School Library Budget cuts – put ‘em under pressure

Martina Devlin has an opinion piece in today’s Irish Independent about the cut to the school library budget.

It didn’t cost a lot, at around €2m a year, but it made a difference. It meant books — not textbooks but attractively packaged, recently-published novels and non-fiction books — were introduced into the classroom.

After almost 40 years, the scheme has now been discontinued. There is no School Library Grant for 2009 — the budget is gone. Not reduced but removed. Teachers and librarians expected some decrease, in view of economic circumstances, but to their dismay it has simply vanished.

The impact of the cuts for children, teachers, authors, illustrators, publishers and suppliers is huge. If you feel as strongly about this as we in CBI do, please please tell your elected representatives local, national and European.  You might also want to Talk to Joe about it. The more we can raise our voices the better.

There is also a good report about how the scheme operates available from Wexford Libraries here

Browne begins to beat the drum

New children’s laureate Anthony Browne has fired his first shot as laureate. As an illustrator, he has been clear that much of his laureateship will focus on words and pictures.

Read his piece in yesterday’s Guardian about the role of  visual art in schools.

on boys and reading

The Times Online carries an article by author Joe Craig about creativity and boys. It’s similar to a talk Joe delivered last year in Cork city libraries during Children’s Book Festival

The biggest change comes in Year 7, which statistically is also when there’s the biggest drop off in reading – especially in boys. Now, it perhaps seems obvious that the withering of originality is greatly caused by reading less. But I think it’s also the other way round: they read less because their creative spark is consistently doused. Their connection with stories, with ideas and imagination, is stifled by the school environment. If the fun has gone from stories, why read?

Oisin McGann talked about something similar at Teenage Kicks, The LAI conference in November. You can access the full text of his often very funny talk here.

When boys are at that age, we’re basically just little cave men. We have simple tastes, which – in some cases – we never grow out of. I firmly believe that most of the cave paintings that have been found around the world were painted by men, simply because they are largely pictures of a buffalo or a mammoth being shot in the arse with an arrow. If women had been doing the painting, they would be pictures of marriages, girls becoming best friends, or people sitting round dealing with social issues. Or they might possibly be recording the invention of the shoe (I wasn’t sure if I’d get away with that one). But the boys wanted to shoot a mammoth in the arse with an arrow and six thousand years later, we haven’t changed.

Fishing for Fís

Sarah mentioned the film crew in her study this week and  it’s all part of a new CBI partnership. Fís  Book Club is a safe secure site where young readers can upload a video book review. All the book reviews can then be reviewed and enjoyed by other book club members. Its a very clever use of the technology and the site is really easy to navigate – even for a clutz like me.

For security unless you are a registered school, you can’t get access to the reviews but you can view a taster video on the hompage. Registration is free for schools and  library groups and we’ll be encouraging all the Bisto Book of the Year Shadowing groups to get involved. Fís Book Club is a fantastic resource so please do spread the word……

First Flight at Fighting Words

I was lucky enough to be in Fighting Words this week as they welcomed their first school group. The building is absolutely stunning – bright and airy with flexible space and bookshelves that act as doors.

For primary school groups they get the chance to work with  a host and an illustrator to create their own book and each leave their personal copy, complete with space for each of them to add their own unique ending.  The session worked really well and the kids  I chatted to adored the whole process. Sarah was their faithful scribe.

Its a very powerful symbol to have an organisation dedicated to creating and enjoying stories. Wouldn’t it be magic if every town in Ireland had a dedicated story space?

Fighting Words are always on the look out for volunteers- its’s great fun, give it a go. You can read more about other international versions over on 826valencia.org

Judy Blume’s new touring model

Random Person: What do you do?

Me: I work in children’s book

Random person: ehh really, is that a real job? I suppose you’ve read the  Harry Potter books then  and I suppose its important that kids do read books.  I remember really like Roald Dahl as a kid and oh yes those books that got passed around school with the important bits highlighted.

Me: Do you mean Judy Blume

Random Person: YES! thats the one, Forever was playground contraband in our place.

