Libraries Unlimited Professional Guides in School Librarianship – serie

As prices of traditional library materials increase, and space to house them shrinks, savvy school library media specialists are creating cyber libraries, or school libraries on the Internet. These libraries offer students and their parents 24-hour access and are invaluable for providing up-to-date information in a way traditional materials cannot. This guide outlines the steps library media specialists can take to create a cyber library, provide content and policies for use, and maintain it for maximum efficiency.Craver justifies the need for cyber libraries in the 21st century, and how they can help librarians to meet the standards in Information Power (1998). She explains the different types of cyber libraries available, along with their advantages and disadvantages. She discusses how to construct them using portals or by acquiring fee-based cyber libraries, and what policies should be in place to protect both the school and its students. Also included are instructions for establishing remote access to subscription databases, creating cyber reading rooms, and providing instructional services to student users. Once a cyber library is created, it must be maintained and evaluated to keep it useful and current, and this book provides guidelines to do so. Finally, there is a chapter on promoting the cyber library, so the school community is aware of its features and participates in its growth process. No school library should be without this volume!

Geography teachers and school library media specialists will find this resource indispensable for providing classroom lessons and activities in critical thinking for geography students in grades 7-12. It is filled with over 75 primary source Internet sites covering such topics as Places and Regions, Physical Systems, Human Systems, Environment and Society, and the Uses of Geography, and will be an invaluable tool in helping teachers and librarians meet the standards set forth in the 1994 publication Geography for Life: National Geography Standards.Each site is accompanied by a site summary that describes the site contents and usefulness to geography teachers and school library media specialists. Site subjects include: Urban Landscapes, Volcanoes and Earthquakes, Weather, The U.S. Census, and the World Wildlife Fund Global Network. The questions and activities that follow are designed to develop critical thinking skills for both oral and written presentations. An appendix of additional geography resources includes Internet addresses for approximately 25 sites relating to maps, primary sources, and critical thinking. This will provide teachers and librarians with even more resources for developing lessons to help each student meet all 18 of the National Geography Standards.

Presenting web sites from around the world covering much of the world's literature, this book provides creative and interesting thinking activities to enhance student understanding of literature and culture and to promote critical thinking. This book will be very useful to teachers of world history and literature at the senior high school and undergraduate level. Part of a well reviewed series of titles Using Internet Primary Sources to Promote Critical Thinking, carries on the tradition of excellence in instructional tools. Grades 9-12.

Mathematics teachers and school library media specialists will find this book a valuable resource for using the Web to promote critical thinking in the high school mathematics classroom. It is filled with instructional strategies and an expansive set of activities that cover a broad array of mathematics topics spanning from prealgebra through calculus. Teachers using the questions and activities in this book will help their students meet the standards set forth by the National Council for Teachers of Mathematics.Various types of mathematics related sources on the Internet are outlined within this book, including data and simulations related to real world situations such as saving funds and computing interest earned for college, purchasing a home, or decoding train and plane schedules. The author develops a framework for critical thinking in mathematics and helps teachers create a supportive classroom environment. Each activity highlights a web source, the mathematics topics involved, the appropriate grade levels of study, possible student investigations, and related web sources for continued exploration, promoting a student-centered inquiry.

Teachers of political science, social studies, and economics, as well as school library media specialists, will find this resource invaluable for incorporating the Internet into their classroom lessons. Over 150 primary source Web sites are referenced and paired with questions and activities designed to encourage critical thinking skills. Completing the activities for the lessons in this book will allow students to evaluate the source of information, the content presented, and it usefulness in the context of their assignments.Along with each Web site, a summary of the site's contents identifies important primary source documents such as constitutions, treaties, speeches, court cases, statistics, and other official documents. The questions and activites invite the students to log on to the Web site, read the information presented, interact with the data, and analyze it critically to answer such questions as: Who created this document? Is the source reliable? How is the information useful and how does it relate to present-day circumstances? If I were in this situation, would I have responded the same way as the person in charge? Strengthening these critical thinking skills will help prepare students for both college and career in the 21st century.

