Librarian in Residence 2010: Schulbibliotheken

Our Librarians in Residence for 2010 have been chosen! For those of you who aren’t familiar with the program: each year, as of 2008, the Goethe-Institut New York invites two German librarians to travel to the US in order to meet and work with their American colleagues on a specific theme. In 2008 it was “Multicultural Library Work” and in 2009, “Advocay”. The theme for 2010 is “School Libraries.”

Helga Hofmann, deputy department head of the Employment Office for School Libraries at Frankfurt Municipal Library, and Julia Rittel, director for School Media at the Technical College of Rhein-Siegen-Kreis and head of the School Libraries Working Group of North-Rhine-Westphalia will be the two librarians in residence for 2010. They were chosen from a pool of 18 applicants who applied for the program to the Goethe-Institut New York and Bibliothek & Information International. This fall the two will travel to Tallahassee, Florida, where the Goethe-Institut, together with the current President of the Association of American School Librarians, Nancy Everhart, who is also director of the School Libraries Training Program and of PALM (Partnerships Advancing Library Media) Centers at Florida State University, will organize the program for this year’s librarians in residence.

Ms. Hofmann and Ms. Rittel will have the opportunity to become familiar with the daily routine of several school libraries and with the specifics of school library education in the US. In addition, they also will take part in the conference of the Florida Association for Media in Education (FAME), and contribute reports on their residency to this blog. Following their time in the US, they will publish an article in the German library journal, Buch und Bibliothek, on their experiences as Librarians in Residence