Glasgow School Libraries

Information Book Award Longlist

Literary and Cultural Events – March

5^th – 6^th: Ullapool Book Festival (Ross-shire, Highlands, Scotland)

12^th – 14^th: Boswell Book Festival (Dumfries, Ayrshire, Scotland)

19^th – 28^th: Aye Write Glasgow’s Book Festival (Glasgow, Scotland)

15th – 2^nd April Glasgow International Film Festival (Glasgow, Scotland)

25^th – 4^th June: Hay Festival (Hay-on-Wye, Wales)

Awards

Branford Boase Award Shortlist

Women’s Prize for Fiction Shortlist

Jhalak Prize Shortlist

Waterstone’s Children’s Book Award Winner

Book Buzz

January/February 2023 Roundup – Shawlands Academy School Library

We’ve been rushed off our feet issuing 2000+ books to our pupils visits throughout January and February after a long hiatus to accommodate prelim exams. In amongst it all, we still managed to squeeze in some excellent programmes for our pupils – it’s good to be back!

LGBT+ History Month – Heartstopper Party: We threw a huge Heartstopper soiree to coincide with LGBT+ History Month and Valentine’s/Palentine’s days. Pupils enjoyed a Heartstopper themed quiz created and delivered by one of our amazing Pupil Library Committee members. Every attendee got a chance to win three prizes: A package of skittles, a Heartstopper bookmark, and a Heartstopper colouring book.

Author Visit with Carrie Marshall: We were so fortunate to have musician, author and BBC tech journalist Carrie Marshall visit us to discuss her new book and what it is like to become an author.

Participatory Selection Sessions: Hosting participatory selection sessions ensure our school library stock remains relevant and useful to our readers. Participatory Budgeting enable the library to represent the reading needs and interests of the school community. This term, we’ve focused on books for struggling and reluctant readers. Non-fiction is a big hit with some of our S1/2 participants, reflecting a recent study conducted by the National Literacy Trust as part of National Non-Fiction November. Key findings of the report are on the National Literacy Trust’s website).

Pathways to the Profession: Our first Pathways to the Profession talk was a success! We invited a Community Librarian from Glasgow Libraries, a Membership Officer from the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals Scotland (CILIPS), and a Library Assistant from Glasgow Caledonian University Library to chat with members of Pupil Library Committee and other pupils interested in a LIS career. The speakers chatted about their backgrounds and experiences, what their current roles involve, and answered several questions from the audience. A big thank you to CILIPS, Glasgow Libraries, and Glasgow Caledonian University Library for presenting!

Creative Writing Workshop: To coincide with World Book Day, we invited author Victoria Williamson to deliver a lunchtime workshop to members of our creative writing club. Victoria shared some helpful advice and techniques that will be very useful in our White Water Writers project in June, funded by the Scottish Government and administered by the Scottish Library and Information Council (SLIC). The group will work with the White Water Writers team to write and publish a novel collectively within a week. We’re really looking forward to this amazing opportunity.

Creative Writing competition: We’ve extending the deadline on our World Book Day creative writing competition. This year’s theme is Big Dreams.

Trending: March Booklists

Literary and Cultural Events – March

9^th – 12^th StAnza Poetry Festival – Scotland’s International Poetry Festival (St Andrews, Scotland)

15th – 2^nd April Glasgow International Film Festival (Glasgow, Scotland)

15^th – 19^th Govan Music Festival (Glasgow, Scotland)

Book Buzz

December 2022 Roundup – Shawlands Academy School Library

It has been a quiet month in the Library throughout December as prelims have been taking place. However, our excellent Fare worker allowed us to host a Pop-Up Library in their room during lunchtimes where pupils could still come and choose a selection of books and play games. We’ve got an exciting itinerary planned for 2023, so stay tuned!

Trending: December Booklists

Literary and Cultural Events – January

9^th – 19^th St Mungo’s Festival (Glasgow, Scotland)

19^th – 5^th Celtic Connections (Glasgow, Scotland)

26^th – 29^th Burns and Beyond (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Book Buzz

The Erdvening Standard

November 2022 Roundup – Shawlands Academy School Library

November has been our busiest month so far this year! With Book Week Scotland festivities, author visits, and general school library mayhem on the go, it was fun times all around.

Author visits:

Ash Dickinson is an award-winning slam poet who joining us for a lunchtime visit where he discusssed his inspirations, his work as well as some fun exercises for pupils to explore their inner poet.

Neil Slorance is a Glasgow-based author/illustrator, best known for his work on Dragon Fun, Doctor Who comics, and for his pet tortoise Herman who went viral in 2015. Neil chatted with our entire S1 year group about what it’s like being a comic book artist and even taught us some drawing tips.

