‘Diversity, Challenge, Resilience: School Libraries Have It All’

NALIS launched International School Library Month on Friday October 1, 2010 at the St. Augustine Secondary School. The feature address was delivered by Ms. Zena Ramatali, President of the National Parent Teachers Association of Trinidad and Tobago, who highlighted the valuable role of libraries in the lives of our students. The programme also included a special guest presentation on ‘Moving students to feats of research,’ by Ms. Kaaren Linton, a former school librarian and now Training Coordinator for COMPanion Corp. the producer of the Alexandria Integrated Library Management System. At the launch, NALIS unveiled several activities planned for both primary and secondary schools in commemoration of the International School Library Month October 2010.

The ISLM 2010 is being generously supported by Pearson Education and TSTT Blink services.

The activities for this year’s event includes:

1. A logo competition to brand and market the upgraded School Library Media Centre (SLMC) in the secondary schools.
2. ‘Just read it’ promotion using the resources from the information collections provided through the Secondary Education Modernization Programme in which the libraries were major beneficiaries.
3. ‘We make a difference’ – essay writing piece on the contribution of the SLMC to the school.
4. ‘Beyond Google’ targeting the range of electronic information resources available in the SLMC.
5. ‘Same Book Same Time’ targeted to primary schools using the information resources in their libraries.
6. Page-a-thon competition where the primary schools collate the number of pages read by individual students over a period of time.
7. Feature on community partnerships showing the adoption of a primary school library by a secondary school library.
8. Feature on ‘special needs’ schools in the communities.