Events and announcements
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The Central
Branch of the Vancouver Public Library is celebrating its tenth
anniversary
at its new location with “Library square
at ten”. It is a ten-day celebration running from May
24th until June 2nd. The events will include information
tables, author readings
and performers. Check
it out here.
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Literacy
Nanaimo’s Brian O’Rooney is going to walk The Great
Walk again!
The Annual fundraising
event is sponsored by the Tahsis Lion Club and helps walkers raise
money for a charity- in this case, Literacy Nanaimo. It is a rugged
63.5 kilometer
walk from Gold River to Tahsis, on Vancouver Island and Brian is
going to try to beat his previous record of 9 hours and ten minutes.
He is
collecting pledges, so contact him at Brian@LiteracyNanaimo.org
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Project
Literacy Victoria is having a pre-PGI celebration June 7th: “The night before the PGI with Arthur Black”,
at the Strathcona Hotel. The tickets are $20 and can be purchased
by calling
(250) 381-3755
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The Victoria
READ Society is having a student book launch June 15th,
at 3:30, featuring Art Boudreau’s Elephant Mountain.
For more information, see
their invitation here.
- A call
for writers! Ningwakwe Learning Press in
Ontario is looking for writings from Aboriginal adult writers from
across
Canada
for the third volume of Journeys of the Spirit.
World of Books and Libraries
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In May, Statistics
Canada released a report examining at the state of school libraries
in Canada, and what it revealed is disturbing.
Although the vast majority of elementary and secondary schools
had libraries in 2003 and 2004, they tended to be suffering from
under-funding
and
understaffing. The report, available in PDF, is entitled Canadian
school libraries and teacher-librarians: results from the 2003/4
information and
communication
technologies in
schools survey.
This is not the first time that the situation in which school libraries
find themselves has been highlighted. In June 2003, Dr. Ken Haycock
released his report entitled The
crisis in Canada’s school
libraries: the case for reform and reinvestment .
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The winners
of the Red Cedar Book Award for children’s
books were announced this month and the honours go to Parvana’s
Journey by Deborah Ellis for fiction and Hana’s
Suitcase by Karen
Levine for non-fiction. The list of the 2005-2006 nominees are
posted on the Award’s website here.
The winners are determined by a BC-wide vote among participating
grade
4-7 students.
The Award was established in 1996 to encourage literacy among youth,
and promote quality Canadian books.
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