TMC Blog: Our collaborative think tank discussion hub. Continue the conversation from TMC8 2025. Read the papers, review the events!
Friday January 31: Opening Dinner, Keynote and Awards
Ballroom A, Intercontinental Hotel (Please note the change of location)
5:30 pm: Meet & Mingle
6:00 pm: Dinner
Saturday February 1: TMC8 Symposium
Ontario / Niagara Room, Intercontinental Hotel
7:45 am: Continental Breakfast
8:20 am: Program begins
The full TMC8 schedule is now available on the TMC website:https://tmc.canadianschoollibraries.ca/tmc8-2025-schedule/
We know you are all busy reading the papers posted for TMC8. We encourage you to also look at two relatively new documents directly relevant to our symposium discussions, particularly as we contemplate an advocacy plan for school libraries in Canada.
Foundations & Frameworks answers the essential question, "What support do schools need to successfully implement Leading Learning: Standards of Practice for School Library Learning Commons in Canada?"
Excellent school library programs are built on solid foundations and infrastructures or frameworks for success. Foundations for School Library Learning Commons in Canada: A Framework for Success provides standards for building these strong foundations and frameworks. It establishes strong policy, robust funding, and a commitment to equity of access as necessary foundations. It describes the elements that frame program success, including design factors for library spaces, technological infrastructure, professional staffing, and accessibility, as well as the ethics of school librarianship, a commitment to a growth mindset, and ongoing accountability.
Recommendations in Foundations for School Library Learning Commons in Canada: A Framework for Success are based on the International Federation of Library Association’s (IFLA) School Library Guidelines, 2nd revised edition (2015), internationally-approved standards for school libraries, adapting recommendations from the IFLA guidelines to the Canadian context.
Download Foundations for School Library Learning Commons in Canada: A Framework for Success
In 2024 Canadian School Libraries worked successfully with CFLA-FCAB to draft this position statement, which demonstrates the solidarity of the entire library community across the country and across sectors in support of improving the status of school libraries. As the position statement emphasizes,
Across the country there are widely divergent understandings of the role of the school library, and equally divergent or even non-existent policy frameworks, funding models, staffing, and program expectations. That Canadian students’ access to library programs and services depends largely on where they live is a deplorable situation in one of the world’s richest democracies. Equity of access to quality school library programs and services should be considered as a core foundation for education in Canada.
CSL is very grateful to the CFLA-FCAB board of directors for endorsing this position statement. How can we in the school library community use this wonderful document to support advocacy efforts?
Download the CFLA-FCAB position statement on the status of school libraries.
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Canadian School Libraries presents awards every other year, at Treasure Mountain Canada symposiums. We are pleased to be presenting the following awards at TMC8, 2025.
The Angela Thacker Memorial Award has been established in memory of Angela Thacker, teacher-librarian, library coordinator, and school library colleague, mentor, leader and advocate who served the Association for Teacher-Librarianship in Canada (ATLC) and the Canada School Library Association (CSLA) in many capacities. This award honours teacher-librarians who have made contributions to the profession through publications, productions or professional development activities that deal with topics relevant to teacher-librarianship and/or school library learning commons.
The recipients of the 2025 Angela Thacker Memorial Award are Jenn Brown and Diana Maliszewski.
Read more about Jenn Brown and Diana Maliszewski.
The Donald Hamilton School Library Advocacy Awardwas established in memory of Donald Hamilton, (1938–2023), a leader in the field of school libraries and teacher-librarianship throughout his long career, and a strong advocate for the crucial role of school libraries in student learning. The Donald Hamilton School Library Advocacy Award was established in 2023 in honour of Donald’s outstanding legacy. This is the inaugural presentation of the Donald Hamilton Award.
The recipients of this inaugural Donald Hamilton School Library Advocacy Award are Wendy Burch Jones of the Ontario School Library Association, and the Executive of the British Columbia Teacher-Librarians' Association.
TMC8 takes place on January 31 and February 1, 2025 in Toronto, as part of the Ontario Library Association Super Conference.
