Farewell to Dyane and Alice

The two day intensive workshop with particpants from various schools around Rarotonga was completed yesterday afternoon. Dyane and Alice managed to convince those who attended the workshop how important the libraries are to students learning, and these participants are willing to make changes to their school libraries as soon as Term 4 begins - very promising.

Needless to say, the lead teachers and I learned alot more about MUSAC and SCIS from all the practical work we've done alongside Dyane and Alice. They did tell us that during the attachment in NZ in May, our brains probably only retained 5% of the information from the workshop and I couldn't agree more. The information from the workshop in May, I am happy to say is finally sinking in.

I'd like to say MEITAKI MAATA (Thank You very much) to Dyane and Alice for your dedication, committment and tireless effort in setting up the model libraries and for working alongside our teachers patiently. We have learned a lot from the two weeks you spent over here with us. I'm in overdrive at the moment so I am taking half the day off to recuperate from all that overtime (I'm not complaining!) and start fresh tomorrow.

Dyane and Alice, I hope you two had a wonderful trip back home and be reunited with your loved ones. To all the team at National Library, thank you for your continuous support, I enjoyed reading your comments.

Ka Kite from the Cooks.
Kathy

Tuesday 7 October

Dear all,

It is another warm and humid dayhere. Yesterday Alice and I worked at Arorangi School which is a short walk from where we are staying. It is one of Peo's schools. Peo is now familiar with the SCIS and Musac system so we managed to achieve scising almost the 700 items and importing into Musac. The school internet went down for most of the day so we had to return to the MOE to scis the books. Prior to our arrival Peo had manually typed in about 700 titles, - and after scising realised how fast and efficient SCIS was.

Today I had a meeting with the audit staff here (Ana, Terry and John) and drafted a library checklist that they will use when they audit the school libraires next year. Schools are audited about every 4-5 terms.

Well this is about all for now. Hope the winds and rain haven't blown you all away. We manage to catch the TV1 news at night.

Photo of the bikes we were using at Mangaia to get to the school. I came off in the afternoon!

More photos

Just saw a whale blowing out in the ocean, - from the school here!

This first photo is sunrise - Mangaia.

Friday 2nd October

Dear all,

Thanks for your comments.. it is so good to hear form you. We are over on Mangaia the southern most island. Mangaia School is from grade 1-12. It is Takau's school, - and the staff are fabulous a mix of NZ , mainly Cook Island and even an Ozzi! The MOE Northland Manager is here with his wife. They are from (he was ex Principal) of Tauraroa Area School, just out of Whanagrei. This is their sister school. So this morning we had an offical welcome.. it brought tears to my eyes, - the singing was beautiful!.

So for the last 2 days we have been weeding, scis-ing, putting onto Musac, and pd on literacy and this afternoon on searching strategies. We have introduced Te Ara, Living Hertiage, LibraryThing and links to Fionas Librarything fab teen site as they need more direction in level 2 wide reading. We have made really good progress I feel.

We are enjoying paypaya and local sweet bananas..

Attached some photos. Alice and I went for an early morn walk this morn, and took some photos and Alice even swam!

Photos from the Cook Islands - Day 1

Dear all,

Day two today and it has dawned hot and humid after down pours of rain yesterday.

We worked with Kathy, Liz, and Peo yesterday in the morning finding out what had happened in their schools since May. So much work and enthusiasm! At Liz's school they had painted the library making it look fresh and inviting and with beautiful floral curtains.

Yesterday after noon we went through the blogging process again then straight into the SCIS- ing process. There is no Internet access in the library in most of these schools so we had to do the SCIS-ing in 2 stages. Scan the books onto word in the library, then save onto flashdrive then walk up to the office and work through the SCIS process then save and back to the library to import into Musac. We managed to SCIS approx 100 books and worked through a powercut and then the office closed, so no internet access.

Alice and I took 3 boxes of books back to our apartment last night to scan theISBNs into word to hasten the process.

We also a assisted Liz in her library to weed the fiction collection to make way for the new books ( I think she is to have a bonfire in her backyard)! Fiona and Rosemary you did a great job on selecting the books!

Off to Peo's schools soon so will add the photos and hope to post again tomorrow. Hope you are all well!

Dyane