PRESENTATIONS / PROJECTS / ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Page-Turners Unite! : Delving into the Science of Reading, Cherishing the Joy of Reading, and Crafting the Future of Reading — gave the keynote presentation at the 21CL Library Connection mini-conference, March 7, 2024, a pre-conference at 21st Century Learning in Hong Kong.

Author & Audience: Distance & Didacticism in Children’s & YA Literature — gave a presentation at the Librarian 2 Librarian Workshop held at the American School of Dubai, Oct. 26-27, 2023.

A Fresh Look at InfoLit Threshold Concepts for MS/HS Students — ran a workshop session, together with Kim Beeman, for the Librarian 2 Librarian Workshop held at the American School of Dubai, Oct. 26-27, 2023.

Reading India & the World — gave a presentation, together with Anuradha Ruhil Barua, at the Writers Retreat, part of the Neev Literature Festival, Bangalore, India, October 6, 2023.

Secret International Librarian Networks No One Has Told You About — gave a 60-min webinar, together with Karen van Drie, for the American Library Association (ALA) International Relations Round Table (IRRT), June 8, 2023.

AI Writing & Research Tools — gave a 30-min presentation, together with Angie Erickson, for the Librarians Knowledge Sharing Workshop, at Tanglin Trust School, Singapore, February 16, 2023.

The Librarians’ Knowledge Sharing Workshop 2023 — organized this conference, together with Kimberly Beeman, at Tanglin Trust School, Singapore, Feb. 17-18, 2023.

Finding Belonging in Far-Flung Places: Indian Children’s Literature & International Schools — did a 40-min online presentation for the 21C Learning Library Connection conference, November 6, 2022.

Guest-edited Global Literature in Libraries Initiative blog for the month of September 2022, together with Karthika Gopalakrishnan - with a focus on Indian children’s literature for World Kit Lit Month. See the end-of-month summary and index into all 27 entries: #WorldKidLitMonth During September 2022 & #IndiaKidLit Wrap-up - Sep. 30, 2022

Digital Brain: The Race Between Pixels and Print — gave a (60 min) presentation, together with Nadine Bailey, at the Neev Literature Festival: Bangalore, India, September 2022.

Growing Readers: New research, trends, and practices in promoting reading among children and young people — gave a 60-min presentation, together with Nadine Bailey, at the Neev Literature Festival: Bangalore, India, September 2022.

Beyond the Binding: Sharing stories which expand identities and perspectives in young adults — gave a 30-min in-person presentation, together with Angela Erickson (United World College of SE Asia, Dover) at the IBBY 38th Congress: Putrajaya, Malaysia — Sept. 2022.

Asian Titles Celebrating UN Sustainable Development Goals & Social Emotional Learning — wrote a guest blog post on the Global Literature in Libraries Initiative website, June 21, 2022, highlighting books on the AFCC “Themed Children’s Booklist” on the UN SDGs, developed together with Evelyn Wong and Denise Tan for the Singapore Book Council.

Blueprint for Sustainable Reading Programmes — was one of four panelists for this AFCC (Asian Festival of Children’s Content) one-hour in-person event in Singapore, May 29, 2022. See slides here: bit.ly/asiasdgslides.

Lighten Up with Laughter: A Serious Look at the Genre of ‘Humour’ — gave a 60-min AFCC (Asian Festival of Children’s Content) in-person presentation in Singapore together with Kate London (German European School of Singapore), May 28, 2022. See slides here: bit.ly/afcc2022humour

Prizing Balance: An exploration of book award initiatives run by international school librarian networks — did a 20-min online presentation, together with Nadine Bailey (Western Academy of Beijing) at the IBBY 37th Congress: Moscow — Sept. 12, 2021.

Free to Be: Supporting Diversity of Gender & Sexuality in an International School Library — wrote a guest blog post on the Pride and Less Prejudice website, August 9, 2021.

Moving IDEAS (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Accessibility and Social Justice) to Reality — did a 60-min online presentation, together with Nadine Bailey (Western Academy of Beijing) at the ECIS Libraries Week 2021 online conference — May 2021.

#NotOurDiversity – Beyond BANA (British, Australiasia, and North America) — did a 60-min online presentation, together with Nadine Bailey (Western Academy of Beijing) at the ECIS Libraries Week 2021 online conference — May 2021.

