office has said that the principal has the decision as to how to use the library/librarian.

Capital: There will be another referendum to buy land and build an new elementary school.

Christina: They are doing a new inventory using the new Destiny program. One elementary school may close due to a new Newark Charter School opening. The charter school ONLY takes students within a 3-4 mile radius of the school thereby taking students who would be attending the public school.

Parochial: There is a new female superintendent. Two schools will be merging and St. Hedwig’s will close.

Guest presentation:

Nelle Cox (ELA teacher), JoAnn Reynolds (librarian) and Shari Galgano (technology) presented their collaborative cluster. It centered around the book The Number Devil. Nelle Cox had taught this unit in 2 weeks last year. This year, after the collaborative cluster it still took only 2 weeks, but each student has a webpage about their own “Number Devil”.

The next DSLMA meeting will be February 28 at Olive B. Loss in New Castle County. Meeting adjourned at 7:45 pm.