Electronic Newsletter of The Oregon Educational Media Association

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Volume 19 No.6 February, 2007

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CONTENTS:

the "official" letter ----- Allan Kopf

1. Mock Caldecott -- Karen Fischer
2. LSTA Battle of the Books Committee -- Debbie Alvarez *IMPORTANT DEADLINE*
3. Scholarship Committee -- Kate Vance
4. Paraprofessional Blog -- Meg Miranda
5. Ballot Preview (reprise) -- Jim Tindall
6. Notes from the February Board Meeting -- Jenny Takeda
7. OEMA directory -- Allen Kopf
8. Conference Update -- Janet Setness
9. State Library Newspaper Clippings -- Patty Sorensen
10.OSLIS update -- Patty Sorensen

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FROM THE PRESIDENT --- Allen Kopf

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January has come and gone with many important events happening in OEMA.

Oregon Battle of the Books
The Oregon Battle of the Books (OBOB) Committee met on Saturday, January 13th at Ridgewood Elementary School in the Beaverton School District under the leadership of Debbie Alavarez, committee chair. The committee has been working hard to develop plans and protocol for the beginning of the statewide Battle of the Books contest, which is made possible by an LSTA grant through the Oregon State Library. Next steps will be to choose the book titles and the schools that will receive the first free books to use with the contest.
Please note that any school in Oregon can be part of the Oregon Battle of the Books program, but only 50 schools will be chosen to receive the books free of charge for the 2007-08 school year.
Please look for more information on the OEMA website at www.oema.net/. When you go to the site you will find a letter from the OBOB Committee with more information and an application form that you can complete to apply for books to help you hold an exciting contest at you very own school.

2007 Fall Conference in Seaside
The OEMA 2007 Fall Conference Committee met on Saturday, January 13th. Janet Setness, Library Media Specialist at Marshall High School in Portland, is the conference chair. She is working with a number of experienced conference planners including Kathy Jensen, Jeri Petzel, Margo Jensen, JoAnn Klassen, and Jim Hayden. There are also a number of committee members who are new to conference planning on the committee this year, who will become experts by conference time.
If you wish to help the committee or if you would like to be a concurrent presenter, please contact Janet at jsetness@pps.k12.or.us.
The OEMA Fall Conference will be held at the Seaside Convention Center in Seaside, Oregon on October 12 and 13, 2007. Please put those dates on your calendar.

OEMA Ballots
Please watch for your OEMA ballot. It will be sent to you through the OEMA Listserv and you can vote online. There are two issues that need your attention. Both are OEMA Bylaws changes. The first is a question about changing the name of the association from Oregon Educational Media Association (OEMA) to Oregon Association of School Libraries (OASL). The second is language changes in the OEMA bylaws. The OEMA Board is recommending a "Yes" vote on both of these issues. There is a link in the ballot that will take you to the OEMA web page where there is more information about the changes. Last, there is the election of officers. This year, we have two candidates running for the office of OEMA President-elect. In addition, you will be voting on OEMA members who are running for several other offices. Please let your voice be heard by voting when you receive your ballot on February 12.

Spring Regional Conferences
Representatives from each OEMA Region have been working on the 2007 OEMA Regional Spring Conferences. The schedule is as follows:

Regions 1 and 4, March 10, 2007
Contact Edith Fuller, Region 1 efuller@pps.k12.or.us
or Debbie Alvarez, Region 4 Deborah_Alvarez@beavton.k12.or.us for more information.
Location: Catlin Gabel School Library

Regions 2 and 3, Saturday, February 24, 2007
Contact Carol Dinges, Region 2 Carol_Dinges@lebanon.k12.or.us for more information.
Location: Cal Young Middle School, Eugene, OR

Region 5, Date TBA. (Probably April 7, 2007)
Contact Kelly Bryant Kelly_Bryant@soesd.k12.or.us for more information.
Location: Southern Oregon ESD, Medford, OR

Region 6, April 14, 2007
Contact Jan Nichols, Region 6 Representative, Jan.Nichols@hermiston.k12.or.us for more information.
Location: Hermiston High School Library, Hermiston, OR

Region 7, April 13, 2007
Contact Pam Hankins, Region 7 Representative, phankins@fossil.k12.or.us for more information.
Location: Mitchell School Library, Mitchell, OR

Please mark your calendar and attend a Regional Conference in your area this spring.