Okay so I’m generalising here but Judy Blume is a hallowed name in writing for young people. She’s still controversial for some adults. In fact Forever was the second most challenged book of 2005, according to the American Library Association and she is recognized as one of the most banned children’s authors in the US.

Anyway to celebrate her most recent titles, she’s touring book blogs – Its a great idea, creating sustained interest across the next few weeks and reaching people who are interested in her work.

First installment over on Big a Little A

Barack Obama, Philip Pullman and Alan Gibbons

Many of you might have spotted an article in Guardian/Observer featuring Philip Pullman’s appeal to a comprehensive in Chesterfield to keep its library open. Meadows Community School is ditching their library (and librarian) in favour of a ‘virtual learning environment’ and a reading room (without librarian).

Author Alan Gibbons has been motivating a campaign about similar issues – you can follow progress over on his blog. He’s even managed to weave in Obamania with these quotes

Guardians of truth and knowledge, librarians must be thanked for their role as champions of privacy, literacy, independent thinking, and most of all reading.

The critical importance of language, of writing, of reading, of communication, of books as a means of transmitting culture and binding us together as a people.

The library represents a window to a larger world, the place where we’ve always come to discover big ideas and profound concepts.

In an Irish context the evidence overwhelmingly points to the success of school libraries. The snappily titled Junior Certificate Support Programme Demonstration Library Project continues to show what can be achieved when a properly resourced and dedicated space is contributed to the school environment. The Room for Reading Report on the project is long but a terrific source of evidence of the importance of school libraries in Ireland. As one young reader said

It’s brilliant, you can learn more and learn about things you know nothing about and it helps with project work. It’s easier to learn and its very relaxing.”

Fighting words website is now live

Fighting Words will be operational in January 2009 and the website is now up and running with some more details about class visits and volunteering.

Coincidentally over on TED.com they have added a summary of the Dave Eggers presentation that explains the genesis of 826 Valencia which in turn is the genesis of Fighting Words.

There is a longer version of the Dave Eggers presentation below – well worth the 24 mins.

budget blues

David has some quick off the draw analysis of what the budget means for the Arts sector. Its not cheery.

But even worse and what may have slipped under the radar is the fact that €7.5m has been taken off aid for books in DEIS schools and €2.1m is gone from school library grants. That €2.1m is 100% of the department of education contribution to school library grants. It’s shocking that despite all the evidence about the importance of school libraries DES have withdrawn all of their funding.

The implications of the budget for the public library sector are not so easy to see currently but it is clear that any cut in library funding usually hits the book budget hardest of all.

If kids made the reading rules

Good morning all round here in CBI HQ as we have just sent our new If kids made the reading rules poster to print.

Back in ‘07 when we published CBI’s Strategic Plan it contained a commitment to give children a greater role in creating wider understanding of the importance of books for children. This positioning of young readers within our advocacy strategy was a new departure for CBI and we approached it with lots of enthusiasm but also with some trepidation. Our goal for 2008 was to develop a Charter of Entitlements with children relating to books and reading. We wanted a children’s books charter written by children that could become part of CBI policy as well as something that can be shared with a wide audience.

Sneak preview of one image

The final result is beautiful A2 poster which contains 12 recommendations from kids for parents, teachers, libraries, publishers, authors, booksellers and illustrators. It will be distributed as part of the Children’s Books Festival 2008 but here’s one image as a sneak preview.

The process has evolved over the past few months – so much so that the word charter has disappeared altogether. We very fortunate that Meath Libraries, author Conor Kostick and illustrator Alan Barrett all accepted our invitation to get involved. CBI knew the members of trim Library book club, as they were one of three focus groups for the Turning the Page report. During this research project they contributed valuable insights and great energy so we were extremely confident in working with them again.

CBI’s concern was to facilitate a structure that would allow the project freedom to produce an authentic output. A loose structure was proposed to the young readers and Conor initially which they adapted as the project progressed. Illustrator Alan Barrett was added to the mix later when our initial sessions had grounded the project and we could see the rapid progress being made.

The poster will be distributed to libraries and schools next month in preparation for the Children’s Books Festival in October and you will be able to read more about the process on the CBI site in September and in Inis magazine in December