School library media specialists will find this concepts-based approach to teaching electronic literacy an indispensable basic tool for instructing students and teachers. It provides step-by-step instruction on how to find and evaluate needed information from electronic databases and the Internet, how to formulate successful electronic search strategies and retrieve relevant results, and how to interpret and critically analyze search results. The chapters contain a suggested lesson plan and sample assignments for the school library media specialist to use in teaching electronic literacy skills to students and teachers. Dr. Kathleen W. Craver, a nationally recognized specialist in technology in the library media center, identifies the universal concepts of electronic literacy and provides the library media specialist with the rationales, background, methods, and model assignments to teach students and faculty to become proficient and critical users of electronic information technologies.At the beginning of each chapter, Craver furnishes a rationale for change that school library media specialists can use to justify these essential modifications to their teaching curriculum. Chapters include: The Structure of Electronic Information; The Common Vocabulary and Characteristics of Electronic Resources; Formulating Electronic Search Strategies; The Physical Arrangement of Information; Choosing Appropriate On-Site and Remote Electronic Libraries; Choosing Appropriate Electronic Databases; Internet Search Tools and Techniques; Identifying Electronic Resources; On-Site Electronic Records Access; Using Primary Electronic Resources; and Evaluating Electronic Sources. The Appendix contains a list of principal vendors. A glossary of terms and a bibliography of suggested reading complete the work. This basic teaching guide provides the media specialist with all the tools necessary to help novice users to be successful and avoid the frustration of electronic database searching and retrieval.

Use the Internet to teach visual arts and refine students' critical thinking skills! This book is based on the Discipline-Based Art Education program, a proven art instruction program that teaches everything from the creative process and art history to criticism and aesthetics. An abundance of primary source Web sites and background information is offered. The main focus of the book is western art history and painting, but examples of sculpture, drawings, prints, and architecture are included, along with a chapter on diversity.Part I provides background material. A brief history of art education is presented, followed by a review of the components of design elements and principles. The book describes using the Internet as a primary source by identifying and evaluating websites. Part II follows the program through the main historical periods, from prehistoric and ancient Middle Eastern art, through the Renaissance, through the 20th century. A bibliography and index are included.

Assignments that engage students in inquiry topics of their own choosing contribute to motivation and thus to learning. Very often the topics chosen (particularly by high school students) are considered controversial by school administration, parents, community organizations, and others. This practical book discusses the processes, actions, and policies needed to support and encourage high school students in that type of inquiry. Building trusting relationships over time with administration and the school community will be stressed as a way to build a community of true inquiry in your school and library. Classroom teachers and high school librarians will value the advice and scaffolding techniques presented that will enable their school and high school library to become a safe place for student inquiry into issues of their own choosing— controversial or not. The author draws on her 30-plus years as a high school librarian, deeply concerned with the intellectual freedom of the researchers in her library media center and with offering help and reassurance to those trying to implement school library programs that allow all voices to be heard. Grades 9-12.

School library media centers are at a critical juncture. Over the next decade, schools will undergo fundamental technological, economic, societal, instructional, and administrative changes. Craver discusses the major forces for change confronting school libraries, analyzes their implications as a guide for future decision making, and recommends that school library media specialists assume a leadership role in meeting these challenges. The work provides current data and statistics on future trends in technology, employment, education, society, instruction, and school administration that can help the school library media specialist to formulate forceful arguments for the acquisition of new technologies, instructional reform, and full implementation of resource-based learning. School library media specialists who need to plan and make decisions about the future of their school libraries will find this book an invaluable resource.To visualize the future, Craver creates contrasting scenarios of utopian and dystopian school library media centers in the 21st century. Chapter 1, Technological Trends, discusses the digitalization of all media and the implications of the technological revolution on the school library media center. Chapter 2, Economic Trends, considers the impact of demographic changes and declining budgets and how to deal with them. Chapter 3, Employment Trends, outlines future trends in the workforce and suggests ways in which the school library can respond. Chapter 4, Educational Trends, charts the decline in literacy and the growing school reform movement. Chapter 5, Social and Behavioral Trends, discusses the change from a nation with minorities to a nation of minorities and the transformation of the American family. Chapter 6, Instructional Trends, shows how the instructional role of the school library media specialist will change with the presence of advanced technologies. Chapter 7, Organizational and Managerial Trends, describes the role the school library media specialist will have to assume as the technological, economic, educational, and cultural changes affect the daily business of the media center. Chapter 8, Challenges, focuses on a series of challenges in technology, performance-based programs, collection development, instruction, and organization and manayement of the library media center.

School library media specialists know that a close collaboration between the school principal and themselves is critical in the development of an exemplary school library media program, but they are often unsure of how to establish and build on that collaboration. Using Information Power: Building Partnerships for Learning, the authors present a vision for a student-centered library program, showing methods librarians can use to learn to work together with their principals and teachers to build curriculum, incorporate state and national standards and guidelines, and implement technology. Interviews and vignettes from eracticing school library media specialists and school principals give witness to the effectiveness of the program, highlighting examples of key points.Beginning with a discussion on the principal's training and experience with the school library, the authors describe what goals he or she has in common with the school library media specialist, and how the two can develop a rapport to reach these shared goals. Wilson and Lyders explain how the media specialist can and should become a part of curriculum planning and evaluation with the principal. The involvement of the school principal in assessing and evaluating the school library is essential. Thus, working together on library public relations and outreach to the school community and Internet and technology plans increases this involvement. Wilson and Lyders also address the importance of gaining the principal's endorsement for such issues as intellectual freedom and copyright. The school library can have a powerful and positive impact on learning through the strong leadership and close realtionship of the principal and library media specialist.

