IASL International Awards Programme:

IASL/SIRS INTERNATIONAL COMMENDATION AWARD

This award was to give recognition to outstanding and innovative projects, plans, programmes or publications which could serve as models for replication by other school librarians/media specialists. The project might be developed by an individual, a group, a school library association, a school system, or an organisation associated with school libraries.

Past Awards
  • 2004 The Canadian School Library Association and The Association for Teacher-Librarianship in Canada have jointly been awarded the IASL/ProQuest SIRS Commendation Award for 2004 for the publication Achieving information literacy: Standards for school library programs in Canada.
  • 2003 Gary Green and Kim Edwards from the Presbyterian Ladies College, Peppermint Grove, Australia. In their project, they have developed and adapted Bloom's taxonomy to create a school-wide program to teach information processes. Called "Bloom's thinking strategy", the program included collaborative units of study as well as teacher and student resources. Teachers and teacher librarians anywhere could easily adapt it to the needs of their students.
  • 2002 The Australian Literature Festival Project, a weeklong festival organised by Suzette Boyd, Head of Library and Information Services at Scotch College, Melbourne. Ths project involved the whole community and comprised 110 sessions throughout the week, including a breakfast for father and sons, a literary dinner, reading challenges for staff and students, and an evening forum. The school library Web site profiled authors who led workshops...Other schools have already been inspired to run a similar program based on this model.
  • 2001 Jenny Stubbs (Queensland, Australia), a leader in the Ipswich District Teaher-Librarian Network, for the range of resources produced in support of Book Week each year and the activities developed over eleven years to support the biennial festival of children's literature and young writers' camp. An "hounourable mention" was made of a project led by Olga Gromova (Russia), Editor-in-Chief of Bibliotek v shkole, which provides professional development for school librarians.
  • 2000 No award.
  • 1999 Jenny Ryan and Steph Capra (Queensland, Australia) were presented with the 1999 award for ILPO -- Information Literacy Planning Overview, a planning document for teachers in primary and secondary schools. Through practical application of this work, teachers have felt empowered to incorporate information literacy skills, including information technology skills, into their units of work.
  • 1998 Computers, Research and Students: A Survival Kit for Teachers and Parents, a Trainers-of-Trainers kit for preparing teacher librarians to present workshops to teachers and parents about carrying out research projects in an electronic environment in such a way that student projects exemplify, not "cut and paste" or plagiarism, but authentic and meaningful learning experiences. Developed by the Australian School Library Association, Australian Capital Territory.
  • 1997 The 1997 award was presented jointly to two projects, both from Australia. The first was the Information Technology in Education Virtual Conference - Teacher Librarianship Strand, coordinated by James Henri and Lyn Hay of Charles Sturt University. The second was the Teaching Information Skills CD-ROM Project, coordinated by Lyn Rushby of Queensland for the Australian School Library Association.
  • 1996 The 1996 award was presented to the Association for Teacher Librarianship in Canada for the publication Winners: Resource Based Units Cooperatively Planned by Teacher-Librarians and Teachers, edited by Linda Knight. An Honourable Mention was awarded to the School Library Association of Queensland (SLAQ), Australia, for the SLAQ Promotion Project: Subcommittee Expansion, Development and Support.
  • 1995 The award for 1995 was presented to the Brant County Board of Education, Brantford, Ontario, Canada, for their project Teacher-Librarian Resource Book: Partners in Action Support Documents, comprising eleven volumes of materials. An Honourable Mention certificate was presented to the Namibian Children's Book Forum for their project entitled National Readathon Namibia.
  • 1994 The 1994 award was presented to the School Library Association of Queensland, Australia, for SAIL - Students as Independent Learners. In 150 pages, six modules provide the basis for workshops designed to enable participants to understand the role that resource-based learning can play in the development of students as independent learners. This document provides excellent working material for educators at all levels of implementation.
  • 1993 The winner in 1993 was a project by the name ofProject Parent - Assignments, Control or Chaos, submitted by the School Library Association of Queensland, Australia. The project received commendation for "original and practical guidance for parents to collaborate in the education of their children".
  • 1992 The 1992 Commendation Award went to a project supported by the School Librarians Association of Western New York, called Leadership Skills for School Library Empowerment. This is a network for leadership training among school librarians.
  • 1991 The Commendation Award for 1991 was given to TELESLAQ, a continuing series of interactive audio and video teleconferences that the School Library Association of Queensland, Australia, has been organising since 1983.
  • 1990 The first award was given in 1990, to two projects, one in Australia and the other in Canada. The Australian project, Networking in the North Downunder, is a computer system that links together school libraries in the huge geographical area of the Northern Territory of Australia. The Canadian project, Resource Based Learning and the Classroom Teacher, a training programme, provides training to implement new curriculum through the school library and was nominated by the Saskatchewan School Library Association, Canada.

Last Updated 27 January 2005 (LAC)