Maisie Chan is an award-winning Glasgow based author whose book Danny Chung Does Not Do Maths won her the Branford Boase award, the YA Prize, and the Jhalak Prize. Our Schools of Literature group have been reading Keep Dancing, Lizzie Chu so Maisie popped along to chat about the novel and the rest of her works to some of our S2 Schools of classes.

Book Week Scotland: Fantastic turn out for our range of Book Week Scotland activities this year. We worked with Coffee Culture to host a Biblio Bistro in the Library where pupils and staff could grab a hot drink and peruse a selection of book stalls that displayed books tying into this year’s BWS themes. On Wednesday, our S4/6 quiz masters created and hosted a quiz. Our Book Swap was an outstanding success! We had 8 tables brimming with books and were left with a remaining two boxes of books saved for next year’s swap.

Mitchel Visit: We enjoyed a lovely visit to the Mitchell Library with our Advanced Higher Physical Education classes where the knowledgeable staff delivered tutorials of their eResources such as ProQuest and took us on a tour of the iconic building.

Schools of Literature: We created a our own mini biographical zines of famous/influential people in our lives using the books from our Equality and Empowerment and History sections to tie in with this year’s Nonfiction November. We also enjoyed an afternoon of children’s book storytelling, reading from our favourite children’s books using props from the wonderful School Library Outreach service located in the Mitchell Library

Book Group: Now that we’ve finished Edward Ross’ excellent Gamish: A Graphic History of Gaming, we’ve now moved on to the bestselling I Am Malala by the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Malala Yousafzai. We’re not even through the prologue and it’s already prompted lots of thought provoking discussion.

Trending: November Booklists

Literary and Cultural Events – December

3^rd-5^th Winter Tales Book Festival (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Book Buzz

The Erdvening Standard

October 2022 Roundup – Shawlands Academy School Library

With the mid-term break sandwiched between the beginning and end of the month, October felt like it was over before it started! We still managed to squeeze in some great activities over the last few weeks, so read on to see what we’ve been up to.

Schools of Literature: Our group has finished reading Keep Dancing, Lizzie Chu by Maisie Chan and are currently finalising our paper lampshade disco balls that tie in with the book. Our Tweet was liked and shared by Maisie Chan who absolutely loved the activity!

Crafternoons: Pupils participated in our Black Out Poetry crafternoon event to celebrate National Poetry Dlay. We used pages from 1984 by George Orwell (this was a faulty copy with missing pages!) to create some amazing poetry. Most pupils were not aware of blackout poetry so found und the event fun and education, and English teachers participated too. The blackout potery was then displayed in the Library.

Literature Trails: The School Library is working with our Values Ambassadors to create monthly literature trails around school. We select 10 books on a theme and create informational posters about each book that teachers display in their classroom windows. This month we promoted Black History Month and chose a wonderful selection of titles which include:

Becoming: Adapted for Young Readers by Michelle Obama
Black and British by David Olusoga
Young, Gifted and Black: Meet 52 Black heroes from Past and Present by Jamia Wilson
Musical Truth: A Musical History of Modern Black Britain in 28 Songs by Jeffrey Boakye
Windrush Child by Benjamin Zephaniah
Onyeke and the Academy of the Sun by Tola Okogwu
The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta
Black Artists Shaping the World by Sharna Jackson
Superheroes: Inspiring Stories of Secret Strength by Sophia Thakur, illustrated by Denzell Dankwah
Timelines from Black History: Leaders, Legends, Legacies by Mireille Harper and DK Publishing

Pupil Library Collective: Our Pupil Library Collective is officially underway! Teams have been set up, roles have been established, and tasks have been delegated. We are currently working together on ideas for the design of the bulletin board outside the library, themed book lists to feature in the school library newsletter, and activities being planned for Book Week Scotland in November.

eResource Workshops: The School Libraries’ eResource Workshops have started back up just in time for upcoming study leave. The workshops connect pupils with valuable online resources available from Glasgow Libraries and other scholarly and authoritative information and are tailored to the subject and year group.

