The world's largest reviewer of books, multimedia, and technology for children and teens
Sharing has a whole new meaning for Marion County, FL, elementary school librarians, far beyond the lesson they help teach their young charges. Today, the word refers to the way media specialists manage their jobs—which means each must head two elementary school libraries instead of one.
Los Angeles County prosecutors have charged 12 school employees, including two librarians, with stealing at least thousands of textbooks from their school districts—four of the nation’s poorest—for a book buyer, who allegedly paid them $200,000 in bribes, the Los Angeles Times has reported.
Imagine a school library bigger than the school it supports—with an auditorium, homework center, and a 6,000-square-foot teen room where hundreds of iPads and computers are at students’ disposal. That’s the reality for 9th and 10th graders at San Diego’s new e3 Civic High School, a public charter school literally inside the recently completed 400,000-square foot, $185-million Central Library.
Nancy Jo Lambert, librarian at the Ruth Borchardt Elementary School in Plano, TX, created a unique program that connects her school library’s statistics with her students’ classroom math in a fun way. Find out how she did it—and why her students now clamor for this monthly program.
September 11 marks a difficult anniversary. To help children’s and young adult librarians navigate the challenging teachable moments that the day might raise and to guide those librarians working in universities and public libraries to address the potential research needs of their patrons, our editors have compiled these resources.
Gale, part of Cengage Learning, and Library Media Connection magazine today announced the three winners of the TEAMS Award—Teachers and Media Specialists Influencing Student Achievement, a biannual honor recognizing the critical collaboration between teachers and library media specialists in promoting learning.
Nearly 10,000 students at 20 local schools now have access to the Indianapolis Public Library’s collection of nearly two million items as part of the library’s growing Shared System, an inter-library collaboration that provides online circulation services and joint access to the catalogs and collections of member institutions.
Toni Morrison’s acclaimed novel The Bluest Eye—which tackles such difficult subjects as racism, incest, and child abuse—could become the latest in a wide range of books that have been officially challenged in Alabama’s 132 school districts in recent years, if State Senator Bill Holtzclaw, R-Madison, has his way. The legislator is calling for its removal from school libraries in the state, a position that has so far resonated with at least one local school board member.
Follett’s new back-to-school release of its FollettShelf hosted digital bookshelf—which includes a new HTML5 reading environment for econtent called Follett Enlight—is now available for schools to download this week via apps for GooglePlay and iOS, even though it does not yet appear in searches of Apple’s iTunes store, the company assures School Library Journal.
Sierra did the right thing, and finds herself about to be expelled from school, all because of a zero tolerance no-weapons policy. But are the rules really that black and white? Five lucky winners will have the chance to explore Claudia Mills’s take on this with their own copy of Zero Tolerance.
Tech maven Joyce Valenza and longtime SLJ contributor Joy Fleishhacker share the latest tools and book picks for the back-to-school season. From curated reading lists to useful tech trends and tips, School Library Journalhas gathered the following resources to help your students, patrons, parents (and you) get back in the swing of things.
According to U.S. Census Bureau statistics released today, college enrollment in fall 2012 plunged by half a million (467,000) from one year earlier. This decline, which includes both graduate and undergraduate enrollment, follows a period of substantial growth (3.2 million) between 2006 and 2011. INFOdocket editor Gary Price examines the data, including relevant K–12 statistics.
It’s called “school reform” with a focus on “student achievement,” but I shudder to think where we have come as a nation that many public schools don’t have a library, and won’t ever get one unless someone can beg a grant from a foundation or corporation.
After the storms last spring devastated the Moore (OK) community, Capstone recently sent a shipment of 3,000-plus books to support the city’s two elementary schools, Briarwood Elementary and Plaza Towers Elementary.
As students around the country return to school, those in New York City are facing a future without certified school librarians, as the NYC Department of Education (DOE) has asked to be excused from a decades-old state mandate on minimum staffing requirements.
Can a public library serve both school children and its other patrons at the same time? That question is being put to the test in Chicago this week as the Back of the Yards Library—a public branch meant to serve as a school library for the 9–12 grade students attending the new Back of the Yards High School next door—opens its doors.
Already hobbled, Philadelphia schools are facing their first day with fewer school librarians—continuing a trend in the metropolitan school district and the state of Pennsylvania as well. Of the approximately 22 remaining certified school librarians working in the Philadelphia school district, some are not returning to their school librarian positions.
New York City’s librarians, teachers, and parents are prepping for a major battle with the city’s Department of Education on the heels of its official request to the New York State Education Department last week that it be exempted from state minimum staffing requirements for certified school library media specialists. The city’s move follows years of quiet noncompliance with the state mandate despite two petitions from the local teachers union to the State Commissioner of Education.
The importance of advocacy is evident to us during a crisis. When our libraries are threatened or our staff faces cuts, then we leap into motion. But we should be mindful of advocacy every day. Mapping a yearlong effort keeps advocacy from getting lost in the daily shuffle.
Follett announced today a partnership with U.S. publisher Hachette Book Group (HBG) to provide preK-12 school libraries and students expanded access to popular children’s titles. Award-winning books such as Jewell Parker Rhodes’s Ninth Ward and Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian will be available in an ebook lending format for the 2013-2014 school year. The company recently announced a similar agreement with Random House Children’s.
