For many years the librarian has fairly regularly published articles in the Post, Redwood's parent newsletter. With the new more interactive and electronic version of the Post, you are now linked directly from the Post's web page to the Library's news blog, Library Leaves.
We post articles here at least monthly which aim to keep students, staff and the community apprised of things happening in the library as well as links to cool web tools and sites and tips on how to use the information resources of the Library efficiently and effectively.
Enjoy!
Tom Kaun
Redwood Teacher librarian
Showing posts with label Welcome. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Welcome. Show all posts
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Monday, September 3, 2007
Welcome to All Redwood Parents
Welcome new parents and welcome back veteran parents.
LIBRARY WEB SITE
The Bessie Chin Library would like especially to welcome parents new to the school community to take a close look at the library's Web site (http://rhsweb.org/library) which provides 24/7 access to many resources for you and your children. Even though you may not be able to come to the library during the school day, the online resources are always available. Starting with the library catalog (click on "Catalog Home Access") you will be able to peruse the rich resources of the Redwood library. The library has over 35,000 cataloged items, including books, magazines, websites, pamphlet files, videos, and audio books.
LIBRARY SUBSCRIPTION DATABASES
The library also subscribes to a rich collection of online resources which are accessed from the home page. Click on the link which says DATABASE PASSWORDS and enter the password when prompted. (Obtain the password from library staff or your kids). That will bring you to a page which has all of the user IDs and passwords listed.
The library's main magazine and newspaper database is provided by EBSCO, which also provides access to NoveList, Advanced Placement Source, TopicSearch, and professional educational journals. We subscribe to two online encyclopedias, Encyclopaedia Britannica Online Academic Edition and World Book Online Reference Center, and many other reference e-books through Oxford Reference Online Premium and the Gale Virtual Reference Library (through InfoTrac).
OTHER ONLINE RESOURCES
The library subscribes to the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and several magazines which have online editions. The access information is listed on the library's Periodicals Page.
Another very rich database for students is Questia, "the first online library that provides … access to the world's largest online collection of books and journal articles in the humanities and social sciences, plus magazine and newspaper articles." This year each student will have individual access to Questia via a personal ID and password. Students will be informed of their login information as soon as it’s available from Questia. Take the time to check out all the databases available from the library's Web site.
LIBRARY LEAVES BLOG
This Web log will provide the latest in library news.
This summer I went to an international school library conference in Taipei, Taiwan and posted several articles with photos about the conference, school libraries in Taiwan and other interesting experiences. Come back often.
VOLUNTEERING IN THE LIBRARY
We encourage parents who have time to volunteer in the library. Last year we had about fifteen parent volunteers who were able to give a couple hours every week or so. Volunteers perform a variety of tasks and we couldn't run the excellent program we do here at Redwood without their help. We have parents who help with book processing (covering, stamping, typing labels, etc.), filing books and other materials, looking up web pages and adding them to our online catalog, clipping articles from newspapers, magazines and the internet, and more. To see the variety of tasks our volunteers performed last year go to the library Volunteer Page. We'd love to have you join them and look forward to seeing all of you on Back-to-School Night.
LIBRARY WEB SITE
The Bessie Chin Library would like especially to welcome parents new to the school community to take a close look at the library's Web site (http://rhsweb.org/library) which provides 24/7 access to many resources for you and your children. Even though you may not be able to come to the library during the school day, the online resources are always available. Starting with the library catalog (click on "Catalog Home Access") you will be able to peruse the rich resources of the Redwood library. The library has over 35,000 cataloged items, including books, magazines, websites, pamphlet files, videos, and audio books.
LIBRARY SUBSCRIPTION DATABASES
The library also subscribes to a rich collection of online resources which are accessed from the home page. Click on the link which says DATABASE PASSWORDS and enter the password when prompted. (Obtain the password from library staff or your kids). That will bring you to a page which has all of the user IDs and passwords listed.
