DOCUMENT RESUME ED 357 768 IR 054 614 TITLE Towards the 21st Century: Books and Media for the Millennium. Selected Papers from the Annual Conference, International Association of School Librarianship (21st, Belfast, Northern Ireland, July 20-24, 1992). INSTITUTION International Association of School Librarianship, Kalamazoo, Mich. REPORT NO ISSN-0257-3229 PUB DATE 93 NOTE 113p. PUB TYPE Collected Works Conference Proceedings (021) Viewpoints (Opinion/Position Papers, Essays, etc.) (120) Reports Descriptive (141) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC05 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Childrens Literature; Cultural Differences; Elementary Secondary Education; Foreign Countries; Futures (of Society); Information Literacy; *Learning Resources Centers; Library Associations; Library Development; Library Services; Public Libraries; *School Libraries IDENTIFIERS Australia; International Association of School Librarianship; Postmodernism; Resource Based Learning; South Africa; Virtual Libraries ABSTRACT This collection contains 13 selectedpapers presented at the 1992 conference of the International Associationof School Librarianship. Titles are as follows: (1) "The Differenceof Literature: Writing for the Future of Young Adults" (AidanChambers); (2) "Managing School Library Change" (Peggy Reeks);(3) "The Power of Information Literacy: Unity of Education andResources for the 21st Century" (Ross J. Todd, Liz Lamb, and Celeste McNicholas);(4) "The Concept of the Virtual School Library" (Margaret Butterworth); (5) "Lobbying for Effective Resources Based Learning:An Australian Experience" (Fay Nicholson); (6) "Getting ToKnow You: Fiction as a Tool To Create a World of Mutual Understandingand Respect" (Gunilla Janlert); (7) "Irish Literature in Austria" (GerdaFaerber); (8) "Books and Media for All South African Childrenin the 21st Century?" (Sandra Olen);(9) "Opening Shutters and Letting inthe Light? Contemporary Irish Writing for Children" (Robert Dunbar);(10) "Postmodernism in Youth Literature: A Roadaway from the Reader?" (Kari Skjonsberg); (11) "Literatureand Literacy: The Real Book Approach to Children Learning To Read" (Beatrice Wortley);(12) "The Role of Children's Books in a Multicultural Society" (PierreG. F. Overduin); and (13) "The Provision of PublicLibrary Services in the Irish Language' (Criostoir Mag Fhearaigh).Most of the papers include references. (MES) ******************************:c**************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRSare the best that can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** U.S. DEPARTMENT Of EDUCATION Office of Educatronal Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) 0 This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it 0 Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality Pants of view or opinions staled in this dOCu meet do not necessarily represent official OERI positron or policy 21st Annual Conference INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SCHOOL LIBRARIANSHIP SELECTED PAPERS THE QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY OF BELFAST BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND JULY 20-24, 1992 ISSN 0257-3229 PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY Jean E. Lowrie 4 TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)" TOWARDS THE 21ST CENTURY: BOOKS AND MEDIA FOR THE MILLENNIUM Selected Papers from the 21st Annual Conference International Association of School Librarianship The Queen's University of Belfast The School of Education, Queen's University The School Library Association of Northern Ireland Belfast, Northern Ireland International Association of School Librarianship P. 0. Box 1486 Kalamazoo, MI 49005 USA March 1993 ISSN 0257 3229 Any material copied for distribution from this publication must be credited to IASL with full bibliogrpahic information. Advise the IASL Secretariat if you propose to do this. IASL, P.O. Box 1486, Kalamazoo, MI 49005, USA TABLE OF CONTENTS The Difference of Literature: Writing for the Future of Young Adults by Aidan Chambers 1 Managing School Library Change by Peggy Heeks 11 The Power of Information Literacy: Unity of Education and Resources for the 21st Century by Ross J. Todd, Liz Lamb, and Celeste McNicholas 19 The Concept of the Virtual School Library by Margaret Butterworth 35 Lobbying for Effective Resources Based Learning An Australian Experience by Fay Nicholson 42 Getting to Know You: Fiction as a Tool to Create a World of Mutual Understanding and Respect by Gunilla Janlert 48 Irish Literature in Austria by Gerda Faerber 56 Books and Media for All South African Children in the 21st Century? by Sandra Olen 63 Opening Shutters and Letting in the Light? Contemporary Irish Writing for Children by Robert Dunbar 79 Postmodernism in Youth Literature: A Road Away from the Reader? by Kari Skjonsberg 87 Literature and Literacy: The Real Book Approach to Children Learning to Read by Beatrice Wortley 95 The Role of Children's Books in a Multicultural Society by Pierre G. J. Overduin 101 The Provision of