— Summer 1996 —
Return to The Link Index
— Summer
1996 —
Return to The Link Index
On Wednesday, March 31st, 1976, the ECIS Annual Conference was well underway at the Hotel Excelsior in Florence, Italy. At two o'clock in the afternoon, a special meeting was called to order in the Bodoni Room of the hotel. Chaired by Marc Greenside, Librarian at the American School of Las Palmas (Spain), this series of meetings was the first formal contact between librarians in ECIS schools. These meetings eventually led to the creation of the ECIS Standing Committee on Libraries, which was the first of the Subject Committees that now make up such an important part of the ECIS professional development structure. Similarly, the newsletter that you are holding in your hands would not have been possible without that long-ago meeting in Italy, as effective communication was a top priority of international school librarians then as now. October, 1977, saw the first issue of The Link. As Joan Keiser de López, longtime Librarian at the American School of Madrid, and first Chair of the newly-formed Committee pointed out to The Link recently, there were several groups of librarians in ECIS schools that had been working together informally, and were moving towards a more formal structure for cooperation, but Marc Greenside beat them to the punch! Dr. Greenside, now Director of the American International School of Florence (of all places!) sent a letter that was read aloud at the opening ceremony of the Munich Conference, "Librarians in International Schools: Meeting the Challenges."
That first meeting of librarians was exciting and highly enjoyable. I made friends at that initial meeting whom I still treasure today -- Margaret Lloyd of Lloyd International Media, Joan Keiser de López (now retired from Madrid), Barbara Kamm (recently retired from Paris).... It was quite an initial get-together. At that time I don't think that any of us really believed that ECIS' first formal sub-committee would be one of the results of our meeting in Florence. Nor did we fathom the continuing long run of "The Link."
Those workshops and meetings two decades ago may not have been the beginning, but they were certainly the beginning of the beginning of a series of milestones that we will celebrate in the months ahead. Planning is already underway for a special commemorative issue of The Link in October, 1997, and Vivienne Locke of the International School of The Hague has promised a special social event/celebration when the ECIS Fall Conference is in that city the following month.
The name of the Committee that grew out of that first meeting in Florence has changed over the years. Sometimes the changes reflected the evolving structure of ECIS Professional Development activities, sometimes to better reflect the activities of the Committee itself. It's been a "Standing Committee," a "Staff Services Committee," and a "Subject Committee," of "Libraries," "Media Centers," and most recently "Library/Media Centers." To celebrate our first two decades, and to prepare us for the changing challenges of the next two decades and the new millennium, the ECIS Professional Development Committee recently approved a new name, one that emphasizes our long tradition of commitment to quality school libraries in international schools, but which also reaffirms our commitment to be prepared for technological changes that have radically altered (already) how and what we do.
At the core of our mission is the concept of service. Libraries in our schools go under a variety of names: library, media resource center, library resource centre, learning resource center, study centre, etc. What these disparate facilities all have in common is providing our students with what Information Power calls "physical and intellectual access" to materials, to information, to ideas. As Dr. Carolyn Markuson pointed out in the last issue of this newsletter, the modern professional has a whole range of options available for delivering that service, from traditional library materials and services, to more technological information services. Our new name, then, reflects our commitment to providing our students with a service that is of use and value to them, using whatever means are most effective to do so. How fitting that the hotel was called Excelsior!
This issue of The Link was written before the "Libraries in International Schools: Meeting the Challenges" Conference had actually taken place. Watch the next issue for news gathered at that get-together of close to 100 colleagues from four continents!
Claire S. Vickery writes from the Dhaka American International School (Bangladesh) that she's sorry she couldn't make it to Munich, but would like to hear from colleagues who might have information regarding multiculturalism or published guidelines for school libraries. Contact her at her e-mail address: cvickery@aisd.pradeshta.net
Similarly, Beverley Stubbs of the ISS International School, Singapore offered to respond to any e-mail messages sent during the workshop. Any other time, too, one would guess! stubbs@singnet.com.sg
Ann Rennie, Secondary School Librarian at the American School in Aberdeen, writes that she is "planning to live in the country and grow flowers." After 21 years at the school, we wish her a well-deserved rest, and send her our fondest wishes and farewells.
Farewell, too, to Suzanne McLindon who is leaving the Vienna International School after two years as Primary School Librarian to get married. Rumour has it that she and her new husband plan to settle in Britain.
To end on a "welcome" rather than a farewell, we note that Mrs. Rhoda E. Muhmood of the Kuwait English School is our newest "subscriber" to The Link.
The last issue of The Link was a bit of a milestone. We managed to mis-spell more names in one issue than we have in recent memory. Our apologies to: Gretel Schürer, Carol Kuhlthau, and Lisa Griest (whose name was spelled differently the two times it appeared). We vow to improve! Please stay in touch (or write an article!).
Richard Barter
American School of Las Palmas
Apartado 15 -- Tafira Alta
35017 Las Palmas de G.C. (Spain)
FAX: (34) (28) 43 00 17
e-mail: rb@no.modem
(a joke, gentle readers, only a joke!)
