We have something special for you this Canadian School Library Day. It’s been cooking for a while and it’s ready for the table.

Introducing 91¾«Ñ¡’s .

Led by the work of Tracy Krys (Director of Instruction, Abbotsford School District, BC) and Jennifer Casa-Todd (Author, 91¾«Ñ¡ Board Member, Social Media Maven), the DML toolbox brings forward our vision for positive focused digital and media literacy. The core idea behind this is to help educators locate resources and understand how to approach digital and media literacy through a positive focused lens, focused on what students Think, Feel and Do with respect to the digital world around them.

This has been a labour of love that has taken over a year to complete. A big thank you to everyone who came to the feedback panel at OLA’s Super Conference in January. That gave us a lot of directions for improvement that has resulted in the toolbox as it stands today.

We have chosen to present it as a live Canva link so that the toolbox can be changed and refined over time as a living document.

On behalf of Tracy, Jennifer, Diana, Cathy, Neil and Lisa we hope you enjoy and find this useful.

LIVE on the blog-so many thought provoking papers as we prepare for Treasure Mountain Canada 8!

• Read the papers

• Share your thoughts in the comments

• Use the hashtag to interact online on Facebook, Instagram or Bluesky

• Attend TMC8 as part of the

You actually don’t have to attend to be a part of the conversation, but we would love to see you there!

Are you ready to dive into a world of innovative educational ideas and practices? Look no further than the upcoming MSLA MTS PD Day Conference: “Building Bridges: Spaces, Places, and Possibilities.” This exciting event takes place at Linden Meadows School in Winnipeg, MB, + virtual options.

Part 1: 91¾«Ñ¡â€™s Research Toolkit Crash Course An overview of research through the lens of the 91¾«Ñ¡ Research Toolkit.

Part 2: Tales of Treasure Mountain Get an idea about papers that have been presented at Treasure Mountain Canada, a school library learning commons symposium and think tank. What was required as a writer/co-writer, how they approached their research.

91¾«Ñ¡â€™s Research Toolkit Webinar is offered by the British Columbia Teacher Librarians’ Association.

Part Two: Moving From Awareness to Action: Using the tools you have to disrupt Racism/Anti-Black Racism (Wednesday, May 4, 2022 at 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. ET)

Guest Speaker: Andrew B. Campbell, “Dr.ABC”

Dr. Campbell is currently a faculty member in the Master of Teaching (MT) program at the University of Toronto and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Queens University. His research and scholarship focus on issues of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, Cultural Competency, Education Leadership, 2SLGBTQ+ issues, and Teacher Performance Evaluation.

Offered by the Ontario School Library Association. Registration limited to 50 participants.

Learn more about this event .

Pernille Ripp is an expert in literacy and technology integration and dedicates her research and practice to developing engaged and empowered students and communities.

Offered by the Alberta School Library Council (ASLC) and open to its members.

The Alberta School Library Council is a proactive and progressive advocate for our members in building, cultivating and enhancing effective school library learning commons practices through leadership and professional development.

Learn more about this event at:

Optimism, Joy, and Cautionary Tales

So much to celebrate from coast to coast. Canada’s school libraries are emerging from the pandemic crisis with new purpose. In this edition we celebrate the emerging (albeit cautious) optimism that is emerging in so many ways.

Optimism & Joy

We are very pleased to feature the work of Barbara Stripling, leading school library scholar and a past president of the American Library Association. Barbara shares her latest work to develop strategies and processes that ensure students are building deep reading skills. Don’t miss this very special feature!

A timely new resource from Quebec provides a framework for librarians and library technicians to support teachers as they integrate information literacy skills. We are very pleased to publish an introduction to the new continuum des compétences informationnelles / information literacy framework in both French and English.

Our national champion of school libraries, Dr. Dianne Oberg brings to our attention the brand new IFLA School Library Manifesto.

Judith Sykes and Lila Armstrong have analyzed the latest Leading Learning exemplars. Read about the pretty astonishing trends that they see emerging for school libraries in Canada. Some of those trends are evident in Lila’s article about the recent BCTLA conference, which focused on TL leadership during and post-Covid.

