School’s Out For Summer

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Hello again!

It’s the last day of term and what a term it’s been. I just wanted to say goodbye and good luck to all the pupils and teachers who are leaving for pastures new.

 

Your Library Service

Meanwhile, everything is a little up in the air with regards to schools returning in August. We may or may not have to change the library service. If social distancing is still in place and you can’t access the library to browse in the usual way, a ‘click and collect’ service will be in place for pupils to request books or I can recommend books for you (if you dare J). I’ll keep you up to date on the blog and Twitter if there are any changes.

 

Accessing Ebooks

Hopefully, we’ll have some sunny weather over the holidays; a perfect chance to have a nice, relaxing day reading in the park or garden. Or, if not, a nice, relaxing read on the sofa/beanbag/bed. A reminder that pupils, ex-pupils, parents and teachers can all access Glasgow Libraries ebooks, emagazines, audio books and music: https://libcat.csglasgow.org/web/arena/home.

All you need is your library card number (D00….) and your PIN. I am the gatekeeper of the All Saints’ PINs! So, if any pupils or teachers need their PIN please email me: gw17clarkepamela@glow.ea.glasgow.sch.uk

 

Summer Reading Challenge

The Summer Reading Challenge 2020 is now on!  This is open for those up to the age of 12 in Glasgow so why not sign up? Check out the resources here: https://summerreadingchallenge.org.uk/

 

Transition Skills Programme

Going to college and university can be exciting and scary at the same time, not least as it will be a big change from school. Fear not! The Transition Skills Programme provided by Queen’s University Belfast will equip you with some skills and information to make your transition smoother and hopefully less scary. I completed all the modules and quizzes and thankfully passed them all. Phew! You can access it here: https://www.qub.ac.uk/elearning/transition-skills/

 

Have a wonderful summer holiday everyone!

End of the year post!

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The blog has been a bit quiet of late as we prepare for any changes that may or may not take place as of August! As you can probably imagine, the library and the service it provides might look slightly different from what we are all used to.

Firstly, we will need to provide you with books remotely. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to browse books in the way you used to. On the plus side, everyone will be able to request any books or authors they want and if you let me know what sort of books you enjoy reading then I can do all the work for you and find something I’ll think you enjoy! These will likely be done on a class to class basis and I can even also bring your requested books down to you. Any individual requests can be made by emailing me directly: gw19mcgregormark@glow.ea.glasgow.sch.uk

We will also be further promoting our online services to you throughout the year. The good news is that we now have Borrowbox and Freegal on your school iPads and we are hoping to have more by August! You can access any of the eLibrary features here: https://libcat.csglasgow.org/web/arena/home. To access them, all you need is your library card number (the D00… one above the barcode) and your PIN (I can provide that! Just let me know).

Events might also look different but we will work with everyone to make sure that we can still bring you some excellent author events throughout the year, regardless of what restrictions may or may not be in place!

Finally, I would like to say thanks again to all the pupils and staff at the Gaelic School for making me feel welcome and for supporting me in my first few months with the school. I am looking forward to next year already, whatever form it might take. I will try and use this summer to work on my Gaelic!

Enjoy your summer break! You’ve earned it!

End of the year post!

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You might have noticed that I have been a bit quiet on the old blog front lately. I have been busy trying to devise the weird and wonderful ways in which I can continue to provide a service to you in times of social distancing.

As we well know, things are not set in stone and everything is subject to change. However, assuming that we are sticking to our current plans, then the library will look slightly different for a little while.

Firstly, we will need to provide you with books remotely. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to browse books in the way you used to. On the plus side, everyone will be able to request any books or authors they want and if you let me know what sort of books you enjoy reading then I can do all the work for you and find something I’ll think you enjoy! These will likely be done on a class to class basis and I can even also bring your requested books down to you. Any individual requests can be made by emailing me directly: gw19mcgregormark@glow.ea.glasgow.sch.uk

We will also be further promoting our online services to you throughout the year. The good news is that we now have Borrowbox and Freegal on your school iPads and we are hoping to have more by August! You can access any of the eLibrary features here: https://libcat.csglasgow.org/web/arena/home. To access them, all you need is your library card number (the D00… one above the barcode) and your PIN (I can provide that! Just let me know).

Events might also look different but we will work with everyone to make sure that we can still bring you some excellent author events throughout the year, regardless of what restrictions may or may not be in place!

As for clubs, namely the Manga Club, we will need to have a look at where we are in August but it is my sincerest hope that we can get any clubs or groups back up and running as soon as possible. 

Finally, I would like to again take an opportunity to thank all the pupils and staff at St. Andrew’s for making me feel welcome and part of the team in my first school year. It has been a challenging year and next year looks set to come with its own challenges but we will get through it and can look forward to a Library Grand Re-Opening party when everyone is allowed to visit the library again.

Enjoy your summer break everyone. You’ve definitely earned it!

Italian Read Trip

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Hello Readers!

“Habemus Italian Read Trip”! Yes, it’s finally finished!

It has taken weeks and I’ve involved Italian librarians, Scottish school librarians, Scottish English teachers and Mr Foschetti, who has made the wonderful map.. As you will read, this project was inspired by two of our amazing librarians, who have also supported me: THANK YOU!

One of the reasons why I’ve pulled this together is because many (if not most!) of our library assistants and school teachers have asked me more information about Italy, and were planning to visit it this summer. I thought to substitute the restaurants tips with books suggestions, I hope you will find the right match for you!

I have also thought of the Italy experts and added some questions for you to see how much you know.

Here is the flipbook: http://www.flipbookpdf.net/web/site/f748b808425ee11b127eedaf1f13f0e17eb67e8a202006.pdf.html#page/1

Enjoy your itinerant reading!

