SLAV Meeting March 17 2010

I hadn't been to a SLAV regional meeting for some time, because they're usually held at Landmark in Essendon and it's simply not possible to get there in time from my current campus of Sunshine College. They happen about once a term and are usually worth attending.

However, this time the meeting was going to be at Overnewtyn College, a wealthy private school out in the middle of nowhere and the decision has been made for future meetings to happen at schools in the region. This is a good idea, because some time I can offer my own school.

Meanwhile, I had to get a lift and Penny Geoghan, head of the network, organised one for me with Marion Treiber, a lady who works at a deaf school in North Sunshine.

It's always good to catch up with other library staff, something I don't have much chance to do. It was interesting to hear everyone's stories and I learned that other schools are worse off than mine, including one private Catholic school where the library was run by a technician, who has no offsider and looks after 500 students. "Lunchtime? What's that?" she quipped. Schools are really, really going cheap these days, despite their loud declarations about the importance of literacy. Bring on the Federal investigation into school libraries!

Meanwhile, I made sure I was there because the topic of the meeting was supposed to be blogs. I was hoping that my questions would be answered, because last year I attended a conference where I learned about Global Teacher, that lets you do a library blog or a classroom blog. I'd had a go, but was having problems.

Unfortunately, the subject was not brought up till well into the meeting and then mainly to talk about the SLAV blog.I'm sure it will be useful and will certainly take a look, but that wasn't what I'd gone to the meeting to do. I must have misunderstood the theme advertised and am very glad that I didn't bring along one of our English staff as I'd planned to do.

I did ask if anyone was using Global Teacher and would like to talk about it, but it was late in the meeting and Mary Manning suggested that it might be best to take on the on-line course SLAV is offering. If I do, it won't be for the blogging section, because I already have one, I just want to find out why some aspects aren't working for me. I will email around and see if anyone can discuss it.