Publications: Pupils can submit book reviews, art, poetry, or short stories to be published in either the monthly School Library newsletter or the quarterly School Libraries’ eMagazine, Swatch. Access the current and previous issues of Swatch through these links: Autumn 22 Summer 22, Spring 22, Winter 21, Autumn 21, Summer 21, Spring 21, Winter 20, Autumn 20

Trending: October Booklists

Trending Books – Epic Reads

Literary and Cultural Events – November

2^nd-5^th: Faclan: The Hebridean Book Festival | An Lanntair Stornoway (Stornoway, Scotland)

3^rd-6^th: Push the Boat Out: Edinburgh’s International Poetry Festival (Edinburgh, Scotland)

11^th-13^th: A Write Highland Hoolie! Mallaig’s Book Festival (Mallaig, Scotland)

13^th: Robert Louis Stevenson Day (Edinburgh, Scotland)

14^th-20^th: Book Week Scotland

24^th-27^th: Hay Festival Winter Weekend (Hayon-Wye, Wales)

26^th-27^th: Cove and Kilcreggan Book Festival (Argyll & Bute, Scotland)

Literary Awards & Prizes

Winners:

The Booker Prize

Books Are My Bag Reader Choice Awards

Diverse Book Awards

Information Book Award

Little Rebel Awards

Na Duaisean Litreachais | Gaelic Literature Awards

The Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction

Book Buzz

September 2022 Roundup – Shawlands Academy School Library

The School Library is back and busier than ever! We have a busy itinerary of events planned for this year, so watch this space for more information. Read more to see what we’ve been up to this month:

Inductions: We’ve really enjoyed meeting all the S1s and new pupils as well as reconnecting with the rest of our school community. Over the past few weeks, the School Librarian has been delivering Library and separate Libby inductions to our S1 English classes. Find out more about Libby and the Glasgow Libraries eOffer on the Glasgow Libraries’ website.

Schools of Literature: This year, the School Library is involved with the Schools of programme with a special class on Literature. Our group will read a themed book per month and tie it into crafts and other literacy-based activities. This month we’re reading Keep Dancing, Lizzie Chu by the wonderful Glasgow-based author, Maisie Chan. We’ve also been making some top secret treats for our upcoming Pop Up Library stall for International School Library Month in October.

Comics Book Group: We’ve launched a very special book group in collaboration with our wonderful Support for Learning department focusing on comics and video games. Each Friday, our students read Gamish: A Graphic History of Gaming by Edward Ross where we discuss past, present and future of video games and gaming culture. Learn more about the importance of video games literacy in the report from the National Literacy Trust: Video games and literacy | National Literacy Trust

Literature Trails: The School Library is working with our Values Ambassadors to create monthly literature trails around school. We select 10 books on a theme and crate informational posters about each book for teachers to display in their classroom windows. This month we chose to promote East and South East Asian Heritage Month and chose a wonderful selection of titles which include:

Hanna Alkaf – The Girl and the Ghost

Maisie Chan – Danny Chung Does Not Do Maths

Sue Pickford aka Sue Cheung – Chinglish

Candy Gourlay– Tall Story

Jenny Han – To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before

Haruki Murakami – Kafka on the Shore

Banana Yoshimoto – Kitchen

Viet Thanh Nguyen – The Sympathiser

Kazuo Ishiguro – Never Let Me Go

David Yoon – Frankly in Love

Pupil Library Collective: With the overwhelming success of the Pupil Library Committee this year, we’ve expanded our program to continue our journey towards embedding a pupil voice into the Library. Pupils will help select stock, create and deliver events, curate displays and booklists, and help with general light duties in the Library. We’ll be hosting inductions early next month and can be useful for those working towards either their saltire awards, Duke of Edinburgh or simply for work experience.

Popular Sections: Pupils are loving our new sections and layout too. So far, our most popular sections include:

#Trending on BookTok: A one stop shop for trending titles on TikTok. If you’re not familiar with the subcommunity on TikTok, we recommend learning more by reading these articles: Wikipedia, The Rise of BookTok by Alison Flood, Guardian

Thrills & Chills: As ever, our Thrills & Chills section remains one of the most popular sections with our pupils. Here, there can find the best Thrillers, Crime, Espionage & Detective, and Horror books including: Friday Nights and Freddy’s, Murder Most Unladylike, Alex Rider, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder.

Graphic Novels & Comics: Our growing collection of new and modern classic comics and graphic novels, including: DC and Marvel universes, Lumberjanes, Adventure Time, Tillie Walden, Raina Telgemeier, Dog Man

Equality & Empowerment: This section blends fiction and nonfiction books together with the theme of human rights and empowering ourselves and others to promote positive, inclusive change. Highlighted titles include: Dear Martin by Nic Stone, Melissa by Alex Gino, I Will Not Be Erased edited by gal-dem, Amazing Muslims Who Changed the World by Burhana Islam, illustrated by Nabi H. Ali, Reya Ahmed, Saffa Khan, Aaliya Jaleel, Deema Alawa, Aghnia Mardiyah, I Am Not A Label: 34 Disabled Artists, Thinkers, Athletes and Activists from Past and Present by Cerrie Burnell, illustrated by Lauren Mark Baldo.