Pride month

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Happy Pride month to everyone!

To celebrate, this month’s post will be about how the school LGBT+ club and the library have worked together to create a more inclusive space.

The first step was looking at a very inclusive library (and one of Ms Spaltro’s favourite): the Glasgow Women Library. In October Ms McMillan, the librarian and the LGBT+ club visited the GWL guided by the archivist, Nicola Maksymuik and one of the volunteers, May. We saw unique material and art works; but also discussed equality and respect. Very actual, isn’t it? A new hobby was also discovered: badge making! So loved by everyone that Ms McMillan bought a badge maker for our school as well.

This event – and a Glasgow school librarians training – has encouraged us to fill our library with rainbow flags labels. After a library assistants meeting, it was decided to stick a rainbow flag on the spine of every LGBT+ friendly book in the library, to help every reader to find books with LGBT+ themes. It took months to be ready, but the success was immediate. A handful of pupils from the LGBT+ club became our book reviewers: they have been in charge of reading the new books and identifying if they were LGBT+ friendly and suggesting them to the other pupils. Some titles? Giant Days by John Allison, Heartstopper by Alice Oseman and The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta.

February is the LGBT+ history month and has meant for our assistant lots of debates while they have prepared an amazing book display with a rainbow flag donated by the drama department. Not to forget the brilliant badges and informative material that the Creative Industries class has produced and distributed across the school.

The cherry on the top of the cake has been the brilliant event with Dean Atta thanks to the Wee Write! festival. Meanwhile the library team was working on a more inclusive space; Mr Beaton’s S2 class took part in Words that burn project (check the previous post) and Dean Atta was one of the authors involved. The librarian was so impressed that when the opportunity came up, Ms Spaltro wanted the pupils to meet him. Our LGBT+ readers made sure that every pupil who was going to take part in the event had read the Black Flamingo and prior to the event we chatted about the book for weeks. After having listened to the author’s presentation, we discussed coming out, families, integration and Drag Queens. It has been absolutely stunning to see the pupils so engaged and informed. So proud of them and thanks a lot to the Wee Write! Festival team and of course Dean Atta for inspiring us all.

What’s next? 

Keep having these bookish conversations that encourage events and activities, keep hosting inspiring authors and support every library user to feel confident and welcome in the library. Last but not least, we are working hard to achieve a bronze LGBT+ chart for our school!

For the events pictures, please check our twitter account: @KsSchoolLibrary

Creative Writing Competition Winner

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Just a dandy and his octopus, nothing to see here.

Last month, in the Library’s first lockdown competition, I posted the photo to the right on all the library’s social media accounts, and on Lourdes Secondary’s pupils’ Teams, and invited pupils to create a 500 word story, a 10 line poem, a 10 minute maximum short film, or a panel of maximum 10 panels.

There were some wonderfully creative responses, in the form of short stories and poems. Each entry was very original and imaginative, and I was impressed by the quality of the writing submitted.  But one entry stood out, not just because the story was so imaginative, but also because it was an unusual and clearly well-thought out response to the picture. The author herself described her thoughts thus:

I decided to write a story using the image. When I saw the image, I thought of Charlie and the chocolate factory, so I incorporated the theme of sweets. I also took the side theme of poverty and how it restricts people.

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Words that burn project

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Hello readers,

I thought of refreshing us in this difficult time with some happy memories from the brilliant ‘words that burn’ project we took part in.

First things first, Words that burn is a national project to explore and express human rights through poetry. Amazing, isn’t it?

The first meeting was held by the poet Ash Dickinson showed us that we can all create poems and put us in a creative mood. Amnesty International representatives launched the project and after an introduction to human rights they divided us in small groups to work on our poems about some of them.

Some of us didn’t even know what a poetry slam was, until we attended one in the Mitchell library theatre. We were incredibly lucky to see the talented Dean Atta, Anita Govan and Jenny Lindsay performing. They were very inspiring, and we have talked about their poems for weeks.

After the encouraging workshop held by Anita Govan, our pupils were ready to take part in the Hillhead Library Local Poetry Slam Competition.

Every group showed great talent and bright minds, and we were very proud when one of our groups won with a sharp poem about climate change.

The last step would have been a final poetry slam in the Mitchell Library, where pupils from all the twelve participating schools would have the chance to see performing few selected pupils and grab a copy of their poems anthology. Unfortunately, we had to postpone this event; but this doesn’t prevent us from sharing our happy memories.

This project wouldn’t have been possible without the support of Amnesty International, SLIC, Glasgow Life and the poets who have collaborated with us. 

Also a huge thank you goes to Knightswood Secondary School, in particular Mr Beaton and his S2 class.

For those who want to know more about the UDHR there is a very good online course about it on Futurelearn at this link:

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/the-universal-declaration-of-human-rights

For now, this is all.  

We hope to be able to share with you our poems and physical celebration soon!

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FREE eMagazines with RB Digital

RBdigital eMagazines is a great app which lets you read digital copies of your favourite magazines for FREE. You just need your school library card to register.

You can access RBdigital using the mobile Apps for Apple, Android and Kindle Fire or through a media player on your PC.

The are no loan periods and no limits to the number of titles you can read.

To get started:

  • Launch the app store or play store on your device (I’d recommend a tablet if you have one).
  • Search for RBdigital using the search bar.
  • Download the app.
  • Open the app when the download is complete.

It’s really easy to register. Just search for Glasgow Libraries and enter your library membership details (remember Mr Wason can give you these if you don’t already have them).

You now have access to a huge range of top quality, up-to-date magazines on a wide range of subjects. All with a few taps of your finger!