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Reply To: IFLA School Libraries Section 2022 Midyear Meeting

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4th May 2022 at 1:09 pm #78921
Darryl Toerien
Keymaster

Thank you, Barbara – we have much to learn from each each other indeed!

I have written a personal report on the Midyear Meeting for Standing Committee of the School Libraries Section, which I have reproduced here.

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On 21-22 April 2022, Blanchelande College was honoured to host the midyear meeting of the School Libraries Section of IFLA ahead of the 2022 World Library and Information Congress in Dublin, Ireland, from 26-29 July.

The Business and Professional Development Programme reflected the strategic importance and value of the following two key IFLA publications, both of which will be launched at the 2022 World Library and Information Congress in Dublin, Ireland:

  • The revised IFLA School Library Manifesto (2022), which is currently with UNESCO for ratification, and which revitalises the principles upholding the IFLA School Library Guidelines (2015)
  • The latest book in the Global Action for School Libraries series, Models of Inquiry (2022), which reaffirms the centrality of inquiry to achieving the school library’s educational and moral purpose

Standing Committee member Darryl Toerien, who is Head of Inquiry-Based Learning at Blanchelande College, was joined by Standing Committee members Valérie Glass (Chair, France), Luisa Marquardt (Secretary, Italy), Albert Boekhorst (Brazil) and Hans-Petter Storemyr (Norway), and by Ali Kennedy, Vice-Chair of the Board of the UK School Library Association.

We were joined in person by Guernsey-based colleagues and online by colleagues who were not able to travel to Guernsey, and the Professional Development Programme was both streamed and recorded (see the FOSIL Group YouTube playlist). We are deeply grateful to those colleagues who contributed so freely of their time and expertise to the Professional Development Programme – Hugh Rose, Barbara Stripling, Joe Sanders and Jenny Toerien, and Kevin Heppell. We are also deeply grateful to Valérie, Luisa, Albert and Hans-Petter for their active contributions to proceedings in addition to their attendance, which enlarged and enriched the local context.

We were very pleased to draw the attention of the Guernsey Press to the work of IFLA and the School Libraries Section, with coverage in the national newspaper on both days of the Business and Professional Development Programme (see below for photograph by Luke Le Prevost from an article by Cloe Presland for Guernsey Press).

Because school libraries serve an educational purpose – improving teaching and learning for all – and a moral purpose – making a difference in the personal, social and cultural lives of young people – we were delighted supplement the Business and Professional Development Programme with an informal cultural programme that was made possible through the generous support of the following:

We are also deeply grateful to Elizabeth Hutchinson, previously Head of the Schools Library Service at the Guille-Allès Library, for assistance with all aspects of the formal and informal programme.

Rob O’Brien, Principal of Blanchelande College, highlighted in his welcome that the pandemic had tested the potential and limitations the school library as a virtual learning space, and that, in turn, the proposal that the library is both a virtual and physical learning space integral to the educational process could never be more promising. Michael Fattorini, a Trustee of Blanchelande College, confirmed this in his closing remarks, and reaffirmed the role of the school librarian in this space as a teacher whose subject is the inquiry-based educational process itself.

A fitting start and finish to very special time with enormously talented colleagues, who have also become dear friends, as we individually and collectively work out our long obedience in the same direction.