Connections to Global Issues: How Teacher-Librarians are Supporting the UN SDGs and Beyond — moderated an online panel of three teacher-librarians (Zakir Hossain (SWITZERLAND), Nadine Bailey (CHINA), Stojana Popovska (SINGAPORE)) at the 2021 Asian Festival of Children’s Content (AFCC), Singapore, May 30, 2021

Guest-edited Global Literature in Libraries Initiative blog for the month of March, 2021 - with a focus on the UN Sustainable Development Goals - and wrote these three entries myself:

Curating the iGeneration Reading List — moderated an online panel of four experts (Jochen Weber (GERMANY), Ahmad Redza bin Ahmad Khairuddin (MALAYSIA), Rasyidah Angullia (SINGAPORE), Maria Russo (US)) at the 2020 Asian Festival of Children’s Content (AFCC), Singapore, October 4, 2020.

Full Steam Ahead on the Diversity Train? — gave a 45-min presentation, together with Barb Reid (UWC East, Singapore), at the Librarians Knowledge Sharing Workshop in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, November 2019.

Library Networks - and - Innovative Ways of Enabling Access to Books from Abroad — wrote a guest blog post on the Global Literature in Libraries Initiative website, October 29, 2019.

The Singapore Red Dot Awards - An Annual Exercise in Curating a Basket of Recent Books for Children in International Schools — wrote a guest blog post on the Global Literature in Libraries Initiative website, October 26, 2019.

Books & Beyond: Inquiry meets Storytelling to build bridges using the UN Global Goals — led a 90-min workshop, together with Nadine Bailey, at the Neev Literature Festival: Taking Children’s Literature Seriously: Bangalore, India, September 20-21, 2019.

Standards, Concepts, and/or Heuristics? Information Literacy & the Library — gave a 45-min presentation, together with Kim Beeman (Tanglin Trust School, Singapore) at the Taipei EARCOS Librarian Weekend — March 2019.

Making Sense of Information Literacy in a complex interconnected world — gave a 45-min workshop, together with Philip Williams, at the NIST International School professional development day — WeLearn@NIST — November 18, 2018.

Two Connected Conversations: Complex Systems & Threshold Concepts — gave a 30-min presentation, together with Philip Williams, at the Librarians Knowledge Sharing Workshop, held at the British Patana School, Bangkok, November 9-10, 2018.

Digesting Books: Texts & Transformations — led a 90-min workshop at the Neev Literature Festival, Bangalore, India, September 2018.

Diversity in our Library Collections & Catalogs — gave a 15-min presentation at the BLISS (Bangkok Librarians in International Schools) network meeting, at Harrow International School, Bangkok, June 1, 2018.

Library-Classroom-Curriculum Connections: Physical & Virtual Collections — led a 90-min workshop at the EARCOS Teachers’ Conference, Bangkok, Thailand, March 2018.

Critical Concepts & Teaching Information Literacy — led a 90-min workshop at the EARCOS Teachers’ Conference, Bangkok, Thailand, March 2018. See some exiting feedback from participants here.

May the Force Be With You:  Harnessing the power of teacher-librarians through networks — gave a joint presentation with Barb Reid (from UWCSEA East, Singapore) at the ECIS Triennial Librarians’ Conference, held at the American International School of Chennai, India, in February 2018.

Prizing Balance: an exploration of world children's literature -- gave a 30-min presentation at the Librarians' Knowledge Sharing Workshop in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, November 2017.

Library Curriculum-Connections: reflecting [on] unofficial & official learning — gave a 15-min presentation at the BLISS (Bangkok Librarians in International Schools) network meeting, at NIST International School, Bangkok, March, 2017.

The Librarians’ Knowledge Sharing Workshop 2017 — organized and led this conference together with Barb Reid, Primary School Teacher-Librarian, at United World College of South East Asia (East campus), Singapore, Feb. 16-18, 2017.

Illuminating Research: making the invisible visible in the research process — led a full-day pre-conference workshop as part of the School Librarian Connection conference — “InSPIRing Conversations” — in Prague, Czech Republic, September 2016.

Truth, Beauty, & Goodness: in the library — gave a presentation at the School Librarian Connection conference — “InSPIRing Conversations” — in Prague, Czech Republic, September 2016.

Beyond the Bubble: Building Global Literacy in Our Students -- wrote an "online exclusive" article for the May/June 2016 issue of "Knowledge Quest" - a publication of the American Association of School Libraries.  

Digital Collections, Curation, & Making the Virtual Visible -- gave a 40-min presentation at the School Librarian Connection conference in Beijing at Keystone Academy, China, April 2016. 