Slice of Life: Is this real life, or is it fantasy? (FIY, it’s real life). Fans of romance and realistic fiction love this bigger and better than ever section filled with books by top authors such as Holly Bourne, SK Ali, Alice Oseman, Simon James Green, Jenny Han, and Camryn Garrett.

Trending: September Booklists

Trending Books – Epic Reads

Literary and Cultural Events – October

1^st – 2^nd: The Words of war Book Festival (Perth, Scotland)

3-9^th: Libraries Week (Scotland)

6^th-8^th: Ness Book Fest (Inverness, Scotland)

7^th-16^th: Cheltenham Literature Festival (Cheltenham, England)

8^th-9^th: Bookmark Book Festival (Blairgowrie, Scotland)

13^th– 16^th: Berwick Literary Festival (Northumberland)

14^th-31^st: Scottish International Storytelling Festival (Edinburgh, Scotland)

20^th-30^th: London Literature Festival (London, England)

27^th-30^th: Orkney Storytelling Festival (Orkney, Scotland)

29^th– Nov 6^th: Petworth Festival (West Sussex, England)

Literary Awards & Prizes

Winners: YA Book Prize, Klaus Flugge Prize

Shortlist: Booker Prize

Book Buzz

June 2022 Roundup – Shawlands Academy School Library

Pupil Library Committee Party

To say thank you to our fabulous 50+ pupil library committee members for all their dedication, hard work, and ideas over the year, we threw a huge bash. A big thank you to school staff for helping out. We enjoyed healthy wraps and a selection of snacks with vegan, halal, kosher, and gluten-free options. A good time was had by all.

Up next:

We’re looking forward to the next school term, which will be even bigger and better!

Challenges and Contests: We’ll continue our Bookopoly and Ask Me What I’m Reading challenges as well as introduce a couple of new ones, including Scottish Read Trip and Read A Winner to encourage pupils to pick up some homegrown talent or a prize-winning books.

Library Rearrangement: The library has undergone a huge rearrangement, thanks to help of members of our library committee. We’ll introduce our new sections and layout in the new term.

Pupil Library Collective: With the growing interest in our already fabulously large committee, we’ve decided to rename it as a ‘collective’ to reflect the range of different voices and ideas from our pupils who all contribute equally to the success of the School Library.

Reading Schools: We will continue our Reading Schools accreditation journey. Follow on our twitter with the hashtag #ReadingSchools

Schools of Literature: New this coming term is the Schools of Literature course designed for S2 pupils as part of the Schools Of programme taking place in Shawlands Academy.

Workshops: The School Library will continue to host a number of eResource workshops that are useful for National 5-Advanced Higher courses. Each workshop will make pupils aware of a range of valuable resources helpful for their assignments and teach navigational and search techniques.

Publications: We’ll continue to circulate our monthly School Library newsletter on Teams and keep an eye out for quarterly issues of Swatch, the Glasgow School Libraries’ eMagazine.

June Booklists

Best New Children’s Books – Toppsta

Bookbug’s Books of the Month – Scottish Book Trust

Books of the Month – Love Reading 4 Kids

Summer Roundup – Love Reading

Book of the Month – Scholastic

Children’s Book Roundup – Guardian

Trending Books – Epic Reads

Upcoming Events (July)

29^th – Jul 3^rd: East Neuk Festival (Fife, Scotland)

2^nd – 3^rd: Glasgow Zine Fest (Glasgow, Scotland)

21^st – 24^th: Big Lit: The Stewartry Book Festival Gatehouse of Fleet (Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland)

21^st– 24^th: Theakston Old Peculiar Crime Writing Festival (Harrogate, England)

23^rd: Wonderland (Midlothian, Scotland)

Literary Awards & Prizes

Winners

Books Are My Bag Reader’s Awards

Jhalak Prize

KPMG Children’s Books Ireland Awards

Tir Na N-Og Awards (Welsh category)

YOTO Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals

Literature & Culture news

Interesting articles

An Introduction to Stanislaw Lem, the Great Polish Sci-Fi Writer by Jonathan Lethem – Open Culture

A Special New, Two-Volume Collection of Philip K Dick Stories Comes Illustrated by 24 Different Artists – Open Culture

Levar Burton Describes Book Bans With A Not-Safe-For ‘Reading Rainbow’ Word – HuffPost

‘On the Come Up Movie’ is in the Works – Epic Reads

Why 99% of Smithsonian’s Specimens Are Hidden in High-Security – Open Culture

May 2022 Roundup – Shawlands Academy School Library

Heartstopper Colouring Contest

To celebrate the Netflix debut of Alice Oseman’s bestselling graphic novel, Heartstopper, we held a colouring contesting using one of the official colouring pages. Each submission was put into a prize draw for a chance to win one of three prizes including a Heartstopper bracelet, bookmark, and sticker set. Congratulations to our winners! All pupils who’ve submitted a completed colouring sheet receives a Heartstopper badge.

