On May 6 & 7, 2014, the U.S. Consulate General Rio, through its Information Resource Center (IRC), and in partnership with Vitoria Secretariat of Education, organized a two-day seminar for over fifty public elementary school librarians in the city of Vitoria, Espirito Santo.
Vitoria is an example for other municipalities in the country, as every elementary school has a library and every library is staffed by a librarian. Informatio Resource Officer Elenita Tapawan and Regional English Language Officer (RELO) Rick Rosenberg both gave presentations as did the Binational Centers from Vitoria and Vilha Velha.
The seminar focused on best practices for school librarians and included presentations by professors from the Library Sciences Department at the Federal University of Espirito Santo as well as a guest professor from the Library Sciences Department at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, whose area of expertise is school libraries.
The Secretary of Education was extremely pleased with the training and thanked the Consulate for the partnership. A RELO book donation was made to each school library whose librarian was participating of the program.
A panel, mediated by Penha Cordeiro, general coordinator for the school libraries, and with the participation of different users of the those libraries, such as students, professors, representatives of the communities, among others, brainstormed new ideas for the libraries` services, based on the speakers presentations.