This TMCanada Blog is where we present the papers submitted for your consideration, and where the true collaboration that makes TMC so unique begins.
We are close to publishing TMC8 papers for you to read ahead of the symposium. Please stay tuned for updates!
There hasn't been a single Treasure Mountain that I've been to that hasn't ended in disappointment. But as Dr Suess has famously said, "don't cry that it's over, be happy that it happened." We've covered so much territory in less than 24 hours. Our retreat is ending with a Big Think. A time to collect our thinking and ask ourselves, So What? and Now What? Why do the things we've discussed matter, and what are we going to do with this information?
We're reflecting on our thinking through the lens of the CSL Leading Learning Standards. How do the big ideas present themselves in the context of the standards? How might the standards need to be finessed to reflect the current thinking? What's missing? Ultimately, how can we as school librarians be yet better?
It is this kind of thinking and the drive to serve our communities better that drives us as teacher librarians and makes me keep coming back to Treasure Mountain Research Retreats. Thanks to Anita, Carol, Joseph, David, and every single person that I've had the pleasure of talking to. You have made me a better teacher librarian and a better person. Until next time!
What do you do when someone comes to you asking that a book we removed from the collection?
This is the question that Sheri Kinney and Dianne Oberg addressed in the after lunch speakers session. Luckily for Sheri, she had expert teacher librarians in the greater community willing to guide her through the process. Her advice to us all was to make sure that your policies are not just in your head, but on paper. It’s very important for other TLs and for the Canadian book community to be able to access other experiences. See their paper for links to the database where you can search banned book cases.
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| Alanna and Tim King |
The Kings elaborated how project management on Trello can allow students to manage their own work and find their joy in learning. By allowing students to use self-directed programming, they have the opportunity to iterate and master not only their learning, but also their leadership skills.
The transparency of the project management plan (students could see the progress of classmates) encouraged the students to raise the bar of the entire class.
TMC participants were then invited to join Trello to experience the nature of the program.
We heard from Clint that TLs are one of the strongest collectives, and that our solidarity has been critical in keeping TLs in school libraries.
We heard from Chris that despite all of the technological changes in the world over the past 40 years, that libraries remain the strongest gathering spaces, and that the culture building that comes through libraries is unmatched.
From the Angela Thacker Memorial Award winners we heard first from Rabia Khokar that her love for libraries came from weekly visits to the public library and now she sees libraries as the biggest classroom in the school. Rebeca Rubio reminded us that our work takes courage and to keep up our commitment. Jonelle St-Aubyn celebrated the fact that TLs are challenging the norms and that we are a good in the world for our students. Leigh Border, via recording, shared her thanks for everyone committed to moving Teacher Librarians of Newfoundland and Labrador (TLNL) forward.
Angela Lapointe received the Leading Learning Implementation Award for Surrey, and spoke honestly about how the support she receives from her administration makes it able for her to better support her TLs. Her district leader, also in attendance, spoke of Andrea’s energy and efforts to connect all 150 TLs in the district.
Every speaker noted the importance of Canadian School Libraries and the impact of the work taken on by the leadership team; but also, the mentorship, friendship and collaboration of Carol Koechlin and Anita Brooks-Kirkland with them.
The take away for me tonight? We are a powerful group of innovators, supporters, learners, (this list could go on and on) etc, but we do things best when we do them TOGETHER.
After a nice walk from New Westminster Secondary down to the TMC hotel, I’ve got my shoes off and am ready to consider all of the wonderful things from this afternoon’s sessions.
My first afternoon session was SOGI and the Learning Commons, by Robin Low. I took many of my TL courses with Robin, so it was great to attend this session and see the work that she has done for her middle school students. With recent political events bringing safe spaces and library book selection to the forefront, I was keen to hear her experiences and strategies. Robin eloquently addressed awareness and inclusivity, earning your place as an ally, responding to hate groups, talking with students and setting expectations for the library and school. She shared her “inviting in” day: reminding families that it’s always a good time to come out to your child as an ally. During the hour, several TLs at the session shared their own feelings of vulnerability over book challenges and parent interactions.