Oregon Library Legislative Day
Also please remember to mark February 7, 2007 on your calendar. It is Oregon Library Legislative Day. For more information, please contact Jim Tindall. tindallj@nwasco.k12.or.us.

Renew Membership
I want to remind you to renew your OEMA membership, if you have not done so this year. And I encourage you to seek out one other librarian, school library paraprofessional, teacher, or an interested parent and ask that person to join OEMA. I believe that we are making good progress toward our membership goal, but we need to continue to look for potential members and invite them to join OEMA. Thank you for your support and help with this issue.

Best wishes to you for a productive February.
Allen

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FROM THE MEMBERSHIP

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1. MOCK CALDECOTT ----- Karen Fischer

Forty librarians, artists and teachers attended the 2007 Mock Caldecott Workshop on January 6th at Springfield Public Library. Nell Colburn and Steven Engelfried provided an excellent overview of The Caldecott Award process and various aspects to consider when examining art in picture books.
Following Caldecott Award Guidelines, the group selected Sky Boys, illustrated by James E. Ransome and written by Oregon author, Deborah Hopkinson as their winner.

Honor Books chosen included:
Little Mama Forgets, illustrated by Stacey Dressen-McQueen and written by Robin Cruise;
John, Paul, George & Ben, illustrated and written by Lane Smith;
Flotsam, illustrated and written by David Weisner

Other titles considered were:
Adele & Simon, illustrated & written by Barbara McClintock
Jazz, illustrated by Christopher Myers & written by Walter Dean Myers
The Little Red Hen, illustrated & written by Jerry Pinkney
Ballet of the Elephants, illustrated by Robert Andrew Parker & written by Leda Schubert
So Sleepy Story, illustrated & written by Uri Shulevitz
Mama: A True Story, illustrated & written by Jeanette Winter

2. LSTA Battle of the Books Committee ----- Debbie Alvarez *IMPORTANT DEADLINE*

Greetings Educator!

Oregon Educational Media Association has been awarded a Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant to create a statewide Oregon Battle of the Books program for two divisions: grades 3-5 and grades 6-9. This program is known for encouraging students to read and participate in friendly competition in a manner similar to the College Bowl format. The LSTA Oregon Battle of the Books Grant team encourages you to see how you can be involved and receive free books for your school!

The Oregon Battle of the Books (OBOB) competition poses questions based on 16 books selected from a variety of genres. Teams of students race to answer the questions and earn points for correct responses. Half of the questions require students to supply the title/author of a book, while the other questions will supply the title/author of a book and students will be required to answer specific questions about the book. School level questions will be provided for all schools participating in OBOB.

Participation in OBOB is open to all Oregon schools (public and private). Oregon battles will consist of 16 titles per division. School level questions for all 16 books, a procedure handbook and other information will be sent to all participating schools to guide them in setting up the OBOB program.

Schools will have the opportunity to apply for the LSTA OBOB Grant. The grant will fund participation in the OBOB program for 50 schools in the 2007-08 school year and 100 schools for the 2008-09 school year. However, schools may not be awarded funding for both years. The grant will pay for 12 titles (five copies each). Participating schools will need to purchase additional copies of the other four titles. Schools who participate in the project the first year will of course be encouraged to continue participation with local funding. Once students get involved in the program they will want to continue.

We are excited to bring this program to the school libraries in Oregon and wish to express a huge thank you to State Librarian Jim Scheppke and OEMA board for their support for this project.
Please complete the application to participate in OBOB and return it to lsta_oema@yahoo.com by Tuesday, February 6th, 2007.
See www.oema.net website for more information.

Sincerely,
LSTA OBOB Grant team

3. Scholarship Committee ----- Kate Vance

The Oregon Educational Media Association is proud to announce its 2007-2008 Scholarship Program.

