9th Grade Library Orientation

Library orientations started this week with a presentation to a special ed class. Four students got an "up close and personal" introduction to the library. Three where freshmen and one had transferred from Drake (another school in the district) and hadn't taken World Cultures & Geography yet which is a graduation requirement.
The students were attentive and I think they were able to absorb most of the rules and expectations of the Library as well as an introduction to the many library resources.

Today the first of 12 regular WC&G classes came to the Library. Mr. McDaniel has three classes and I will be talking to two more tomorrow. As usual SpongeBob is a hit with the kids and, also as usual, at least one remembered that SB's pet snail, Gary, has the dream of being a librarian (See the "Sleepytime" episode). I was able to sign the class up to do the TRAILS-9 information literacy assessment and they will log in and complete the assessment over the next few days. I am asking all the 9th-graders to do the assessment as a pre-test of information literacy skills and I will share the results with all 9th-grade teachers once the results are in.

Yesterday we found out that a district employee who has been working in food service at Drake accepted the position as afternoon Library Specialist. Hans Doto will be working in the Library this year while Karen Barrett serves as Redwood's Athletic Director in the afternoon. Mr. Doto is a martial arts instructor among other things and I expect he won't have much trouble keeping order in the Library during lunch. (Just kidding!) I'll try to get a picture of Mr. Doto on the website as soon as possible. He's scheduled to begin working here next Tuesday.

9th Grade Orientations Complete

After fifteen sessions of more than an hour each over the last three weeks, all the 9th graders (and a few non-9th graders) have been introduced to the library and it's resources. This the earliest we have been able to complete the orientations and I will admit it feels great.

The last class to be introduced to the library was Mr. McDaniel's Alpha class (World Cultures & Geography) and I have to give them a lot of credit because they were very attentive during the presentation which took place right after lunch. All the classes were very attentive and responsive which is important because there is, despite my having to talk a lot, a good deal of give and take during the presentation.

The presentation uses SpongeBob SquarePants and the denizens of Bikini Bottom to help get its points across. (My favorite is Gary, SpongeBob's loyal, meowing snail pet, who wants to be a librarian as revealed in "Sleepy Time" an episode in which SpongeBob enters various critter's dreams). It starts with basic library policies and rules, talks about physical resources of the library including books (fiction and non-fiction, circulating and reference), pamphlet file materials, audio book, textbooks, videos, maps, and periodicals. We discuss how to access those resources using Sequoyah, the library's catalog. I then demonstrate the library's web site with it's myriad of online resources. Particular attention is paid to two databases, Student Research Center, provided by EBSCOhost and CountryWatch, a geographical database. Both of these are subscription databases which require a user ID and password so we explore how to find those passwords online using the Redwood website. We also take a look at MARINet, the catalog for the Marin County libraries. We introduce the library staff as well.

I really enjoy doing the presentations each year and want to thank the World Cultures & Geography teachers, Claire Ernst, Nicolle Plescia, Jon Hirsch, Eric Berridge, and Jim McDaniel for getting their classes scheduled in so promptly and helping with the presentation and follow-up assignments. All the teachers gave credit to their students for their participation.

End of the First Month

September is Library Card Sign Up Month so get those library cards if you don't have one. The public libraries in Marin are very good and with a library account you have access to the resources of the entire county (and beyond).

As the first month of school winds down we have had four 9th grade Cultures and Geography classes go through orientation in the library.
The orientations went very well thanks to attention from students and active participation by their teacher (Thanks, Ms. Ernst!)
Seven classes will be in next week and the final five the following week. I'd like to thank all the 9th grade social studies teachers for promptly signing up their classes this year. It is essential that new students have an orientation to the library as soon as possible since they will be using the library regularly from the first weeks of school.

One addition to orientation this year is an assignment which gives students the opportunity to explore at least a couple search engines they may not have used before. When asked, students say that their most popular search engine is Google, but there are several other which have features students may find helpful including Ask and Clusty. The nice thing about both of these is that they allow the user to narrow the focus of the search by providing suggested topics which Google does not do. I'd also like students to take a look at Yahoo's Directory (Google has one as well) and a metasearch engine, too. The directory sites can teach kids how things can be arranged hierarchically, and how that can help focus their search, and a metasearch engine (like Vivisimo) allows them to search across several search engines at the same time.
I will keep working on improving the orientation to make it as fun and useful as I can for students and teachers alike.

Open House will be next Thursday and the library will be open for visiting. Come on by if you get the chance.

End of the First Week

My meeting with the Social Studies dept. on Monday has paid off. I've got three of the Cultures and Geography teachers signed up bring their 9th graders into the library for orientation (a total of 10 classes so far). There a still a couple teachers who need to sign up but this is great for the first week of school. This year I'm working with teachers to do a follow-up assignment on the differences between various search engines. Nicolle Plescia had done the assignment with her Transitions students this summer and thought it was useful and valuable and I certainly agree. This is the first time a teacher has come with an assignment specifically related to information literacy and it's great. We will be refining the assignment as we work with various classes over the next few weeks and should have something worth sharing before the end of the month.

The library is looking for a few good students who are willing to be library assistants in the IWE program this semester. If you have a good mind, are reliable and have a good attendance record, and want to work in an interesting and highly valued school resource please see Mr. Kaun in the library.