The Library Named One of the 7 Wonders

As mentioned earlier, the recently published Log, the yearbook of Redwood High School, had as its theme this year "The Seven Wonders of Redwood."

Named as "Wonders" were the spirit ball, the senior parking area, the new lunch plaza, the library, new gym and pool, the amphitheatre, and Mount Tamalpais.

When I talked to the yearbook advisor about the process used to pick these seven things, she said that the easiest one to pick was the library. The kids had started out wanting to name the librarian but decided that the library would be a better choice. It's really great to hear that they value both the staff and the library program at Redwood. As at most schools, it's not every day that we get feedback on the value of the library to students. So we say thanks!

Each section of the yearbook is headed by a two-page spread which speaks a bit more to one of the wonders. The Library heads the section on Academics which has photos of the staff and each of the departments as well as club pictures.
The copy which accompanies the spread reads as follows:

From dawn 'til dusk, Monday through Friday, August to June, the rooms of Redwood are filled with minds at work. We keep ourselves busy for all four years with everything from English 1-2 and AP Chemistry to Drama. Starting out as Freshmen we wander the halls, peering into Junior and Senior classrooms, and waiting for our turn to take those more exciting classes. We are offered a wide variety of challenging and intellectually rewarding classes. However, through our years at Redwood High School, one place remains the same for all: the library.
Whether we are looking for books, doing some last minute homework, picking up the IJ [local newspaper] or just hanging out before the bell rings, the library remains a constant at the center of our school: a meeting place that is always there and offers everything we need as students.

Two Things

One of the Seven Wonders of Redwood
Last week my assistant got her hands on a preview copy of our annual, the Log. The theme this year is "The Seven Wonders of Redwood." And guess what one of the "Wonders" is? Yes, the Library.
It was really neat to see that the kids value the Bessie Chin Library and it's programs. The introductory article says the following: "Always a blessed place in our hearts, the library serves as a resource for students: providing computers, fiction and nonfiction books, and presentations from our librarians. The library is in constant use for studying after school and during lunch." It's always great getting unsolicited praise, especially from the students.

The Draft District Mission Statement
Yesterday at Instructional Council we got our first look at the District's new draft Mission Statement. Here it is in full:

-- The Tamalpais Union High School District is dedicated to the development of passionate, self-motivated learners.
-- Upon graduation, students will be prepared to become engaged citizens who contribute individually and collaboratively to address the challenges of a dynamic, interdependent world.
-- To these ends, all students will demonstrate mastery of core competencies and will be offered meaningful learning experiences to enable them to access and critically analyze information, pose substantive questions, and communicate effectively.

The important words to me are highlighted above. Our current Mission Statement does not mention anything about information skills or competency so I see this as a real step forward for the library programs in the District. I know that one Trustee who I have talked to extensively about these issues had a strong hand in making sure that such language was included in the Statement.

Loertscher and Farmer Webinar

This afternoon I took part in an interesting, if a bit frustrating, webinar. It was lead by David Loertscher, and Lesley Farmer also participated.

The frustrating thing was that wasn't interactive like most webinars I've attended before. But maybe that will come eventually. They plan on hosting more of these sessions.

The presentation, which lasted an hour, was full of tips for keeping track of what we are doing with students and teachers in the library, a challenging endeavor for sure. What's the purpose? Well, with budget cuts happening all over the place, we are ever more pressured to demonstrate that what we're doing for kids and teachers is highly valuable. By keeping track of what and how our kids are learning we can demonstrate exactly that when the crunch time comes.

In general we teacher librarians don't do a great job collecting that kind of data although this blog helps me a little to track what my staff and I do in our library. So I was glad for the reminder about Doug Achterman's California School Libraries Work! wiki. As soon as I get approved to edit I will begin adding things to the Marin County page.

It was interesting to see that Lesley is still using examples from her time at Redwood to make points about the value of collaboration. Fortunately today we have very good professional tech support for the library and the school as a whole. The world of the Internet and library service has changed dramatically in the ten years since Lesley was library media teacher here at Redwood and I think we're doing a great job keeping up with it.

How I Spent My Spring Break

I apologize for being away for a while but I was determined to post my impressions of Library LegiDay in Sacramento on April 15 before the CSLA board meeting tomorrow.
The picture is of CSLA's president, Connie Williams, and me standing on the steps of the Capitol after our "press availability" that morning. Senators Lois Wolk and Ellen Corbett had announced the proclamation of National Library Week and there was a crowd of public and school librarians chomping at the bit to get inside the Capitol to speak with various state representatives. I was scheduled to see my assemblywoman, Nancy Skinner, at 11:30 so I had a bit of time to kill before the meeting. That was also the day that the anti-tax "tea parties" were meeting in various locations around the country including our own capital. There was a lot going on in the capital that day.

I spent some time in a Senate Education Committee meeting were the senators were hearing about bills and voting on whether to sent them on. Two I remember had to do with eliminating the requirement that second graders be required to take the STAR test and opening interdistrict student transfer opportunities. Both were popular with the senators present.

