Fellowship, food, and fantastic sharing! Participants in the “Potluck for Learning” held at Kaimuki High School Library on Saturday, December 1, gave the event a unanimous thumbs up. The potluck brought together 34 attendees from private and public schools, public and academic libraries, who had a grand time exchanging ideas for lessons and promotions. This was a landmark occasion for HASL in bringing together professionals from different libraries. They had the opportunity to do informal, small group exchanges in two 30-minute swaps. Junie Hayashi from Leeward Community College and Darren Tanaka from Kailua Elementary graciously agreed to do formal 15-minute presentations: Junie shared how ENG 100 students were jazzed to conduct research following the “Epic Rap Battles of History” and Darren provided an inspiring chronicle of his work with elementary students in revamping his approach to learning by giving them voice and choice. In their evaluations, attendees enthusiastically recommended having more sessions like this one where ideas might be shared in an informal setting with librarians from diverse communities coming together. They loved how the session was organized and were delighted to receive a “recipe booklet” that included brief descriptions of each person’s potluck contribution with names and email contact information. This information is also available at https://goo.gl/Lvy2yx Thanks are due to the session planners Sandy Yamamoto, Joyce Tokuda, Lori Chun, and Vi Harada. They also had invaluable assistance from Imelda Amano, Elodie Arellano, Meera Garud, Caroline Lee, MB Ogawa, and Audrey Okemura. Jan Lee, Teresa Sakurada and Buddy Bess deserve kudos for contributing door prizes and giveaways. The following photos capture some of the potluck activities. Small Group Sharing let everyone hear about the great lessons, projects and activities happening in our libraries. Junie Hayashi from Leeward Community College showed us how she engages students into research with her Rapping for Research Project. Darren Tanaka from Kailua Elementary let us know it is okay to get out of our comfort zones, be challenged and get “messy” to help our kids achieve.
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Retirees Publish Book on Hawaii’s InterneesClaire Sato, a retired school librarian, and Violet Harada, LIS professor emeritus, have edited A Resilient Spirit: The Voice of Hawaii’s Internees. The book includes excerpts from various men and women, who were incarcerated at internment camps and detention centers in Hawaii. Claire and Violet spent three years combing through archival records at the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii’s Tokioka Heritage Resource Center to select moving and poignant vignettes from the internees’ oral histories, letters, writings, and poetry. Claire says her motivation for taking on this project was, “I wanted to have these stories told so that others would know that once there was a group of people who were unjustly treated, and they rose above it with dignity, strength and resilience.” Violet added, “It gave us the chance to send the message that history will continue to repeat itself unless we tell the real stories and stand up to the racism and bigotry wherever it exists. The book was published by the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii (JCCH) and is available at the JCCH Gift Shop. Order forms are available at https://www.jcch.com/gift-shop |