To finish off the day, all attendees had a seat to hear the stories of Ivan Coyote. I see that many have already tweeted about the session, so it clearly had an impact! Ivan left us with a lot to think about, but anchored the talk around our “why.” Our why, but also many other hard hitting questions.
What would it take to make people really feel included?
How much resiliency do we really need to have?
What if we focussed on compassion and welcoming spaces instead of glorifying toughness?
Who has already left our communities to go find a safer, more welcoming place?
How good is government policy if we don’t even have day to day systems in place?
Ivan Coyote is master on the stage, weaving emotional moments with laughter and food for thought, along with calls to action in our schools.
It has been a long time since I’ve been to a library conference of any kind. Part of this is pandemic, and part of this is that so many conferences that I've attended have given me a surface skim of something potentially interesting, but rarely did I get that injection of something that ignited a fire in me. This morning is a story of that rare conference experience that has me fired up.
I then went to Rebeca Rubio’s discussion around Curation vs Censorship. How is it that we walk that line to support our diverse communities and enact solid policies to be able to do that effectively? I feel like I’m not alone in allowing other priorities to get ahead of a collection policy review at my school. In our increasingly divisive society, challenges to books are increasing and the need for solid policy is imperative. But also, it was pointed out that a good policy makes the selection and weeding process less personal. A good policy provides a mirror to hold decisions up to and challenges to decisions are less of a personal attack. Choices to acquire or weed are made more thoughtfully and less emotionally.
I am so thankful to both David and Rebeca for reminding me of some important things, teaching me something new, and know that they have already had an impact on my space and my community.
The audience is so enthused to welcome BCTLA conference keynote speaker David A. Robertson. David's work is very familiar to this group. His many award-winning books, including When We Were Alone and The Barren Grounds, have provided windows of insight for readers young and old. David helps us to learn the truth, which is the first step on the path to reconciliation.
David is starting by talking about representation, or more specifically lack of representation in books of the not-very-distant past, or negative stereotyping in the guise of representation. This is something that we as teachers and teacher-librarians of a certain age should be familiar with. I remember trying to expose my middle school students to Indigenous culture in the early 1990s, and could find precious little. We are so very fortunate now that so many Indigenous authors like David Robertson and Ivan Coyote, who will be speaking later today, are being published.
I will stop now, because I really, really want to listen more carefully to what David has to say. It is clear that everyone in this room is so very engaged in learning from him – part of that open and honest conversation that ALL Canadians should be having about the truth, on our journey to reconciliation.
Tomorrow, Saturday, we're back at New Westminster Secondary School to dig into the exciting work of TMC.
We are thrilled to let you know that all 27 papers submitted for this symposium are now available for you to read on this TMCanada Blog. We are unaware of any other event in K-12 education in Canada that is based on this wealth of input from contributors. TMC is truly unique, thanks to the wealth of ideas and experiences from the dedicated people who have submitted papers.
The other piece that makes TMC unique is the degree to which you as participants are invited to engage in the process. The symposium is about delving into ideas and working towards positive outcomes.
We invite you to continue reading and responding to papers. There are already several great conversations underway. If you are a paper writer, be sure to check in on the conversation that it has inspired, responding to questions and comments as they arise.
TMC7 and the BCTLA Fall Conference are just days away. We look forward to gathering together in New Westminster!
Here's a message from TMC co-founder and symposium co-chair Carol Koechin, inviting you to collaborate with us.
Canadian School Libraries has two awards, which are presented every other year, at Treasure Mountain Canada symposiums. We are pleased to be presenting the following awards.
The Angela Thacker Memorial Award has been established in memory of Angela Thacker, teacher-librarian, library coordinator, and school library colleague, mentor, leader and advocate who served the Association for Teacher-Librarianship in Canada (ATLC) and the Canada School Library Association (CSLA) in many capacities. This award honours teacher-librarians who have made contributions to the profession through publications, productions or professional development activities that deal with topics relevant to teacher-librarianship and/or school library learning commons.