At 11:15 I went to Assemblymember Skinner's office and introduced myself. As the substitute for Ellie Goldstein-Erikson, who is the official liaison, I was to present Ms. Skinner with the packet which had been prepared by the LegiDay organizers explaining our issues and asking for her support. Ellie couldn't be there that day because of other commitments and Barbara Jeffus asked me to take her place. About 8-10 public librarians from District 14, which includes much of the East Bay, then showed up and were lead into a small office by one of her aides since she wasn't available at that time.

Her aide was very personable and I think the theme of "Educate to Legislate" was very evident in the remarks all the librarians made in the meeting with him. Because Skinner is a brand new member of the legislature it was very important that she be brought up to speed on the issues facing all library programs in the state. After several public librarians had pointed out how important their libraries are in these uncertain economic times and how they relied on state funding for many of their literacy outreach programs I mentioned that if we had more and better school libraries our populace would be more literate, better at using information sources and more economically productive. The aide seemed to understand what we were saying and promised to pass our concerns on to the assembly member.

I was also able to visit Assembly member Tom Ammiano's office. Tom was a neighbor of mine in San Francisco and I've known him for many years. Several of us met with his aide and thanked him for being supportive of libraries in San Francisco, both public and school. We asked him to arrange visits to school libraries so he could see for himself what the people of San Francisco are getting for their very crucial tax dollars. CSLA Government Relations co-chairs, Barbara Duffy and Pam Oehlman, were also at that meeting.

Overall the day was inspiring and very different from the "Day in the District" meeting I've attended. Although I didn't get to see the legislators, their aides seemed very willing to listen, take notes, and I'm sure passed on to their bosses, what they heard that day.

Just so you don't think I spent my entire Spring Break in the capital here's a picture I took at a wonderful B & B I stayed at Wednesday and Thursday nights in Columbia. The shot is of a cat which could be a twin of my own "tuxedo" cat. And note that it is a Manx which mine is too.

The Mainstreaming of e-Books in Our Library

eBooks @ Adelaide

I recently added over 1300 ebook records to the library catalog from the eBooks @ Adelaide (University of Adelaide, Australia) website.

To access the books search for the series "eBooks @ Adelaide" (from home; from school). This will bring up the entire list of 1306 titles. Most of these books are older and therefore are out of copyright and many are available on such sites as Gutenberg and Bibliomania. The nice thing about the Adelaide e-books is that they provide downloadable MARC records which are the records librarians use in online catalogs. The records are not great and require some tweeking to make them really useful but their availability certainly makes the task of getting the records into the catalog and therefore accessible to the library patron a very simple task.

Once you've opened the record you just click on the link which says "Connect to e-book online" or, for records which haven't been modified, on the URL, to get to the online text. Authors in the collection range alphabetically from Edwin Abbott to Emile Zola and chronologically from Homer to Orwell. This collection will enable the library patron to access many books which we don't actually have on the shelves and electronically many we do have even when they aren't physically in the library. One advantage of e-books is the ability of two or more patrons to simultaneously use the same book.

The eBooks @ Adelaide website allows the user to browse titles by author, title, chronologically, and thematically and allows for full-text searches of all the books on the site. The books are also available as zip files to download to the user's own device for reading offline as well.

America.gov

Also recently discovered a new e-book resource on the America.gov website which provides access to full-text books as well. America.gov: Engaging the World is the new public face of the U.S. Dept. of State to the international community and presents quite a change from the previous administration. One of the missions of the State Department's Bureau of International Information Programs is to present the United States to the rest of the world as well as its own citizens. Some recently published titles include Being Muslim in America, Abraham Lincoln: A Legacy of Freedom, Dreams of Edgar Allan Poe, Free at Last: The Civil Rights Movement, Sketchbook USA, and American Popular Music. While these books might be considered propaganda they also give the reader an opportunity to see what the U.S. government considers important for the world to understand about us.

Another publication available on the site is an electronic journal. Recent topics of the e-journal, which is thematic, include the movie business, American teenagers, the changing English language, and college education in the U.S.

The publications from this site are available for downloading as pdf documents and are available in a variety of languages including Russian, Spanish, Chinese and Arabic.

As e-books become more and more ubiquitous and accessible I expect all of us will be reading more and more online.

What We'd Love Our Graduating Seniors to Know

Joyce Valenza's statement to her high school seniors in a recently published article in VOYA says it all for me: "I hope you will do more than what the researchers call 'satificing,' a cross between satisfying and sufficing. I want you to use your skills to find quality. I want you to go further than any of your peers will. I want you to search for quality, relevance, currency, and credibility. I want you to find excellence, display excellence, and distinguish yourself from other freshmen."

Joyce is a model teacher librarian in Springfield, Pennsylvania whose contributions to school librarianship are numberless. She has unbelievable energy and enthusiasm for her kids and her work. In her NeverEnding Search blog at School Library Journal Joyce is continually challenging us to find better ways of teaching and learning along with our students in this ever-changing world of information overload.

Delaine Eastin Endorses Tom Torlakson

This video shows Delaine Eastin's April 3rd endorsement of Tom Torlakson's bid to run for Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Delaine is a real hero to the school library community and she mentions school libraries a couple times in the course of her speech. If Torlakson has only half of the passion Delaine has exhibited for school libraries over the years we will be well served by him.