Advocating Excellence. Facilitating Change. Developing Leaders.

GLMA is the largest professional organization serving school library media professionals in Georgia. Its members are dedicated to the advancement and empowerment of school library media specialists and to quality education in Georgia’s schools. GLMA, Inc. is the state affiliate to the American Association of School Libraries (AASL), a division of the American Library Association (ALA). GLMA is also an affiliate of ISTE, International Society for Technology in Education.

Member in the News!

Rosalind Dennis has received the prestigious American Association of School Librarians (AASL) Intellectual Freedom Award!

In an AASL press release, the award committee chair said,

“The committee recognized Rosalind Dennis as an intellectual freedom defender and advocate in two ways,” said Helen Adams, award committee chair. “First, she managed a contentious challenge to its successful conclusion with the book being retained in the library collection. Second, as president of the Georgia Library Media Association, Rosalind demonstrated her concern for intellectual freedom in school libraries by strengthening the association’s Intellectual Freedom Committee and the position of the chair.”

Rosalind will be honored at the AASL Awards Luncheon on Monday, July 1, 2013 during the 2013 ALA Annual Conference in Chicago.

Let’s all congratulate Rosalind for receiving this national award and acknowledge her exemplary work in DeKalb county and for GLMA!

The full AASL Press Release can be read here.

Rosalind Dennis – Brief Bio
Ms. Dennis is a dedicated member of the Georgia Library Media Association(GLMA).  She is a Past President of the association and currently serves as the Organizational Maintenance Coordinator.  One of Ms. Dennis’ important contributions while she was president was to strengthen the role of the Intellectual Freedom Chair.  Ms. Dennis has a deep concern for keeping the importance of intellectual freedom in the forefront of the organizations mission and is respected by her colleagues in GLMA as a leader in promoting the access to information for all Georgians.

ALERT!!!  Your school library media program may be in jeopardy!

Georgia Media Specialists,

Does your principal tell you that you walk on water?  Are there teachers in your building who’ve said, “I owe you BIG time!” – multiple times? Do parents (or students) tell you they LOVE the school library?  If so, please ask them to write a letter detailing how your media center program makes a difference in the lives of students at your school.

A small group will present to the Education Finance Study Commission subcommittee our facts, figures, and research on the importance of school library media centers in K-12 education on Monday, August 13th at 9 a.m.  YOU can help by providing the personal stories as evidence of our importance.  This will be the first day of school for many in our state, or just the second Monday for others, so we realize that asking many people to appear at the meeting is just not reasonable.

Imagine, though, if each media specialist in Georgia got just one teacher, administrator, parent, or student to write a letter about how they were positively impacted by the media program in their school… we’d need a large notebook to deliver them all!  We will be HAPPY to provide the notebook if YOU will provide the letters; please ask one or two people during the next week and see what happens!

Letters may be mailed to my school (Webb Bridge Middle School, 4455 Webb Bridge Road, Alpharetta, GA 30005) or e-mailed to nantbrown@hotmail.com.  The only stipulation is that the writer should provide their first and last names and a home or school address so the committee will know these are individually written.

An excellent article on the need for school libraries is Why You Need Your School Librarian, written by Kentucky’s Teacher of the Year, if someone would like a starting point for their letter. (Just please ask them to provide one specific example from their own experience.)

Good luck as you begin your school year, and please consider how “each one reach one” may impact the future of school library media center funding in our state,

Thanks,

Nan T. Brown
Advocacy Chair, GLMA