A scholarship of $800.00 is being offered by OEMA to undergraduate students working toward an educational media endorsement or individuals studying at the graduate level in the fields of educational media/instructional technology. The scholarship grant may be used to assist the recipient to further his/her education in a summer session or academic year of study at any accredited college or university in Oregon. The recipients will be selected by the OEMA Scholarship Committee.
Scholarship money must be used between July 1, 2007-June 30, 2008.

The recipient must belong to OEMA. Selections are based on the following:

The award will be based upon applicants' potential for professional contribution in the field of educational media/instructional technology. (Applicants are asked to provide a written statement of 300 words or less describing their professional goals.)
Applicants must be Oregon residents or submit proof of employment in Oregon for the school year 2005-2006.
Applicants must include experience related to the field of educational media, communications or technology, such as employment, field experience, course work, service to the field through OEMA activities, and membership in other professional organizations, etc.
Two letters of recommendation from persons familiar with the candidate's professional qualifications and leadership potential must be submitted with the application.
A copy of the transcript for work completed is required at the conclusion of the term.
The scholarship recipient must submit a 5x7 color or black/white photograph upon notification of the award.

If you wish to receive verification of receipt of your application materials by OEMA, please include a SELF-ADDRESSED STAMPED POSTCARD with your completed application form.

Deadline for submission of all application forms and letters of recommendations is May 1, 2007.

Judging results will be sent to all applicants on or before July 1, 2007.
Application forms are available on the OEMA website at http://www.oema.net under "Scholarships/ Awards."
Requests for application forms may also be made by e-mail to katevance@hotmail.com or in writing to Kate Vance at the address below.
Selection of finalists and award amounts is subject to budget restraints and quality of the applicant pool.
All forms and letters should be sent to:

Kate Vance, OEMA Scholarship
13280 NW Lovejoy Street
Portland, OR 97229

4. Paraprofessional Blog ----- Meg Miranda

The blog devoted to OEMA paraprofessionals is finally up and running.
The URL is http://oemaclassified.blogspot.com
Paraprofessional members of the Oregon Education Media Association can share information and thoughts. Open to all OEMA members but special emphasis is on the paraprofessional library media staff.

It certainly pays to attend the OEMA conference. I learned about setting up blogs in one of the concurrent sessions and lived to use the information!

5. Ballot Preview (reprise) ----- Jim Tindall

One more chance to think about the candidates and issues before the big event. Read the following in preparation for February's election on bylaws changes, including a proposed organizational name change, and on the election of officers.
Please look for your e-ballot in February; exercise your right of membership and vote.

BYLAWS REVISION
The full text of OEMA's Bylaws revision is located at the following link (note that the proposed name change of the organization appears in Article One.) You will be voting whether or not to change the name of our organization to the Oregon Association of School Libraries.
http://www.oema.net/board/bylaws.html

CANDIDATES
The following positions are up for election this year. The candidates were asked to submit biographies of approximately 100 words in length, and the text that follows is from the candidate unedited.

PRESIDENT-ELECT

Deanna Draper
Beaverton School District: library media teacher for 22 years at Beaverton High & Sunset High. Portland State University: adjunct instructor in library media program for 25 years, currently the academic adviser for the program.
OEMA: formerly a Region 1 rep and a member of the Legislative Committee; Presented at several conferences.
OLA: served on the resource sharing committee and the legislative committee.
Washington County Library (WCCLS) board: school representative on the professional board, member of the committee that studied & selected the system's first automated library management system, chair of the WCCLS professional board in 1985.
Oregon State Library: member of the LSTA advisory committee. Northwest Council for Computer education: president and conference planner.
Merrie Olson
I have been the Librarian at Thurston High School for ten years and for six years have sat on the District Advisory Committee for librarians. Previously, I worked five years at Pleasant Hill High School Library.
I have been a member of OEMA for twelve years, holding such jobs as Secretary, Intellectual Freedom, and Treasurer. I was chosen by OEMA for Secondary Library Media Teacher of the Year for 2003.
I would like OEMA to become an even stronger statewide organization, recognized for its contribution to professional school librarians and paraprofessionals.

