Message from the President

What a spectacular fall we have had!  I hope you’ve all had time to take in the beauty of our Green Mountain State, and that your school year is off to a great start.  No doubt you’ll be invited soon to a regional gathering of some sort by your VSLA regional rep.  Plan to go and bring a friend;  anytime we can gather with our colleagues and share ideas, concerns, and celebrations is a good thing!

Over twenty librarians met at the Thatcher Brook Primary School on October 17 to get a dose of professional development.  We had a great “speed dating” session led by Linda McSweeney to explore some of AASL’s best apps and websites of 2015, and another led by Nancy Daigle about her switch from Dewey to METIS, and how that has made her collection more accessible to students.  It was a day of recharging!  Lots of good food and conversation.  Kudos to all who gave up a Saturday to come and hang out.

AASL

If you are lucky enough to be attending AASL in Columbus next week, please add your name and contact info to the google doc that was sent out over the listserv.  Let’s connect in Ohio!

Map

Lately there’s been a lot of interest in looking at each other’s websites for ideas for website design and content.  Angel Harris undertook an incredible project last year and developed a map of Vermont schools and librarians.  Please check it out (link here) and help us update it so it is as accurate as possible.

Vermont Council on Reading partnership

Kudos to Carole Renca of Burlington who has agreed to be VSLA’s first contributor to the VCR journal.  This is an opportunity for all of us--the Vermont Council on Reading would love librarian expertise in writing book reviews or short, book-related articles.  Please consider sharing!  Contact one of the following colleagues to pitch an idea! 

Christine Hertz <christinehertz@gmail.com>,

Hilary Kissel <hkissel@etsd.org>,

Bev Davis <bev.mackie.davis@gmail.com>,

"kate.davie" <Kate.Davie@bmuschool.org>,

Gretchen Garvey <ggarvey@cssu.org>

Science--another Opportunity!

Our partnership with the Agency of Ed continues, but we are still in need of a middle school or high school librarian to serve in a stipended position on the Professional Learning Team that will help teachers with NGSS implementation.  Please contact Denise Wentz (dwentz@cssu.org) for more information (Denise serves in this role for the elementary level) or Gail Hall at the Agency of Ed. (Gail.Hall@vermont.gov)

Web Content

As we move to our new Wild Apricot platform and begin building our website, we want to know what you’d like to have on it for content.  And please consider sending along anything you’d like to share with colleagues to our webmasters: vslawebmaster@gmail.com