The library's main magazine and newspaper database is provided by EBSCO, which also provides access to NoveList, Advanced Placement Source, TopicSearch, and professional educational journals. We subscribe to two online encyclopedias, Encyclopaedia Britannica Online Academic Edition and World Book Online Reference Center, and many other reference e-books through Oxford Reference Online Premium and the Gale Virtual Reference Library (through InfoTrac).
OTHER ONLINE RESOURCES
The library subscribes to the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and several magazines which have online editions. The access information is listed on the library's Periodicals Page.
Another very rich database for students is Questia, "the first online library that provides … access to the world's largest online collection of books and journal articles in the humanities and social sciences, plus magazine and newspaper articles." This year each student will have individual access to Questia via a personal ID and password. Students will be informed of their login information as soon as it’s available from Questia. Take the time to check out all the databases available from the library's Web site.
LIBRARY LEAVES BLOG
This Web log will provide the latest in library news.
This summer I went to an international school library conference in Taipei, Taiwan and posted several articles with photos about the conference, school libraries in Taiwan and other interesting experiences. Come back often.
VOLUNTEERING IN THE LIBRARY
We encourage parents who have time to volunteer in the library. Last year we had about fifteen parent volunteers who were able to give a couple hours every week or so. Volunteers perform a variety of tasks and we couldn't run the excellent program we do here at Redwood without their help. We have parents who help with book processing (covering, stamping, typing labels, etc.), filing books and other materials, looking up web pages and adding them to our online catalog, clipping articles from newspapers, magazines and the internet, and more. To see the variety of tasks our volunteers performed last year go to the library Volunteer Page. We'd love to have you join them and look forward to seeing all of you on Back-to-School Night.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Welcome to the 2007-2008 School Year and the Bessie Chin Library Leaves Blog
Welcome back to those who are returning and welcome to the newcomers.
Over the summer I attended a wonderful school librarians' conference in
Taiwan. I was trying to figure out a way to share some of what I
experienced and eventually decided to set up a Web log to make that
possible. I realized that I could use this blog as the library newsletter as
well so I started this blog version of Bessie Chin Library Leaves. I'll be adding postings to it on a regular basis as the school year progresses and will send reminders every so often to take a look at the blog. One of the things I will be posting to the blog is my regular article in the parent newsletter so you'll be able to find that here as well. I will also add a widget so you can quickly get to the list of new materials on LibraryThing.
While in Taiwan I visited two exemplary high school libraries and made some connections to the staffs there. This might be especially handy for our kids learning Mandarin but other classes (Cultures and Geography comes to mind) might want to take advantage of the connection as well.
I've got a lot of stuff I collected there, which, with Irene's help, we might be able to translate and use, including CDs with presentations about the schools. Come on by to chat if you think any of this might be useful.
We also installed (with the help of Becky and Rose) AquaBrowser this summer. AquaBrowser is an online catalog (OPAC) interface which will take some experimenting with to use to best advantage. Our internal AB URL is http://10.70.0.254/aquabrowser, external URL (from home) is http://137.164.143.38/aquabrowser. I will try to get some time at a staff meeting to introduce AquaBrowser and its' benefits. I have also put links to it on the library home page. It's kind of fun--take a look.
This year we will have a school-wide subscription to Questia, a huge database of full-text books and articles. Up to now our Questia subscription has been a single-user version but Questia is now making this multi-user version available to schools. Topics covered by the database include Art and Architecture, Communication, Economics and Business, Education, History, Law, Literature, Music and Performing Arts, Philosophy, Politics and Government, Psychology, Religion, Science and Technology, and Sociology and Anthropology. You will notice that it is much stronger in humanities topics than science but there are some interesting titles in health science and technology and civilization areas.