TREASURER

Victoria McDonald
Experienced with other people's money where accuracy and diligence to detail are important.
La Salle's library budget is locally controlled by me and has been for the last 12 years. I am the NCLB grant coordinator for the school keeping records of requests and disbursements. Outside school I have served as the secretary/treasurer for the Rosewood neighborhood association, as the registrar for Wil-Lo-Linn Girl Scout Day Camp, as the treasurer for a Girl Scout troop and a Girl Scout cookie mom and am therefore very familiar with keeping meticulous records. I have served on the OSLIS committee for 1+ years.
I am the library media specialist at LaSalle High School.

MIDDLE SCHOOL REPRESENTATIVE

Rebecca Brown
Rebecca Brown has twenty years teaching experience at both the elementary and middle school levels, ten of those years as a library teacher in the North Clackamas School District.
While she is currently teaching in the classroom, due to the recent elimination of all k-8 library teachers in her district, she plans on returning to a library teaching position when possible. She continues to grow professionally by consistently attending the OEMA fall conferences, keeping current with professional literature and listserves, leading a weekly family storytime at the Clackamas County Library, and managing the library at her son's elementary school.

DISTRICT REPRESENTATIVE

Emily Crawford
Emily Crawford is a teacher-librarian at Harold Oliver Intermediate in Centennial School District. Previously, she was the teacher-librarian at Rosemont Ridge Middle School in West Linn-Wilsonville School District. She received a Masters of Education from Portland State University in 2004, along with an Educational Media Endorsement.
More recently, Emily has returned to PSU to finish a Masters of Library Media Science and receive a graduate certificate in "Children's and Young Adult Literature".
Outside the "library world," Emily is the mother of four children, whose ages range from 1 to 12. She and her family live in Sherwood, Oregon, which she proudly announces "has a new library!" In the future, she would like to write children's books, teach at the university level, and be an active member of OEMA.
Melinda Moorefield
In my twenty-four years in the Amity School District I have been an elementary school, middle school and high school librarian, full time, half time and 4/5 time. While working as a librarian, I have also taught second grade reading, fourth and fifth grade social studies and TAG.
Currently I am a high school art teacher for two periods, in addition to being "district librarian" for our three schools.
In short, like every librarian, I've done it all!
For the past six months, I have filled in as District Rep for OEMA and if given the opportunity, I would like to continue serving in this capacity. OEMA is an invaluable resource and I would like to stay involved.

HIGHER EDUCATION REPRESENTATIVE

Ruth Murray
Ruth Murray, MS in Library Media from Portland State University, has taught English and theater for 20 years before becoming a library media specialist in Gresham-Barlow School District in 1993.
From 1995 through the present, she has served as the library media specialist at Athey Creek Middle School in West Linn. She has taught in Portland Community College's Instructor for Library Assistant Program and Portland State University's Educational Media/Librarianship Master's degree for the last 14 years.
She is a current board member of the Oregon Educational Media Association and has been awarded the Library Media Specialist of the Year and Teacher of the Year. If elected she would like to research how to develop a relationship between the many Classified men and women running libraries and Educational institutions within the state that may offer training for them.
She deeply believes in the importance of OEMA and has served on the OEMA almost continuously for the last 15 years.

6. February Board Meeting ----- Jenny Takeda

The 35th birthday of OEMA was celebrated with a special cake.
The OEMA Board gave Gregory Lum the go ahead to continue working with the Oregon Library Association (OLA) to plan a joint OEMA/OLA conference in 2010. More information will be shared as details are worked out. Tentative plans are for the conference to occur in late February/early March of 2010. The Board agreed not to hold a regular fall conference in 2009 so that members would not have to attend 2 conferences in the same school year.
The Board approved changing the OEMA Listserv to an opt-out listserv so members will automatically be subscribed to the listserv.
The Board approved allocating any unspent budget for Library Legislative Day to $2000 to cover expenses for the Read Poster Project in which a READ poster is being produced for any interested State Legislators.
The Board voted to change our policy for mileage reimbursement for committee and board meetings beginning July 1, 2007. The first 50 miles will not be reimbursed and will be deducted from the mileage calculation.
Updates were given on work being done on the five OEMA Board goals. Information was provided about the new Memberclicks component of the website.