Personalized Learning in the Library: Supporting Journeys into the Unknown -- gave a 40-min presentation at the School Librarian Connection conference in Beijing at Keystone Academy, China, April 2016.  An exploration of how the library and librarian can help students become experienced travelers in the learning landscape.

Personalization of Learning - via the Library - CEESA Skype -- March 17 2016 - gave a 60-min presentation and led a discussion — via Skype from Singapore — for librarians gathered together in Istanbul, Turkey, at the CEESA (Central and Eastern European Schools Association) conference.  For a YouTube recording of the conversation, click here.

Library Signage -- gave a 20-min presentation with Barb Philip Reid -- at the Librarians’ Knowledge Sharing Workshop, Kuala Lumpur, March 4-5, 2016.

Google Add-ons-- Features and Functions of interest to Librarians -- Led a discussion at the Librarians’ Knowledge Sharing Workshop, Kuala Lumpur, March 2016. 

Social Reading Sites and the Library -- gave a 40-min presentation together with Barb Reid at the EARCOS Weekend: Tech-Integrated Libraries, at the Taipei American School, Taiwan, November 5-6, 2015.

Libguides++ -- gave a 40-min presentation together with Dr. Candace Aiaini at the EARCOS Weekend: Tech-Integrated Libraries, at the Taipei American School, Taiwan, November 5-6, 2015.

Metaphors for Research:  food for thought -- gave a 10-min presentation at the K-12 Research Relevance Colloquium, at the Castilleja School, Palo Alto, California, June 2015.

The Best of the Best: Discovering Children’s and YA Literature — gave a 30-min presentation together with Angela Erickson at the Librarians’ Lunch session of the inaugural TeachUp professional development event at UWCSEA East in Singapore, 14 March 2015.

Best Value eBooks + eTexts— gave a 30-min presentation together with Barb Reid at the inaugural TeachUp professional development event at UWCSEA East in Singapore, 14 March 2015.

Food in the Library: an extended metaphor -- gave a 10-min presentation at the 3rd annual Librarian Knowledge Sharing Workshop, Bangkok, Thailand, February 2015.

Diversity, Asia, and YA Literature -- gave a presentation (a condensed version (10-min) of a previous talk) at the 3rd annual Librarian Knowledge Sharing Workshop, Bangkok, Thailand, February 2015.

The Power of Metaphor -- gave a 5-min presentation at the School Librarian Connection conference, Hong Kong, November 2014.

Satellite Collections outside the Library — gave a 10-min presentation at the School Librarian Connection conference, Hong Kong, November 2014.

Digital Connections with ebooks, iTunes, QR codes and Aurasma — gave a 20-min presentation at the School Librarian Connection conference, Hong Kong, November 2014 -- with Barb Reid and Nadine Bailey

Diversity, Asia, and YA Literature — gave a keynote presentation at the International Library Symposium: Embracing New Landscapes, 28-30 September 2014 at The Southport School, Gold Coast, Australia.

Engaging Readers — gave a presentation at the Librarian Sharing Workshop weekend, in Brunei, Jerudong International School,  Feb. 21-22, 2014

Geeking out with Goodreads — gave a presentation with Angie Erickson at the Google Apps for Education Summit at SAS (Singapore American School), September 2013.

Hands On Literacy Conference (2012) — was part of the organizing committee and created the website for this third instance of the one-day professional development event initiated by our Singapore international school librarian network, ISS-LN. Held at the Australian International School, Singapore.

Conversations about eBooks and other technologies — led a session with Barb (Philip) Reid at the inaugural Librarian Sharing Workshop weekend, in Kuala Lumpur, Alice Smith School, October, 2012

Curation: accessing information, making sense and using information — gave a presentation with Beth Gourley at Learning 2.0 in Shanghai, September 2011; see the wiki of the Librarian Strand at Learning 2.0

Building Internationally Literate Communities (2010) — gave a presentation with Barb (Philip) Reid at the IASL/SLAQ (International Association of School Librarians / School Library Association of Queensland) conference in Brisbane, Australia, September 2010. Read the formal conference paper here.

Hands On Literacy Conference (2010) — was part of the organizing committee and created the website for this second instance of the one-day professional development event initiated by our Singapore international school librarian network, ISS-LN. Held at Tanglin Trust School.

Resourcing the PYP (2010) — gave a presentation with Megan Graff at a PYP Job-Alike workshop on April 26, 2010.

Red Dot Awards — was instrumental in getting these children’s book awards in Singapore established and set up the original website in 2009 and maintained it until 2017.