Regular readers will know that this column is a forum for sharing amongst ourselves, helping colleagues with problems or requests, personal or professional. In this issue, we are also helping out Lisa Griest, our Librarian in Cyberspace, who is buried under a mound of packing crates as the International School of Amsterdam moves to its new building.
Patricia Shepherd of the Casablanca American School (Morocco) requests help in assisting a student with the bibliography for his IB Extended Essay.
How does one cite material found on the Internet?
Dr. Carolyn Markuson suggests the following for online databases of computer networks, with the last date being the date the information was obtained from the online service.
Alston, Robin. "The Battle of the Books." HUMANIST (10 Sept. 1993)
215p. Online.
Internet. 10 Oct. 1995.
"Anti-NEA Display Dismantled In the House." FILEROOM. Online. Internet. 26 June 1995. Available: http://fileroom.aaup.uic.edu.
"Censorship." COMPTON'S ENCYCLOPEDIA. Online. America Online. 26 June 1995.
Lemire, Marc. "New Book on Zundel." 18 June 1995. Online posting. Newsgroup: alt.censorship.canada.dumb. America Online. 26 June 1995.
Seinfeld, Jerry. "Censorship of TV Show." E-mail to Cosmo Kramer. 26 June 1995.
The WUG Letter of April 1996, suggests the following (reprinted from
the
California School Library Newsletter, v19, n6):
"A Brief Citation Guide for Internet Sources in History and the Humanities," by Melvin E. Page. gopher://h-net.msu.edu:70/00/lists/H-ARFICA/internet-cit
"Bibliographic Formats for Citing Electronic Information," by Xia Li and Nancy B. Crane. http://www.uvm.edu/~xli/reference/estyles.html
MLA-Style Citations of Electronic Sources, by Janice R. Walker. http://www.cas.usf.edu/english/walker/mla.html
Letters of application for this year's award came from three continents. As always, the judges were impressed with the quality of all of the letters of application. After an elaborate series of consultations and voting, Michelle Berry was selected to spend two weeks in south Florida, as a guest of SIRS, visiting area schools and meeting local professionals. In addition to gathering information and insights that will help her move forward with her plans to make her Lusaka library into a facility that will better meet the needs of her 1000 students, Michelle hopes to be able to offer the Florida host-librarians some insight into British school librarianship (she has worked in London and Moscow, and is doing a distance-degree programme through the University of Wales, Aberystwyth), and is particularly interested in setting up some sort of Information Exchange Group, allowing pupils in Zambia and Florida to stay in touch using a variety of different technologies.
As always, the ECIS Committee on Library and Information Services thanks all of the applicants, and knows that they join with us in sending hearty congratulations to Michelle Berry. An enormous debt of gratitude is also due to SIRS for the generous financial and logistical support that make this programme possible, in addition to all the other things that they do to promote quality libraries in international schools around the world.
In addition to Carol Kuhlthau of Rutgers University, whose participation was announced in the last issue of The Link, the ECIS Committee on Library and Information Services is pleased to announce that Paul B. Janeczko has accepted an invitation to speak at the conference. Librarian-readers of the professional press will be familiar with Mr. Janeczko, as a recent issue of Emergency Librarian (January-February 1996) contained a profile of the prolific author, poet, and editor, and he contributes a column to Instructor magazine. Writing in the "Up for Discussion" column of School Library Journal (April 1996, pp 38-39) under the title "Becoming Versed in Poetry," Kathleen Whalin, Librarian at the Greenwich Country Day School in Connecticut, says, "It would be a shame to have our library collections reflect out acquired indifference to poetry," recommending Janeczko's anthology POETRY FROM A TO Z (Bradbury, 1994), as a way of over-coming that indifference, calling it a "user-friendly anthology that matches modern poems with modern sensibilities." Janeczko has even written one of the Young Indiana Jones books, using the nom-de-plume J.N. Fox (paying homage to Jacob Nelson Fox, a favorite baseball player who played second base for the White Sox!). Janeczko has also offered workshops at several international schools in Europe, in recent years. His participation will make an already good conference programme a great one!
For more information about the up-coming conference, or about any of the other services and activities of the ECIS Committee on Library and Information Services, contact the Committee Chair:
Vivienne Locke
International School of The Hague
Theo Mann-Bouwmeesterlaan 75
2597GV The Hague (Netherlands)
FAX: (31) (70) 328 1450
Every year and for several years, several schools in Spain and Portugal have participated in the Young Author's Fair, bringing one or two American authors to the schools. The program, originally financed by MAIS, has been coordinated each year by a teacher or librarian in one of the participating schools. Presently the expenses of travel are shared between the schools and each school picks up the housing and expenses of the author or authors when they visit. This year we were pleased to have Donald Sobol and his wife Rose from Miami, Florida, and Anne Miranda, a newly-published children's author from the U.S. who is presently living in Madrid. They visited 2 schools in Madrid and Barcelona, and schools in Valencia, Bilbao, and Lisbon. Elizabeth Levy has been invited for 96-97.
