The 9th February, 2013 is National Libraries Day and CILIP (the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals) hope that it will be a “culmination of a week’s worth of celebrations in school, college, university, workplace and public libraries across the UK.”
School librarians are keen to take part in the celebration of libraries on National Libraries Day 2013 so they are organising a simultaneous ‘Parallel Universes’ story writing workshop, and have applied to the Guinness World Records as they believe this hasn’t been done before and felt that such an undertaking should be recognised!
Award winning author, Matt Haig, who has just been appointed writer in residence at Booktrust , has agreed to write the start of a story. On Wednesday 6th February, that starter will be given to participating students who will then have to write the rest of the story. The event is targeting at students in Years 5 thoruogh to Year 9 so that Junior as well as Senior schools can take part. Students involved will need to write a minimum of 250 words between 12 noon and 1pm, although they can write more if they wish to!
Barbara Band, Head of Libraries and Resources at Emmbrook School and CILIP Vice President says,
“We are hoping that all the stories will be gathered together afterwards and shared online so that everyone can read them, and see how you can take an idea and develop it in so many different ways.
As well as celebrating National Libraries Day, this is a wonderful way to involve the school library in an event that demonstrates how reading and writing can be fun and exciting, which hopefully will raise the profile of the library in school and create media interest thus advocating our profession!”
Over 70 schools have already signed up across the whole of the UK, with thousands of students taking part and this number is expected to increase!
If you are interested, please email Barbara on barbara567band@hotmail.com so that she can send you the start of the story plus keep you updated regarding any news from Guinness World Records.