7. OEMA directory ----- Allen Kopf

The OEMA Board adopted a goal at its 2006 Summer Retreat to develop and provide an online directory for OEMA members. That directory is now available. To find the directory, go to the OEMA web page at http://www.oema.net/ > MemberClicks Member Login. Enter your Username and Password.
Username = firstnamelastname. Password = your zip code.
Next, click on View All and follow directions at the top of the page.

There were two reasons for the decision to replace the print directory with an online version. First, when a directory is printed it becomes static and users cannot see changes until a new directory is printed, while directory information online can be changed easily and users can be view the new information soon after a change has been made. Secondly, the cost of printing and mailing a directory in print format to each member has become increasingly more expensive at a time when OEMA needs to expend its resources more carefully.

The OEMA Board charged the committee, under the leadership of President-elect Gregory Lum and JoAnn Klassen, Membership Chair, to find a solution. You can now see the results of their work on our website. You will not be receiving an OEMA Directory in print form this year. If you need one, you may print your own directory from the web site.

8. Fall Conference News ----- Janet Setness

The theme for the Fall 2007 Conference Oct. 12th and 13th at Seaside is "Making Waves--Sneaker, Surfing, and Tsunami Ideas".
Grace Butler (Saturday sessions), Robin Rolfe (Friday sessions) and Linda Campillo (authors) met on Sat. Jan. 27th and began working out sessions and presenters and authors. It was an exciting meeting and we'll let you know more as the work progresses. In the meantime, if you have a sneaker, surfing, or tsunami wave idea, or if you are burning up with a passion to present, please let us know!

I personally want to thank all of you who have forwarded ideas and presenter names to us from the very start. Allen and other board members have been very diligent in getting things to me and it has helped the committee's work tremendously.

Janet Setness jsetness@comcast.net
Grace Butler grace_butler@beavton.k12.or.us
Robin Rolfe rrolfe5@yahoo.com
Linda Campillo campillo@comcast.net

9. State Library Newspaper Clippings ----- Patty Sorensen

At the State Library we use a Newspaper Clipping Service that sends us most of the library related newspapers articles which are published statewide. I just browsed through about 125 articles from mid-November to mid-December.
There were two school library articles.

Congratulations to Cedaroak Park Primary in West Linn for their article about the fourth grade student who introduced Patricia Harrison Eason at our OEMA Fall Conference and to Newby School in McMinnville for their article about the purchase of books from a memorial fund set up for a beloved teacher.

I'd like to encourage EVERYONE to be proactive about working with your local news writers to cover your school library activities. There are MANY fabulous activities and learning experiences occurring school libraries in the state of Oregon. Challenge yourself to see if you can get at least one story published each year.
If you need additional help, please consider using OEMA resources like Nancy Sullivan, Promo Chair, nsulliva@pps.k12.or.us or Jim Tindall, Past-President, tindallj@nwasco.k12.or.us.
I'd love to read more about all of the activities taking place in the great school libraries in our state.

10. OSLIS update ----- Patty Sorensen

Update Your OSLIS Address Please
For the past two years OSLIS has been operating with two web addresses:
http://www.oslis.k12.or.us and http://www.oslis.org .
We have been asking users to switch to the www.oslis.org address since then, but continued to keep the k12 address active. We are finding that we can not effectively ensure that the old address oslis.k12.or.us will include updates, revisions, etc. Some of the user issues that are being reported to us are due to the use of the old web address for OSLIS.

As of Feb. 6th, the old OSLIS website http://www.oslis.k12.or.us will redirect users to the new website. PLEASE communicate this with folks throughout your school and district. Be sure that your weblinks, bookmarks, etc. are updated to the correct address. Some of your old computer bookmarks, etc. to many of the resources beyond the homepages such worksheets, lessons may not redirect as they may have been relocated on the new website.

Please update and use links from http://www.oslis.org

Hopefully most of you have already updated the web address by now. We definitely don't want to have classes, teachers, students, administrators, librarians, etc. inconvenienced if they find their old website links not functioning correctly. Please make this a priority action item and work with your tech folks to update the OSLIS.ORG address. THANKS!

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Linda Ague
Librarian
Cal Young Middle School
541 687-3234__________
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