* * *
Is there a special program in your school that others might
find interesting?
Write and Tell Us!
Julianne continues "students have a chance to get to know a 'real live' author, and also participate by publishing and illustrating their own books, plus numerous other activities planed during the week the authors visit." Surely, our Iberian colleagues are not the only ones with exciting, innovative programmes and special events. What about your school?
One of the great challenges I've faced since I took over the Committee and The Link from John Royce's capable leadership centuries ago (at least it seems that long!), has been to find ways to make all of the activities of our Committee more "inclusive," to give a voice to that silent majority of librarians in International Schools (who I'm sure exist) that we never hear from. Hopefully, readers of The Link will notice the very great effort we've gone to during the last few years to get as many voices as possible in the newsletter, to get as many people involved as possible. Since we redesigned the newsletter I've looked forward to the day when I was no longer Chair, and needed no longer to pretend to be impartial. When I could let my voice be heard! The irony, of course, is that as I hand the Committee over to Vivienne Locke, l have, for a variety of reasons, agreed to continue to edit The Link even after I leave the Committee.
Of course, this means that I don't get to write my own Feature Article, right? After a whole lot of reflection and soul searching, l have decided to put my editorial reputation for objectivity at risk, and do it anyway! Sometimes ya just gotta do what ya gotta do....
It is beyond doubt that there are, and always have been, people working within the ECIS Library community who have given generously of their time and energy. The first problem I'd like to draw attention to, however, is that there are way too few of them! Many, many times over the years I have heard from schools and librarians complaining about what we've done wrong, how we have somehow failed to meet their needs and expectations. Please don't get me wrong -- complaints and criticisms do help us to improve the quality of the publications, services, and activities that we offer, and give us vital feedback. What is distressing, however, is that when we try to enlist active support for our activities, whether by asking for submissions for The Link, or workshop presenters for the various ECIS conferences, we are greeted by a deafening silence. Libraries in International Schools, and the groups and committees working to support them can only be as good as YOU help them to be! This committee and this newsletter don't cost you anything, and many of the other groups have membership fees that are nominal. The only way for you to get value from these groups and activities is to give back to the community as much as you take. In a word: volunteer, Volunteer, VOLUNTEER.
The second problem, it seems to me, is reflected in the broader international school community. We are a very disparate community, with a wide range of schools that have little in common. However, recent years have seen, I think, the recognition that we have quite a bit more in common than we might have originally expected, not least of which are our students, the much-described "third culture kids." Because of the experience of going to an International School, most of these students will never wholly fit into a narrow national culture again. Their perspectives and international outlook have been too radically changed. One can see more and more reflections of this in the various international organizations, curriculum initiatives, etc. What we need, in our libraries, is a recognition of this third culture. Schools with "internationalized" curriculum and students need "internationalized" school libraries. The American theory and practice of school librarianship is no longer wholly appropriate (if indeed it ever was), nor the British, nor the Canadian, nor the Australian. There are fundamental differences between these national traditions, differences that need to be studied and analyzed. No, there is no book you can buy that will do this work for you. A very quick look at the published literature reveals precious little indeed about International School libraries. The first step, then, is to create a body of work that can guide future study. In addition to getting actively involved in the various professional groups, it is vital that more of "us" research and publish, and begin to create the underpinnings of what should be increasingly recognized: that International School librarianship is a special field of endeavour in its own right, just like International School teaching and administration. The IB doesn't exist because people sat around wishing it to happen. It exists because a group of educators in Geneva and New York sat down and made it happen. Ditto the IBMY and ISCP. It could be that I'm entirely wrong, that there is nothing unique about librarianship in an International School environment. But you know what? Until we have a body of published work to read, study, discuss, and argue about, we'll never know for sure. In a word: publish, Publish, PUBLISH!
It may be that my dream is too large, is too much to ask, but when we look back at that crowd of pioneers who met in Florence twenty years ago, it's helpful to remember that many people thought that their goals were unrealistic, the objectives too unobtainable. Thank God they didn't listen to the nay-sayers, and followed their dreams. As Eleanor Roosevelt once said, "The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."
In a word: dream, Dream, DREAM.
Your CommitteeCoralie Clark completed her two years as Committee Chairman, and in keeping with what has become committee practice, stepped down. She remains on the committee, and the new Chariman is John Royce. Anthony Tilke has joined the Committee and is taking over as editor of The Link. Please contact any one member of the Committee if you have concerns, requests, ideas or suggestions as to how the Committee can support you. John Royce (Chair), Robert College, email: jroyce@robcol.k12.tr |
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The Link is the newsletter of the ECIS Library and Information Services Committee
and is edited by Anthony Tilke, Yokohama International Schools, Japan. Email: tilkea@yis.ac.jp; fax 81-45-621-0379. |