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Letter from the President
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Top Secret Kids' Writing Camp
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Dear Colleagues, 
 It is the time in the SLA year when we are working hard on many, many things at once. The SLA Board and Staff are hard at work on conference planning, collecting materials for the Annual Report, planning the AGM, crunching data from the Membership survey, considering candidates for awards and bursaries, making advocacy efforts on issues that arise, and running elections for Board positions. The Diversity Pilot project that SLA is participating in this year is nearly done, and Judy is finalizing the report for our diversity plan going forward. Using information from this and from the Membership survey, we will be building the Strategic Plan for our association for 2015-18. Planning is underway for the strategic planning member consultation at the annual Conference too. This year, we are going to attempt to engage members early in the process of building committees, so that the committees can get started in June for the next year. Stay tuned for opportunities to get involved, meet people, and do good things. Meetings started last week with CLA and other provincial and national library associations, to build a new national federation. My head is spinning with all the things to work on (and from flu!), so I'm going to keep this short. Looking forward to seeing you at the Conference! Respectfully submitted, Gwen Schmidt 
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Multitype Library Board Representative 
Colleen Murphy, from the Dr. John Archer Library at the University of Regina, has been selected as the SLA representative to the Multitype Library Board for a two year term beginning March 5, 2015. Ms. Murphy has an extensive involvement in SLA and has worked in many of the Board positions. Congratulations on the position, Colleen! We appreciate your willingness to represent SLA in such a meaningful position. Also a nod of appreciation to Michael Shires who has just completed four years (two terms) in this role.
Election 2015 - the Result Are In
After a very successful (albeit down to the wire) nomination process with 6 candidates for 4 positions for the 2015-17 terms. The position of Vice-President, Advocacy and Development, was filled by acclamation by Nancy MacKenzie from Regina Public Library. The position of Treasurer had two candidates, Deborah McConkey and Sean Brooks, with Sean being selected as the new Treasurer. The two positions of Members at Large had three candidates, Greg Elliott, James Hope Howell, and Alison Jantz. Selected for these positions are: James Hope Howell from PNLS and Alison Jantz from the Theological Union in Saskatoon.
Congratulations to all the nominees, and welcome new board members!
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Saskatchewan Libraries Conference 2015
Saskatchewan Libraries: Open to All
at the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel
and Conference Centre
Send Pictures for a Conference PowerPoint: The theme, Saskatchewan Libraries: Open to All, provides a launching point for the work the SLA Board has been engaged in this year in developing a diversity policy and plan. Libraries around Saskatchewan and from all library sectors address diversity, in all its many forms, every day in their work. I am creating a PowerPoint for the conference that represents the diversity in your library and ways in which you are addressing it - programs, collections, approaches to your planning and policies. Whatever you can contribute will be valued. The best items of course are pictures - so the more pictures the better. Send them to: slaexdir@sasktel.net
Register: All presenters need to register if they are attending any part of the conference other than their own presentation. Early bird deadline is April 2, 2015, and registration closes April 26, 2015.
Networks: Please watch for a Newflash about Creative Collaborations Network. If you have another idea for a new network http://saskla.ca/networks , please contact Judy Nicholson, slaexdir@sasktel.net to get more information.
Not to get confused - this is for the 2016 Conference
Early planning is underway!! Announcing : Conference Tag Line and Logo Contest by April 30th
The 2016 Saskatchewan Libraries Conference Planning Committee is exploring themes which will help acknowledge, represent, and celebrate the Multitype Library Board's 20th Anniversary and its work for and with all library sectors in the province.
Send us suggestions for a tag line or phrase or logo and those chosen will be rewarded with a gift certificate. We would also like your input for speakers, presenters, or topics that could be included in the program including the Mary Donaldson Lecture. Submit your ideas to slaexdir@sasktel.net with your contact information. A panel of selected volunteers from the 2016 Conference Planning Committee will review all submissions and determine the phrase and logo that will promote the 2016 Conference in Saskatoon on May 5-7, 2016. The deadline for submissions is April 30, 2015. Do you have a little (or a lot) of time to help us? The Saskatchewan Library Association is seeking volunteers to assist at the annual Saskatchewan Libraries Conference at The Doubletree by Hilton in Regina May 7-9, 2015. There are a wide range of volunteer opportunities, and some benefits to volunteering. For more information, please contact Tasha Maddison at tasha.maddison@usask.ca or Elaina St. Onge at elaina.st.onge@uregina.ca .
The 2015 Mary Donaldson Memorial Lecture will be delivered by Gabrielle Scrimshaw.
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Young, avid writers meet at the Swift Current Branch Library every Monday night at 7p.m. These keen writers are instructed by author and children's programmer, Tekeyla Friday. She uses a variety of exercises from the web, the book Kids Write, by Rebecca Olien, and her own experience as an author to sharpen the skills of these pre-teen writers.