Easy Web Design with Weebly (2009) -- led a workshop with Barb (Philip) Reid at the TeachIT one-day conference in Singapore on November 21, 2009.

Digital Gist: Harnessing digital content for the library and learning: an inquiry into texts online in audio, video, and e-book formats  (2009) -- gave a presentation with Beth Gourley at 21st Century Learning @Hong Kong, September 17-19, 2009

Connecting East (2009) -- developed a PD initiative (based on the 23 Things movement) with Keri-Lee Beasley to introduce online web tools for educators to the staff at UWCSEA East, 2008-2009.
-- the blog -- where weekly tasks are introduced
-- the wiki -- reference site where tools and tasks are presented for four levels of users:  Novice, Apprentice, Practitioner, Expert

Hands On Literacy Conference  (2008) -- was part of the organizing committee behind this one-day professional development event — and created a website to support this conference initiated by our Singapore international school librarian network, ISS-LN. Held at the Australian International School, Singapore.

Social Software in School and Life (2007) -- led a workshop with Barb (Philip) Reid at the TeachIT 2007 conference in Singapore -- on collecting, organizing, and sharing information, and the tools we can't live without.  We set up a wiki page for everyone attending to contribute to -- and we started it off with a collection of our own social software projects.

The Long Tail of Narrative Space and the Information Landscape: its implications for schools and libraries  (2006) -- led a workshop with Beth Gourley at the EARCOS Teachers’ Conference in Manila in 2006.

BOOK AWARD WORK

Red Dot Book Awards, Singapore - part of the original group, all members of the International School Librarians Network (ISLN) in Singapore, who started the awards in 2009. Actively involved from 2009-2017 and since 2020.

Siam Book Awards, Thailand - part of the BLISS (Bangkok Librarians in International Schools) group running these awards from 2017 to 2020.

Neev Book Awards, India - one of the nine original jury members when this award was inaugurated in 2018 and co-chair of the jury since 2021.

GLLI Translated YA Book Award - Global Literature in Libraries Initiative. Member of the committee for the 2023 award and chair of the committee for the 2024 award.

Congratulations to the 2024 GLLI Translated Young Adult Book Prize Winner & Honor Books! — April 3, 2024

MISC

AFCC “Themed Children’s Booklist” on the UN SDGs — developed & updated together with Evelyn Wong and Denise Tan for the Singapore Book Council.

Dewey posters available for Creative Commons sharing -- in a Dropbox folder -- designed by my daughter Maggie Appleton -- see blog post: http://www.thelibrarianedge.com/libedge/2016/8/29/dewey-designs-to-share

Referencing Posters (Creative Commons) - designed by UWCSEA librarians when I was there (so may not reflect the latest version):

Other Referencing Posters of the three IBO Referencing Styles (Creative Commons) - designed by Nadine Bailey and me

My photos of library visits & book-related places and things

PAPERS on Children’s Literature

A.L.O.E.: Writing Home (1999) — my Masters thesis in Children’s Literature, University of Surrey - Roehampton, UK. See also this talk on A.L.O.E. (“A Lady of England” — the pseudonym of Charlotte M. Tucker (1821-1893)), which I presented at a conference at Roehamption, Surrey, UK, in November 2000.

The Seductions of Elsie (2000) — written as part of the coursework for my MA in Children’s Literature. A look at the legacy of the Elsie Dinsmore series, by Martha Finley.

Beholding Emotion: Two Picture Book Narratives on Love and Loss (1996) — written as part of the coursework for my MA in Children’s Literature. A close look at “Sylvester and the Magic Pebble” (1969) by William Steig, and “Sam, Bangs, and Moonshine” (1966) by Evaline Ness.

The White Cat and the Squirrel Wife: The Subject Construction of Two Animal Brides (or “How I Left My Semiotic Home for Life as a Human Wife in the Symbolic”) (1996) — written as part of the coursework for my MA in Children’s Literature.

PAPERS on Librarianship and Teaching

Teens and Information Literacy… and the Public Library: an overview of the librarian’s potential role in the development of teenagers’ information literacy outside of school (2005) — written as part of the coursework for my Masters in Information and Library Science, Charles Sturt University, Australia.

Gaming as an Educational Tool (2005) — a discussion paper written as part of the coursework for my Graduate Diploma in Secondary Education, Charles Sturt University, Australia.

The Challenge of the Critical Edge (2005) — a paper written as part of the coursework for my Graduate Diploma in Secondary Education, Charles Sturt University, Australia.