The value of Association

http://www.slanza.org.nz/  It is great to be a member of this Association.

In July, while on "Summer Vacation" in the winter of New Zealand I attended the SLANZA conference in Wellington. It was inspirational and will be the subject of many subsequent posts. For this post I want to focus on SLANZA itself. I have been a member of SLANZA since its beginning, before I had any library qualifications or responsibilities. I remain a member even though I am many miles from New Zealand.

What is it about this association that I value so highly? My colleagues. There is a Maori proverb that goes ..
He aha te mea nui te ao?
He tangata! He tangata! He tangata!
What is the most important thing in the world?
It is people! It is people! It is people!

It is in a librarian's nature to share. We are a professional that values access to resources, information and knowledge. I guess that makes us predisposed to sharing ideas, strategies and resources. It makes us stronger as a professional and as people.

It is through this Association that I have received meaningful professional development. My librarian colleagues meet once a term and each meeting has a professional development focus. I have participated in meetings with publishers and booksellers, educational researchers, professors and professionals. The topics ranged from why we should be buying and promoting graphic novels to how to encourage reluctant readers. 

It is through SLANZA that I have received valuable one to one professional mentoring and have been able to encourage others to enter into mentoring relationships. 

Now I am on the other side of the planet why do I consider this Association so valuable? The electronic Journal "Collected" is produced 3 - 4 times a year. My colleagues contribute articles and ideas - sharing their expertise and inspiring me in my work. SLANZA is on Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads, I am connected in with my colleagues through social networking as well as professional networking. 

I will continue to be a member of SLANZA throughout my professional lifetime. It seems crazy to me to try work alone. Crazy and lonely. I truly value the work of the people involved in this Association and I thank them for contributing so generously to my life as a librarian.

Delving into Dewey

Two Mr Dewey's have a profound impact on my life as a Teacher Librarian. They were contemporaries of one another but not related in any way. I wonder if they even met each other. 

Melvil Dewey (December 10, 1851 – December 26, 1931) - the man who invented a method of organising libraries known as the Dewey Decimal System. He was one of the founders of the American Library Association - am Association which has been of great help to me personally and to thousands of others. Project Gutenberg has his Dewey Decimal System pamphlet online. In the course of our work processing books ready for borrowing we refer often to our copy of the Abridged Dewey Decimal Classification and Relative Index to help us know where to place a book in our collection. For a librarian it is important to place books of a similar subject together so our borrowers can find the title they want and browse the shelves for similar titles.

John Dewey (October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an educator who brought in many social and educational reforms. His work My Pedagogic Creed was published in the School Journal vol. 54 (January 1897), pp. 77-80. It has so many things in it that I agree with. I work in a school which has the word "community" in its name. Dewey valued school as a community and wrote, "I believe that much of present education fails because it neglects this fundamental principle of the school as a form of community life." He also challenges the teacher to be active in helping to create proper social life he wrote,  "I believe, finally, that the teacher is engaged, not simply in the training of individuals, but in the formation of the proper social life.

       I believe that every teacher should realize the dignity of his calling; that he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of proper social order and the securing of the right social growth." I immediately think of the mission of the IB which is more than its educational programmes and certificates. On its website it states, "At our heart we are motivated by a mission to create a better world through education. We value our hard earned reputation for quality, for high standards and for pedagogical leadership. We achieve our goals by working with partners and by actively involving our stakeholders, particularly teachers.We promote intercultural understanding and respect, not as an alternative to a sense of cultural and national identity, but as an essential part of life in the 21st century.The International Baccalaureate aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect."

Apart from my musings here - where is all this leading? Having completed my "Around the World in 80 books" challenge I decided I would try in expand my non-fiction reading. I have been using LibraryThing to catalogue the books I read for school since November 2007. I have 831 books catalogues so far. I can see them according to Dewey classification and less than half are nonfiction, which is not surprising due to my love of fiction. My goal this academic year is to read high interest non-fiction which I hope I can encourage my colleagues and students to read. I will, of course continue with my fiction reading but now I am looking for the high interest, high quality non-fiction as well. 

I think the two Mr Dewey's would approve.