January Updates 1

Library World:
I hope all of you are following the progress of the 65% bill in the SC legislature. According the wording libraries are included at present, but we need to stay on top of this to make sure we stay in there. (http://www.scstatehouse.net/sess117_2007-2008/bills/3348.htm) This bill passed in Georgia, but libraries were not included in the definition of “instructional purpose.” In short the bill makes it mandatory for 65% of a school’s baseline budget to be spent on classroom/instructional funding. If libraries are left out of this picture it is very likely that book/technology budgets will be cut, if not eventually the media specialist and aide positions because they wouldn’t fall under the 65%. We are not curriculum support, we are curriculum CRITICAL - make sure you are active in and out of your school in making sure you are part of the instruction and curriculum initiatives at your school. Watch this and be ACTIVE, it is important for us not to bury our heads in the problems at our particular site – we have to be proactive rather than reactive!I hope to see many of you at the SCASL conference in March – you can still register as I understand it!! Great opportunity for professional development and networking - everyone needs the chance to recharge and get new ideas for their library programs.

Reading:
http://screadinglady.blogspot.com

Technology:
I’ve been immersed in video over IP land – there are some great possibilities here, but it is going to be a big change for everyone. As with any new technology change, we have early adopters who are starting to get excited and dream big, some people whose interest has been peaked and will wait to see how other people use it first, and then some who are choosing to ignore the change until they absolutely have to pay attention to it. Hmmm….. where do you and your teachers fall??I love my MP3 player, how about you?? I’ve downloaded books and music, united streaming videos and I have dreamed wonderful dreams about the fabulous projects we will be able to incorporate in to our library programming. Dream away folks, I want to order more and really get the digital ball rolling in the library. We are still looking at an eAudio library, one of the features we are trying to make sure we have is the simultaneous downloading of the titles, we want all of our children to have access. It will also be nice in that it will handle the copyright for us so we don’t have to track or count users in the downloads. There will be particulars to see to such as where and when students can download, and handling the space/purging of files on the computer. I look forward to talking to the pilot group in the next few weeks and brainstorming ways to incorporate and streamline the usage in the schools.

I think I am going to break off a technology blogspot as well to keep updated technology stuff... what do you guys think?