Tekeyla starts the camp off with creating idea books. The idea books are a notebook that is made from recycled book covers for the students to keep ideas, notes and stories in. She introduces them to beginnings, middles and endings as a way of demonstrating to the students strong stories.
She uses exercise like the box story which is a story inside a box. Characters wanted poster is an old west wanted poster with a picture of the character, its name, address, physical description, special features like super powers and other information. 
Story clothing exercise are jpg cut-out images of clothing like a hat, shirt, pants or skirt and shoes. You write your story's beginning on the hat, the middle on the shirt and pants/skirt and the ending of the shoes and then glue it all together. Storybird is a digital tool that the students can use to write stories using professional artwork. When they publish a story, they can order copies either by a PDF file or professionally printed. All these exercises are ways to encourage the students to write. By the end, the students have a number of finished or partly finished projects that are ready for polishing.
Each camp can be slightly different based on the needs of the students. Last November's Camp was based on essential story skills such as character building, plotting, vocabulary, setting and digital stories. For this year's program the students have requested more Storybird sessions, skills around novel writing and graphic novel writing and character development.
Tekeyla's aim for the program is to create a fun, safe and inviting environment where the pre-teens can continue to explore essential writing skills. Top Secret Kids' Writing Camp provides another form of literacy and gives a strong foundation for students to build a writing hobby or possibly as they grow older, a writing career. Whatever their creative writing interest are, she is happy to cater to them.
In addition Tekeyla posts samples on a wordpress blog that will be migrating over to www.chinooklibrary.ca under the Kids' News tab in a couple of weeks.
She has her own author's blog with articles that promote writing and has samples of past projects on it. https://authortekeylafriday.wordpress.com/
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The TD Summer Reading Club
Plans are well underway for 2015! 
For those of you who haven't seen them yet, the images for this year are here
Six things to know about the 2015 TD Summer Reading Club
Sister Library Program
If your library is interested in participating this year please complete the attached questionnaire and return to Marietta.mikova@bac-lac.gc.ca by April 15, 2015 . The French version is here
Saskatchewan Library Week will be held October 18-25 2015
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- Remains of Miguel de Cervantes found in a convent Read more
- Pop up festival shop permanent in Toronto Public Library Read more
 - Register now for the National Association of Archivists conference to be held in Regina June, 2015
- A Seed Library coming soon to Moose Jaw Read more
- Voices of Librarians Serving Indigenous Peoples of Canada: Sharing Sound Practices in Library Services" One Day Conference will be held on Tuesday, April 21, 2015 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. The registration form is here and the poster is here
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The Saskatchewan Community Literacy Fund provides up to $50,000 in one-time project funding to organizations that provide support to families (through family literacy programs) and/or adults (through basic and/or workplace literacy programs). Family literacy projects will address the early years, from birth to entering the formal school system and will allow for the transfer of language and cultural knowledge. Adult literacy projects will focus on basic literacy, employability skills and/or workplace literacy. Libraries are welcome to apply, either as the program provider or as a partner to another organization. The application form in English is here and in French here.
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Author James Patterson donates 1.25 million to school libraries Read more
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Friends of Canadian Libraries newsletter Focal available now
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Welcome back to Reading Town Read more
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Wilfred Laurier University Press to integrate with the Library Read more
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The Multitype Library Board (MLB) newsletter is available here
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Some delicious looking cakes inspired by literature
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Education Institute Webinars - for April - check them out!
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SALT Fall Workshop will be held on Friday, September 25, 2015. Library Technician Karen Hildebrandt will present You're not "Just" a Staff Member: You too can be instrumental in "Being the Change". In today's ""work place" every "worker" recognizes that change is inevitable but how do you adapt to change? How do you make it "work" for you? Karen Hildebrandt will present the above session at our fall workshop. For more information please contact Amy Weisgarber at amy.weisgarber@rqhealth.ca
SSLA Springs into Learning!
The Saskatchewan School Library Association had a very busy start to the year with our final Learning Event with David Lankes. If you still wish to hear all four Learning Event speakers - please register and you can listen to the archived events.
Thanks Chantelle Guillet-Anderson for all the hard work completing The Winter 2015 edition of SSLA's The Medium! You can find several interesting articles in this edition online
Every year at the annual conference, SSLA invites members to honor their own. This year there were three very deserving award winners. We appreciate and value the many contributions you have made on behalf of all Saskatchewan students.
* Bursary Award Winner Anita Hammond who is currently pursuing her Masters' degree at the University of Alberta
* The Connie Acton Award which recognizes individuals who have made a significant contribution to school library service in Saskatchewan was awarded to Diane Barsi of the Saskatoon Public School Division.
* And finally the John G. Wright Award was awarded in recognition of the very deserving Donna DesRoches who throughout her career has made numerous outstanding contributions to school libraries in Saskatchewan.
Take a bow and once again congratulations!
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