I Read Canadian Day is coming up in February, and teacher-librarian Marianne Whittaker shares her strategies for inspiring high school students and teachers to read Canadian. And don’t miss learning about a great opportunity for high risk teen girls to join a national book club, A Room of Your Own.

We share the overwhelmingly joyful stories from Canadian School Library Day 2021, and celebrate students’ joy at retuning to school libraries in Quebec this fall as recounted by our ABQLA colleagues.

New Realities and Cautionary Tales

The students are back in the building, or at least most of them are. Are you or staff in your school engaged in teaching hybrid learning? Our resource list, curated by the librarians of the Toronto DSB Professional Library, is sure to help.

We also have some trending ethical issues and cautionary tales for our readers to ruminate over in this issue. Anita Brooks Kirkland challenges our thinking about library neutrality, and Richard Beaudry looks at the alarming repression of free speech we are seeing emerge in the US, and its implications for all of us.

New and Exciting Resources from 91¾«Ñ¡

We are so very proud to announce the completion and publication of two new 91¾«Ñ¡ projects in this issue, the Collection Diversity Toolkit, and the Great Canadian Book Project.

We celebrate the expertise and creativity of school library professionals from across Canada who joined together to work on these wonderful resources.

91¾«Ñ¡ is very pleased to introduce our newest resource, the Collection Diversity Toolkit.

The collection is the foundation of learning in the library. The freedom to explore ideas and pursue interests, and expert instruction to develop deep skills for inquiry and information literacy rely on the foundation of that collection. Reflecting the larger context of our society, school library practice focuses prominently on equity and inclusion, cultural competence and anti-racism, and supporting diversity. Nowhere is this more important than in collection development.

Components of the Collection Diversity Toolkit include:

Equity-Informed Selection: Equity-informed selection means selecting a wide range of diverse resources based on sound criteria, including representation of the diversity of Canadian society. This section provides criteria for assessing resources through an equity lens.

Equity-Informed Weeding: Weeding is the continuous cycle of removing resources that no longer meet equity-informed selection principles. Knowledge evolves over time, attitudes shift, societal values evolve, and we begin to see historical events from different perspectives. Explore specific strategies for engaging in ongoing and strategic weeding.

Diversity Audits: A diversity audit is a thorough review or inventory of items in the collection, with the goal of determining exactly how diverse the collection is. Explore strategies and tools to help examine your library collection through an equity lens.

Guidelines and Procedures: An introduction to guidelines for selection of resources, and reconsideration procedures for managing challenges to books and other resources. Well-written guidelines defend universal principles of protecting intellectual freedom, and put collection diversity within the context of the rights and freedoms of all Canadians.

Leading Learning Connections: Developing diverse collections to support teaching and learning is woven throughout Leading Learning: Standards of Practice for School Library Learning Commons in Canada. Use Leading Learning as a framework for setting goals, planning actions, and determining success criteria for equitable and diverse collection development.

Recommended Booklists: Keeping up with the newest and best in children’s literature is always a challenge, but a critical task for all school library professionals. This section connects you to recommended sources for professional and reliable reviews and booklists, and sources for selecting the best resources available.

The toolkit provides a framework for deep understanding of the complexity of issues around collection development, along with very practical advice and useful tools for developing the best collections for school libraries. We hope that this toolkit will be widely used for professional learning and practice across Canada and beyond.

The 91¾«Ñ¡ Collection Diversity Toolkit is a companion resource to our resources for developing culturally relevant and responsive school library learning commons.

Collection Diversity Toolkit Writing Team: Anita Brooks Kirkland, Chair, 91¾«Ñ¡; Toni Duval, Teacher-Librarian, Peel DSB, ON; Joseph Jeffery, District Teacher-Librarian, SD 57, BC; Rabia Khokhar, Teacher & Equity Consultant, Toronto, ON; Carol Koechlin, Vice-Chair, 91¾«Ñ¡; Rebeca Rubio, Co-ordinator, Library & Information Services, SD 38, BC; Jonelle St. Aubyn, Teacher-Librarian, Peel DSB, ON; Judith Sykes, Secretary, 91¾«Ñ¡.

Connect to the 91¾«Ñ¡ Collection Diversity Toolkit