News
News items are listed chronologically. To read a news item, click on the link to access the information.
- Information Literacy Awareness Month
- American Association of School Librarians' (AASL) awards program
- Status on Action Steps - NYSED School Library Services Summit
- New York Times Video on the 21st Century Librarian
NATIONAL INFORMATION LITERACY AWARENESS MONTH, 2009
Barack Obama officially proclaimed October 2009 as National Information Literacy Awareness Month, underscoring the important role information plays in lives, and the need for a greater understanding of its impact. The President states:
“…Though we may know how to find the information we need, we must also know how to evaluate it. Over the past decade, we have seen a crisis of authenticity emerge.
Our Nation's educators and institutions of learning must be aware of -- and adjust to -- these new realities. In addition to the basic skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic, it is equally important that our students are given the tools required to take advantage of the information available to them.”
To view the complete press release, visit: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Presidential-Proclamation-National-Information-Literacy-Awareness-Month/
AASL awards open with more than $50,000 in opportunities
The American Association of School Librarians' (AASL) awards program is offering more than $50,000 in awards in 2010 to AASL members.
AASL, www.aasl.org, a division of the American Library Association (ALA), promotes the improvement and extension of library media services in elementary and secondary schools as a means of strengthening the total education program. It advocates for excellence, facilitates change, and helps develop leaders in the school library media field.
AASL's 10 awards recognize excellence and showcase promising practices in the school library media field in categories that include research, collaboration, leadership and innovation. Awards recognize a job well done, validate the work members do every day in their library, and acknowledge excellence in multiple areas of school librarianship. The 2010 applications can be viewed and downloaded at http://www.ala.org/aasl/awards.
NYSED/School Library Services Summit Action Steps
Status on action steps from the NYSED School Library Services Summit have been updated at: http://www.emsc.nysed.gov/ciai/library/summit.html .
The New York State Education Department (NYSED), the New York Library Association (NYLA) http://www.nyla.org/ 
, the School Library Media Section of NYLA (SLMS) http://www.nyla.org/index.php?page_id=52 
, and the School Library System Association of New York State (SLSA) http://www.slsa-nys.org/ 
, co-sponsored a two day School Library Services Summit, in June , 2009. The purpose of the Summit was to share ideas and to develop recommendations to support increased student achievement within the context of school library services, as they relate to curriculum, instruction, assessments and professional development. The Summit resulted in twelve mutually agreed upon action steps. NYSED commits to posting progress in meeting these actions on a regular basis, and is grateful for the ongoing collaboration with NYLA, SLMS, and SLSA to accomplish these action steps and to build upon this work by partnering on future educational initiatives.
We will continue to provide minimum monthly updates in these Web pages as the status of action steps progress, and provide these updates through E-Blast, available at: http://www.emsc.nysed.gov/ciai/eblast/
NEW YORK TIMES VIDEO ON THE 21ST CENTURY LIBRARIAN
This video, produced by the New York Times, portrays the essential role library media specialists play in the education of New York State students at all levels, particularly at the elementary level. Library media specialists help students acquire, evaluate and use information effectively, which are essential skills for life in the 21st century. They encourage learning while fostering a literate environment for all students. Please click on the link below to see The 21st-Century Librarian http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/02/15/arts/1194837851726/the-21st-century-librarian.html?scp=1&sq=school%20librarian&st=cse. Please click on http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/16/books/16libr.html?scp=1&sq=librarian%22&st=cse for the accompanying article.