What’s happening in the library?

Friday the 26th is Australia Day, so there are several displays in the library, including picture books and novels by the best Australian authors and illustrators as well as information books about the country.

“Meet Some Famous People” in the library — through the biographies on display. A Venn diagram points out the range of “truth” on offer, with biography/autobiography falling in the blue Non-Fiction circle and historical fiction falling in the yellow Fiction circle — and the green intersection of the two containing fictionalized biography.

A beautiful purple LOVE quilt created by K2 PWa now hangs on the wall in the Picture Book section.

Water-Wise Campaign posters now adorn the windows in the Older Readers section, thanks to 3RMu.

Please come in and admire this work — and remember all donations of art and/or school work will always be gratefully accepted.

Book Reservation Pick-Up Notices for students are now being sent to classroom/tutor group teachers via e-mail, in the interests of efficiency and the lives of a few trees.

The Writer’s Camp with Richard Tulloch in Indonesia over Chinese New Year now has 12 students from Grade 5 and 6 signed up. If you know of any student still interested in attending, have them come see me in the library. It is possible we could take a few more, though 15 is the absolute cut-off number. Eric Baldwin, one of the owners of Island Connections International, came on Jan. 15th and spoke to parents of students who have signed up already. He showed us a video of Telunas Beach and it looks like a wonderful venue for relaxing — and writing.

The Primary School Book Week 2007 will be the week of March 12th. Activities will include lots of D.E.A.R. (drop everything and read) time, guest readers, quizzes and contests, a Bookaburra book fair, and fundraising for school libraries in less affluent areas of the world. Ian Whybrow, a British author of over 70 books for children published in 25 languages in 26 countries, will be the guest author, focusing on students in K1 through Grade 3. His most popular recurring characters are Harry and his dinosaurs, Little Wolf (who specializes in badness), and Sniff (a dog synonymous with trouble). More details will be forthcoming — and if anyone has any other ideas for Book Week activities, please let me know.

This blog will be my new means of communicating what’s happening in the library. While you could (if you are up to speed with it all) subscribe to this blog’s RSS feed in order to know when new information is posted, rest assured I will notify you teachers via standard internal e-mail whenever I post something relevant to you.

SHIFT OF SHELVES: Over the Xmas holiday we made some changes in the library, the main one being a shift of the shelves in the Older Readers (LS) section. The bulk of the tables are now against the window, creating a more private space for classes. We also moved the PYP “Books in Languages Other Than English” collection to the little alley (one side of the blue wall) between the Younger Readers (EL) and Older Readers (LS), providing us more room for expansion of the collection. In addition, the two “Oversized” collections (Younger Readers (EL) and Older Readers (LS)) have now been merged in that same alleyway.

NEW DISPLAYS:

2007 anniversaries: Upon entering the library, you will see books reminding you of historical anniversaries hit in 2007, e.g., 1400 years ago the world’s oldest wooden structure still standing was built in Japan, 780 years ago Genghis Khan died, 300 years ago Scotland and England merged into the United Kingdom, 140 years ago Russia sold Alaska for S$11m, and 60 years ago India and Pakistan became independent nations.

Experience a Time Slip: What would it be like to travel backwards or forwards in time or to peek into another time and space ? Try one of the novels on display.

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