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Digital Libraries are Open....And we love them for it.

Digital Libraries are Open....And we love them for it.

Libraries are no longer able to provide a physical space but their online game is strong. They are bringing you activities, storytimes and competitions to keep the kids (and adults) entertained. Monika from Tupu Youth Library keeping 'Wriggle and Rhyme' alive and well. When the lockdown kicked in and libraries had to close, many families were left short of our regular space to hang and our supply of reading material. While libraries can no longer provide a physical space for

School Librarians of Aotearoa: Youth Edition!

School Librarians of Aotearoa: Youth Edition!

New Zealand's young library assistants are passionate about reading and love recommending books to their peers. As it is the time of year our young people make decisions about leadership opportunities in the year ahead, we thought it was high time we featured some. Student librarians posing for the 2016 Raroa Normal Intermediate yearbook. Joshua H, Year 7, Raroa Normal Intermediate I wanted to be a school librarian to help people and be around books. I don't know why I lo

Queen Olivia St Redfern: Rainbow Story Time

Queen Olivia St Redfern: Rainbow Story Time

At The Sapling, we believe that books grow humans. Rainbow Story Time is a recent phenomenon helping to grow humans who aren't too hung up on the gender binary, and who are comfortable with who they are. Here to tell us all about its evolution in Aotearoa is Queen Olivia St Redfern! Image credit: Upper Hutt Library I vividly remember falling in love with Dame Edna Everage on a 1980s telethon somewhere between the age of five and ten. It wasn’t until many years later, as a reb

School Librarians of Aotearoa: Greig Daniels

School Librarians of Aotearoa: Greig Daniels

New Zealand's school librarians are passionate, engaged professionals who know how to get students of all ages and reading levels into reading. Greig Daniels is the Library Manager at Tokomairiro High School Library, in Otago. I’m currently the librarian at the Tokomairiro High School Library in Milton, South Otago. The school caters for students from Year 7 to 13. The current school roll is 260. Tokomairiro has a positive school attitude to literacy, and the library is well

School Librarians of Aotearoa: Kirsty Adam

School Librarians of Aotearoa: Kirsty Adam

New Zealand's school librarians are passionate, engaged professionals who know how to get students of all ages and reading levels into reading. Kirsty Adam is the Library Manager at James Hargest College, and also shares the role of President of SLANZA (alongside Julia Smith). I started at James Hargest College as the Library Manager in 2013. I had been working part-time at the Invercargill Public Library for several years while my children were young and I loved the way I sa

School Librarians of Aotearoa: Clare Forrest

School Librarians of Aotearoa: Clare Forrest

New Zealand's school librarians are passionate, engaged professionals who know how to get students of all ages and reading levels into reading. Clare Forrest works at Raroa Normal Intermediate, and is the sixth librarian featured in this segment. I have had the pleasure of being one of the librarians at Raroa Normal Intermediate for the last 11 years, starting out as a parent volunteer when my children (now adults) were attending the school, a journey made by many primary sch

School Librarians of Aotearoa: Adrienne

School Librarians of Aotearoa: Adrienne

New Zealand's school librarians are passionate, engaged professionals who know how to get students of all ages and reading levels into reading. This, by Adrienne Browne of Te Wharekura o Ruatoki – the longest-running bi-lingual school in New Zealand – is the fifth in this series. I work in the library at Te Wharekura o Ruatoki, which has around 200 students going from Year 1 – Year 13. I was asked to do this job after doing other bits and pieces around the school and of cours

School Librarians of Aotearoa: Ebenezer Moses

School Librarians of Aotearoa: Ebenezer Moses

New Zealand's school librarians are passionate, engaged professionals who know how to get students of all ages and reading levels into reading. This, by Ebenezer Moses of Tamaki College, is the fourth in our series about the School Librarians of Aotearoa. I have been the Librarian/Library Manager at the Sylvia Fausett Library of Tamaki College in Glen Innes, Auckland for the past ten years. I have 12 Student Librarians who come in shifts to assist me. I believe that students

School Librarians of Aotearoa: Julia Smith

School Librarians of Aotearoa: Julia Smith

New Zealand's school librarians are passionate, engaged professionals who know how to get students of all ages and reading levels into reading. This, by Julia Smith from Kerikeri High School is the third in our series. I am a qualified librarian working at Kerikeri High School, a Year 7-13 secondary school of 1,500 students in the Bay of Islands. I graduated from the Open Polytechnic in 2010 with a BAppSci in Information and Library Studies, about the same time as securing th

Ka pai! Cool stuff from around the internet

Ka pai! Cool stuff from around the internet

Every two weeks we compile, for your browsing pleasure, cool children's book happenings (and peripherally related news) from around Aotearoa, the world and the internet. Given we are all about adult conversations about children’s literature, it’s probably not too surprising that if we were in Dunedin, we’d be off to this event at Dunedin Public Library. A perfect event for budding children’s book illustrators is coming up at Selwyn College - go and learn how to create a chara

In the Stacks: a love letter to public libraries

In the Stacks: a love letter to public libraries

Kate De Goldi confesses the pleasures of reading 'off-task and off-curriculum', and describes how necessary public libraries are to the development of a love of reading. In my late teens and early twenties I worked as a library assistant in two Christchurch libraries – Redwood and Fendalton. They serviced quite different socio-economic catchments but both were heavily patronized and loved community hubs, flourishing under the leadership of the magnificent Dorothea Brown, a Du