P7 Transitions

We were delighted to meet pupils from across our feeder primary schools into the library as part of Shawlands Academy transition days. Pupils were given a brief introduction to the library service where they were explained all the different opportunities, reading challenges, competitions and events that takes place throughout the year. Pupils completed a scavenger hunt using a Library map and a set of questions to familiarise themselves with the sections and types of books we have in stock. We also asked them to complete a survey that will inform our stock purchasing for the new school year. Each young person received a pupil designed book mark and an Ask Me What I’m Reading badge.

Pop-Up Library

The Pop-Up Library stall is back in lieu of the library space being used throughout the exam period. Here, pupils can browse handpicked goodies selected by the Librarian, request specific titles, or return their books. Our Pupil Library Committee members will be helping at the stall too, we couldn’t run it without them.

Challenges and Contests

We’ll also continue to promote our range of challenges and contests, including Bookopoly and Ask Me What I’m Reading. Pupils are also encouraged to submit a completed book review to be entered into the monthly School Library prize draw.

May/June Booklists

June 22 Booklists – Book Trust

Best new Children’s Books – Toppsta

Bookbug’s Books of the Month – Scottish Book Trust

Books of the Month – Love Reading 4 Kids

May Roundup – Love Reading

Book of the Month – Scholastic

Children’s Book Roundup – Guardian

Trending Books – Epic Reads

Upcoming Events (June)

May 26^th – Jun 5^th: Hay Festival (Hay-on-Wye, Wales)

2^nd – 4^th: Riverside Festival (Glasgow, Scotland)

2^nd – 12^th: Glasgow Science Festival (Glasgow, Scotland)

3^rd-5^th: Cymera Book Festival (Edinburgh, Scotland & Online)

4^th: Glasgow Comic Con (Glasgow, Scotland)

4^th: Vinicombe Street Gala (Glasgow, Scotland)

11^th: Laugh in the Park Comedy Festival (Glasgow, Scotland)

11^th: Mansfield Park Street Festival (Glasgow, Scotland)

16^th – 19^th: Borders Book Festival (Melrose, Scotland)

17^th – 19^th: Solas Arts Festival (Perthshire, Scotland)

16^th – 19^th: Glasgow Jazz Festival (Glasgow, Scotland)

17^th – 19^th: Dandelion Festival (Glasgow, Scotland)

17^th – 26^th: Refugee Festival Scotland (Across Scotland)

18^th: Kelvingrove Outdoor Ceilidh (Glasgow, Scotland)

18^th – 19^th: Yardworks Street Art & Graffiti Festival (Glasgow, Scotland)

26^th: Glasgow Mela (Glasgow, Scotland)

29^th – Jul 3^rd: East Neuk Festival (Fife, Scotland)

Literary Awards & Prizes

Winners

CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Awards

Nibbies (British Book Awards)

Pulitzer Prize for Literature

Tir na n-Og Welsh Awards

Shortlists

The Royal Society Young People’s Prize

Literature & Culture news

Interesting articles

Burn-Proof Edition of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Up for Auction – Huffpost

David Byrne’s New Illustrated Book Playfully Presents A History of the World (in Dingbats font) – Open Culture

High School Activist Given PEN Award for Organising Protests Against ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill – Book Riot

The Stories that Shaped Ukraine – BBC

What Your favourite Book genre Says About You – Times of India

April 2022 Roundup – Shawlands Academy School Library

Pop-Up Library

Challenges and Contests

We’ll also continue to promote our range of challenges and contests, including Bookopoly, Ask Me What I’m Reading, and our Heartstopper colouring contest to celebrate the series release on Netflix.

The deadline for the Heartstopper colouring contest is Friday, May 20^th. One submission per pupil and each submission will be included into the prize draw where there are three Heartstopper prizes up for grabs. All submissions will also be included into the monthly School Library prize draw. There are even more ways to be included into the monthly prize draw, including returning a completed book review or Shelf Shouter, completing a genre on the Bookopoly board, or submitting a completed Ask me What I’m Reading sheet.

April/May Booklists

May 22 Booklists – Book Trust

Best new Children’s Books – Toppsta

Bookbug’s Books of the Month – Scottish Book Trust

Books of the Month – Love Reading 4 Kids

April Roundup – Love Reading

Book of the Month – Scholastic