Are you happy in your job? SLJ is conducting the first survey of school, children’s, and YA librarians about job satisfaction, dissatisfaction, and everything in between. Take a few moments and tell us. As always, thanks for your time!
P.S. We will be running a feature based on this information later in the year.
As librarians across the country celebrate Women in History Month in March, the name Jane Goodall often comes to mind. School Library Journal spoke to the renowned primatolgist and anthropologist in New York earlier this month during the WNET/Thirteen Teaching & Learning Celebration, where thousands of educators nationwide gathered to attend hands-on workshops and hear compelling speakers talk about the latest in education. For an excerpt of the interview visit SLJ's Web site.
What’s the most pressing environmental and social concern that educators should address with their students?
When people, especially young people, ask me this question, I try to encourage them to take a look around their own local neighborhoods to see what issues are impacting them on a daily basis. Once people identify the problems facing their communities, they can take steps to solve them whether it be starting a school recycling program or cleaning up a polluted river. Every individual makes a difference. If we all make changes, what seems like a small step will ultimately benefit the global community. read more...
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What Are They Reading for Fun?
The classics, for sure, continue to be fun, in Pittsburgh and elsewhere. Now, more chills and thrills are expected from R.L. Stine’s forthcoming “Goosebumps HorrorLand.”
Julie Helt, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, PA:
Kids know the classics are fun: Eric Carle’s books, Curious George, Dr. Seuss, and R L. Stine’s “Mostly Ghostly,” “Rotten School,” and “Goosebumps” series. Marissa Moss’s “Amelia” books are rarely on the shelf. Nancy Krulik’s “Katie Kazoo, Switcheroo” (Grosset & Dunlap) and Dan Gutman’s “My Weird School” stories (HarperCollins) are devoured by chapter book readers. Other series favorites include Erin Hunter’s “Warriors” (HarperCollins), D.J. MacHale’s “Pendragon” (S & S), and Joseph Delaney’s “The Last Apprentice” (HarperCollins). Teens love anything with vampires and faeries, including Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr
(HarperTeen, 2007). A coming-of-age novel, The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky (MTV, 1999), who grew up in Pittsburgh, is almost always checked out. read more...
The next time there’s a bully among your students, you may want to consider this: kids who bully tend to have troubled relationships with their parents and friends and may continue being disruptive throughout their teens if those problems aren’t resolved early, say researchers at York University and Queen's University in Canada.
"Focusing on the child alone is not enough. Bullying is a relationship problem,” says the study's lead author Debra Pepler, a professor of psychology at York and senior associate scientist at the Hospital for Sick Children. "Children who bully are using power and aggression to control others. We need to look at their relationships with their parents and with friends who may also bully.” read more...
Some 78 percent of libraries nationwide say they develop programs and services in Spanish, the number one non-English language used in public libraries these days, says a new study released by the American Library Association (ALA).
Asian languages ranked number two at 29 percent, and Indo-European languages came in next at 17.6 percent, says “Serving Non-English Speakers in U.S. Public Libraries,” the first national survey to examine the range of specialized library services for non-English speakers. read more...
There is nothing more comforting than knowing that, no matter what, your best friend will always be there for you. Characters from the titles below demonstrate some of the most important aspects of a good friendship, such as compassion, loyalty, and humor. Differences between these friends are in many cases what drew them together in the first place, highlighting the importance of being open to new people and experiences.
CHOLDENKO Gennifer. How to Make Friends with a Giant. illus. by Amy Walrod. Putnam. 2007. RTE $16.99. ISBN 978-0-399-23779-9. K-Gr 2 When the class “shrimp” befriends the new kid, who happens to be a “giant,” Jake and Jacomo learn to accentuate the positive in their relative statures and work around the difficulties presented by their differences. read more...
April is School Library Media Month and April 13–19, 2008 is National Library Week. Each time April rolls around, librarians and teachers wrack their brains hoping to come up with creative, fun, and, most importantly, new ways to celebrate libraries, books, and reading. This year, don’t fret one bit, just go to this wonderful Web site with tons of ideas, activities, and lesson plans gathered from librarians and teachers around the country. Hold a “Book Bowl” in your library, have kids create new covers for their favorite books, make paper bag book reports (which are then distributed at local grocery stores), or try to create the world's largest pop-up book. If you still don't find what you’re looking
for, be sure to check out these motivational ideas (I especially like the “Guess the number of books in the school library” and bumper sticker contests). — Gail Junion-Metz
Multnomah County Library in Portland, Oregon, is seeking a dynamic, service-oriented individual to direct the operations of the Central Library for this nationally recognized library system. The Central Library Director is responsible for directing, overseeing, and participating in the development of the Central Library's vision, goals, and objectives in alignment with the Library Department's vision. read more...
To see all positions available through the SLJ Career Center, click here...
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As librarians across the country celebrate Women in History Month in March, the name 
