Category: President

President Invite

USLA

To all Utah school librarians and those who support library programs. Studies show school libraries impact all students for success. The 2020 UELMA Conference theme, Libraries Are For Everyone, spotlights what we do to assure our students see themselves in the library. On behalf of the UELMA Board and UELMA 2020 Conference Committee, I invite you to join us in Ogden at Weber State University on Friday, March 6, 2020.

Don’t miss:

  • Amazing Keynotes including Ellen Oh, author and co-founder of We Need Diverse Books, and Karl Beckstrand, author/illustrator of 21 multicultural/multilingual books.
  • Engaging Breakout Sessions elaborating ways the National School Library Standards are implemented for our students to have the best opportunity to Think, Create, Share, and Grow.
  • Awesome Networking Opportunities with your Personal Learning Network of fabulous Utah school librarians.
  • Incredible Exhibitors of everything library!

I’m looking forward to seeing you at UELMA 2020!

Ann Riding
UELMA President, 2019-2020

FREADom To Read Week

Derek Larson

SALT LAKE CITY, UT — The Utah Educational Library Media Association (UELMA) in partnership with the Utah Library Association (ULA) is promoting FREADom to Read Week (Oct 1-7th) as a parallel celebration to the American Library Association’s National Banned Book Week. The intent of FREADom to Read Week is to celebrate the Constitutional freedoms of all Utahns to access information and stories without the censorship of ideas or perspectives. UELMA and ULA, as state associations, strongly advocate for the protection of the Constitution and the First Amendment, principles that safeguard the free flow of ideas in school and public libraries and are a foundation of our democracy. Young learners and their families have First Amendment rights of speech and expression; school and public libraries offer equitable access to a wide range of age-appropriate materials and the opportunity for young learners and their families to exercise their intellectual freedoms to inquire, study, and evaluate information and stories through reading.

FREADom to Read Week celebrates the power of choice and self-selection, which allows a young learner and their family to locate and access titles that are a right fit for them. Librarians and their libraries are partners with parents and their children in providing opportunities for learning through imagination by providing access to popular fiction and for learning through information through the reading of high-interest nonfiction.

Research shows that reading is an essential academic skill, maybe even the most important, because if a young learner can read well, they can learn anything. To support the acquisition of reading competency and to foster the love of reading, a young learner needs a place to practice reading skills outside of the school classroom, just like an athlete may need a field or a gym to practice their sport. School and public libraries offer that space for young learners to practice reading under the guidance of their parents, a place where all young learners have equitable access to the information and stories that represent their family’s lived experiences and support both their academic pursuits and personal interests–school and public libraries help make young learners’ hopes and dreams come true.

Join UELMA and ULA in celebrating the FREADom to Read during the week of October 1-7, 2023.

Attached are PDFs for use in promoting FREADom to Read Week.

FREADom-to-Read-Week_UELMA_ULA_Press-Release_9_23

FREADom-to-Read-Poster

FREADom-to-Read-Bookmarks

Presidents Message Sept. 2022

USLA

Hello Fellow UELMA Members!

I want to thank you all for your amazing and tireless work on behalf of libraries.  It is so wonderful to see you creating welcoming spaces that invite every student in and allow them to read, explore, learn, and grow.  You have the unique position of knowing everyone in the school and providing effective library programs that meet their needs and support their growth and empowerment.  As an agent for change in your school, your influence touches them and you make a difference.

All throughout our beautiful state we have librarians advocating for readers’ rights.  Thank you for all you do and have done.  Thank you for writing grants to suppliment your budgets, improving your collections through study, reading, and throwing bookfairs to enlarge and improve your collections.  There may be many who don’t see how hard you work, but I do and I appreciate your kindness, your optimism, and your desire to love and support your students and faculty.

I am also grateful to our talented and motivated board!  We have amazing librarians meeting the needs of our members.  Past President, Tricia Fenton has an amazing conference plan coming together for March 10th!  We will have Meg Medina and Maulik Pancholy as our keynotes!!  Watch for more conference news coming soon.

Our President-Elect Gretchen Zaitzeff is revving up the communications committee.  More is coming.  More great ideas on social media, more opportunities to advocate for libraries (mark your calendar for February 7th, Library on the Hill Day and a chance to meet our state representatives and speak for libraries) and more from you.  We need you!  We need your ideas, experiences, and especially your input into the direction we are taking UELMA.  

Our UELMA is changing.  We want to add more PD so look for additional ideas coming.  New classes will be offered and we are working to get them up so you can earn relicensure credit for even more amazing librarianship and advocacy in the future.  We will be adding lesson plans.  And we may be adding additional conference options… stay tuned.  I am working with a wonderful committee and thank them for their hard work.  Please take the time to answer our surveys and send us your best and brightest ideas.  We also want to highlight all that you are doing to make Utah School Libraries the best.  

This year has put us more in the position of advocating for libraries than ever before.  We need your voices added to what we are doing to be heard, understood, and seen as dedicated professionals promoting intellectual freedom in schools.  We are working on upcoming legislation, will be on the hill during the legislative session, and are meeting with key advocates to create a larger voice for school libraries.  We are important.

Happy Banned Book Week next week.  I don’t say that lightly.  I will be hunkered down reading aloud from Harry Potter (banned for promoting witchcraft to children),  Hop on Pop (banned for promoting children abusing parents), and maybe a little Lorax (banned for being anti-logging).  I think they are imaginative and my students don’t interpret them that way.  Neither do I.  I will be promoting intellectual freedom to my wonderful students!!  Please do what you feel is best in your situation.  But know that I advocate for you and I read banned books!!

Librarians in Alpine, Canyons, Salt Lake, Davis, and St. George Districts are working hard to provide intellectual freedom as well as many other schools and districts.  Thank you for what you are doing!!!  If I haven’t heard about your book challenges, please let me know in the upcoming survey.  We will help all that we can and speak out for libraries.  Everyone is welcome.  Everyone is valued.  We make a difference!  We change lives.  Have an amazing month!!

Your President,

Michele Edgley, Uintah Elementary

Take action to restore access to EBSCO for K-12 Utah students!

USLA
Are you interested in working with UELMA and ULA to restore access to EBSCO for approximately 800,000 K-12 Utah students? If so, you can do the following things to influence the UEN Board Meeting vote on this issue on October 19th: 
  1.  Please sign and share this link to a petition that will automatically generate emails to UEN Board asking them to vote to overturn the ban on EBSCO Research Databases: http://action.everylibrary.org/ebscoutah.
  2. Offer public comment at the next UEN Board meeting on Oct 19 at 9am at The Dolores Doré Eccles Broadcast Center, 101 Wasatch Drive. Please attend and offer public comment if you are able.
  3. Please also share your public comments with UEN directly through this link: https://www.uen.org/contact_form.php 
  4. Background info (facts and talking points) are available at: https://docs.google.com/
PLEASE SHARE THIS POST WITH ANY AND ALL FRIENDS, COLLEAGUES, NEIGHBORS, WHO SUPPORT INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM, LIBRARIES, AND TEACHERS
Yours,

Peter Bromberg, ULA Advocacy Chair

Rebekah Cummings, ULA President

Lorraine Wyness, UELMA President