With this version of Questia teachers will be able to set up reading lists and other resource lists and students will be able to keep track of materials they are using for a specific project with individual accounts. As soon as I have the log-in information I will be sharing it with all of you. Staff development will also be available at some point for Questia. In the meantime if you go to Questia and log in using "redwood94939" as the User ID and "giants" as the password you can take a look at some info about use of the database by teachers and students. (Click on Classroom and then Flash Demo for an overview of some of the features).
Hope you had a great reading summer. If you've read any great books (I read the three Gormenghast novels by Mervyn Peake) and you want the library to add them to our collections let me know and I'll order them. Of course, if you just want to donate any books you're finished with we happily take donations as well.
I'll be sending a packet out to new teachers and staff with info about how to best take advantage of library resource, staff and programs. Come on down when get the chance to either take a personalized tour or re-acquaint yourselves with the Bessie Chin Library (named for the librarian here at Redwood from 1968 to 1993).
The library extensions are: 3662 (Tom Kaun--Library Media Teacher); 3664 (Karen Barrett--Library Specialist); and 3663 (Cythea Harrison--Clerk I).
Over the summer I attended a wonderful school librarians' conference in
Taiwan. I was trying to figure out a way to share some of what I
experienced and eventually decided to set up a Web log to make that
possible. I realized that I could use this blog as the library newsletter as
well so I started this blog version of Bessie Chin Library Leaves. I'll be adding postings to it on a regular basis as the school year progresses and will send reminders every so often to take a look at the blog. One of the things I will be posting to the blog is my regular article in the parent newsletter so you'll be able to find that here as well. I will also add a widget so you can quickly get to the list of new materials on LibraryThing.
While in Taiwan I visited two exemplary high school libraries and made some connections to the staffs there. This might be especially handy for our kids learning Mandarin but other classes (Cultures and Geography comes to mind) might want to take advantage of the connection as well.
I've got a lot of stuff I collected there, which, with Irene's help, we might be able to translate and use, including CDs with presentations about the schools. Come on by to chat if you think any of this might be useful.
We also installed (with the help of Becky and Rose) AquaBrowser this summer. AquaBrowser is an online catalog (OPAC) interface which will take some experimenting with to use to best advantage. Our internal AB URL is http://10.70.0.254/aquabrowser, external URL (from home) is http://137.164.143.38/aquabrowser. I will try to get some time at a staff meeting to introduce AquaBrowser and its' benefits. I have also put links to it on the library home page. It's kind of fun--take a look.
This year we will have a school-wide subscription to Questia, a huge database of full-text books and articles. Up to now our Questia subscription has been a single-user version but Questia is now making this multi-user version available to schools. Topics covered by the database include Art and Architecture, Communication, Economics and Business, Education, History, Law, Literature, Music and Performing Arts, Philosophy, Politics and Government, Psychology, Religion, Science and Technology, and Sociology and Anthropology. You will notice that it is much stronger in humanities topics than science but there are some interesting titles in health science and technology and civilization areas.
With this version of Questia teachers will be able to set up reading lists and other resource lists and students will be able to keep track of materials they are using for a specific project with individual accounts. As soon as I have the log-in information I will be sharing it with all of you. Staff development will also be available at some point for Questia. In the meantime if you go to Questia and log in using "redwood94939" as the User ID and "giants" as the password you can take a look at some info about use of the database by teachers and students. (Click on Classroom and then Flash Demo for an overview of some of the features).
Hope you had a great reading summer. If you've read any great books (I read the three Gormenghast novels by Mervyn Peake) and you want the library to add them to our collections let me know and I'll order them. Of course, if you just want to donate any books you're finished with we happily take donations as well.
I'll be sending a packet out to new teachers and staff with info about how to best take advantage of library resource, staff and programs. Come on down when get the chance to either take a personalized tour or re-acquaint yourselves with the Bessie Chin Library (named for the librarian here at Redwood from 1968 to 1993).
The library extensions are: 3662 (Tom Kaun--Library Media Teacher); 3664 (Karen Barrett--Library Specialist); and 3663 (Cythea Harrison--Clerk I).
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