Public Library Services in the Irish Language by Criostoir Mag Fhearaigh 105 The Difference of Literature: Writing for the Future of Young Readers by Aidan Chambers Sidney RaAbins Lecture 1992 given at the ten years older before I've finished; this century Queen's University, Belfast. During the Twenty- will be over; and we'll be two years into the next First Annual Conference of the International millenniumWill my books still be in print Association of School Librarianship. then? Will the Wild Things and The Owl Service? Indeed, will literature in book-print In the late nineteen sixties, when Sidney survive for long into the twenty-first century? Robbins was planning the first of the Exeter There are those who say it won't and don't care conferences in celebration of them, children's if it doesn't. There are those who think its days books in Britain were in a season of high bloom. are over already--that it is outmoded and Take 1967, a convenient quarter-century date, survives only because a group of elitists keep it as a sample.That year these books were going. And there are always the millennialists, published in the UK for the first time: who thrill themselves with an apocalyptic view of the world and for whom the year two Smith by Leon Garfield, The Mouse and his Child thousand will set off a revolution that will by Russell Hoban, The Piemakers by Helen sweep away the book culture of the last Gresswell, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by thousand years. Roald. Dahl, The Dream-Time by Henry Treece, Of course, there is bound to be some- Flambards by K.M. Peyton, To a Wild Sky by Ivan thing of a fuss as the century turns.We'll be Southall, The Dolphin Crossing by Jill Paton prone to thoughts of making a fresh start and Walsh, and Charley, Charlotte and the Golden will want to prune away shards of our old ways Canary by Charles Keeping. that we feel hinder us or are too closely A-id that's not all. Two others must be identified with what used to be the baggage added to the list. One of them, Where the Wild we'd rather not carry with us into the new life. Things Are by Maurice Sendak, had taken five By the time I've written the last of the six books years to cross the Atlantic and only reached by the Dance sequence, what will be the state of here at all because of the determination of an children's books as a whole? If, that is, there is editor, Judy Taylor at the Bodley Head, who still anything wholesome left to talk about. refused to be swayed by the general opinion What will be the state of the book? among librarians, teachers, and other publish- The rest of this lecture will occupy itself ers who had seen a copy of the American with itinerant thoughts on some of those ques- edition, that the wild things would frighten the tions.And it will be an episodic narrative life out of little children and not sell. Now we because I am a fiction writer and that is the recognize it as the work that most clearly kind of mind I have. demonstrates the poetics of the picturebook as To start with I'd like to say a little more a literary form. With it, the picturebook came of about Where the Wild Things Are and The Owl age. The other book, The Owl Service by Alan Service.If toasting glasses were in our hands, Garner, was very quickly,though not I'd ask you to raise them in celebration of those uncontroversially, recognized as a novel that two eximious works of art.In the days that redefined the possibilities in writing of followed their publication, I gave them to the adolescence. teenagers I was teaching, each in the same When these two books appeared, I was way--I read them aloud.Both had the same working part-time as a teacher-librarian in a effect on my pupils as they'd had on me. I can secondary school for eleven-to-sixteen year olds, best describe it as "greedy astonishment." We and part-time as an author trying to write a were astonished by their unfamiliarity, their novel that took twelve years to fmish. Its title unexpectedness, by the strength of the emotions was Dance on My Grave.I didn't know then and ideas they provoked in us--in other words, that it was the beginning of a six-book by the intensity of the pleasure they gave us. sequence. The fourth, The Toll Bridge, has just There was more to them than we were used to been published. If it takes me as long to write getting from books of this kind, and we were the last two as it has to write the fourth, I'll be greedy for more. The ways this greed showed itself were in an impulse to read the books for me as a writer.It revealed to me possibili- again at once and a demand for more like them, ties I hadn't thought were graspable within the a demand which of course couldn't besatisfied confines (And I thought of them as confines easily.I remember pupils who never dreamt of then; I don't now.) of fiction for teenagers.It spending money on a book going off and buying was an experience that taught me, as Margaret copies, not just because they couldn't wait for Meek puts it, How Texts Teach What Readers their turn to borrow the school's, but because Learn.