Information Literacy and the School Library Media Center concentrates its focus on how information literacy is implemented throughout all curriculum areas through the collaborative efforts of classroom teachers and school library media specialists. Chapters include: Collaboration; Flexible Schedule; Process Learning; and Assessment among other important topics. The book is an overview to teaching information literacy skills beginning with a history of the development of the usage of the term. The author discusses all the commonly known information processing models and how information literacy skills are important in assisting students to meet state and national curriculum standards in all areas of the curriculum. Included are samples of state and local standards and examples of correlations to selected curricular standards as well as an explanation of how to integrate standards in information literacy and another curricular area for maximum instructional success.

Across the country educators are facing the challenge of restructuring the secondary school to meet the needs of students in the twenty-first century. Block scheduling provides sustained time and fosters an environment for active and experiential learning, a key to student success in life. The author, who has spearheaded the adoption of block scheduling in her school's library media center, has prepared a complete guide for library media specialists contemplating or moving to block scheduling. In preparing this guide she has incorporated the experiences of twelve secondary school libraries across the country that have also moved to block scheduling. Step by step, this guide walks the library media specialist through planning, networking, curriculum and instruction, professional development, technology, and assessment. Practical suggestions, forms, lesson plans, and case studies of other media centers that have successfully adopted block scheduling will help the library media specialist to make the transition to the block.Block scheduling places a high demand on staff, materials, and information technologies. Shaw stresses that networking of people and resources is essential to successful adoption of block scheduling. She takes the reader through the planning and transitional phases of a high school adopting block scheduling and addresses concerns about instructional change, ongoing curriculum, and the role of the library media specialist as a teacher of information technology. She provides ideas on where to find professional development and how to network with other library media specialists with expertise in the block and offers practical suggestions on resource sharing, study hall, flexible scheduling, budget, collection development, substitute teachers, and assessment techniques.

History teachers and school library media specialists will find this guide a valuable resource for creating technologically advanced, resource-based instructional units in American and World History in grades 7-12. It is filled with 150 recommended primary source Internet sites about history ranging from ancient civilizations to 1998 and is stocked with exciting, interesting, and challenging questions designed to stimulate students' critical thinking skills. Dr. Craver, who maintains an award-winning interactive Internet database and conducts technology workshops for school library media specialists, provides an indispensable tool to enable students to make the best use of the Internet for the study of history.Each site is accompanied by a summary that describes its contents and usefulness to history teachers and school library media specialists. The questions that follow are designed specifically to stimulate critical thinking skills. Critical thinking skills are deemed essential for students if they are to succeed academically and economically in the twenty-first century. An annotated appendix of selected primary source databases includes the Internet addresses for 60 additional primary source sites.

Language teachers, social studies teachers, and school library media specialists will find this resource invaluable for providing lessons and activities in critical thinking for students in grades 7-12. It is filled with over 200 primary source Internet sites covering the Chinese, French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Russian, and Latin languages. Each Web site will help reinforce language skills while providing students with interactive lessons on the unique culture of the peoples who speak the language. The next best thing to visiting the country itself!For each of the 56 primary Web sites, a site summary is given describing its contents and usefulness to teachers and school library media specialists. Site subjects may include: a country's radio or news program; the history of a country and its visual arts, including museums; foods eaten by the people who speak this language and recipes on how to prepare them; ceremonies, customs, and sports enjoyed; geography of the countries who speak this language; and sites to help practice the language itself. Following are a list of questions and activities which students can prepare orally or in written form, and at least four more related Web sites are provided for further study. Using this book will not only help students increase their language skills, but it will also open up the entire culture, to enable students to experience it just as if they were visiting!

School library media specialists are now considered part of the teaching staff and are charged with integrating their library and information skills curriculum with the more general classroom curriculum. At the same time more and more special needs students are part of every school and every classroom. Thus, the media specialist must work effectively with special needs students on a regular basis to develop their information skills, and must also serve as a resource to classroom teachers.This professional reference offers practical information to school library media specialists on how to serve special needs students and their classroom teachers effectively. The first part of the book highlights the teaching role of the media specialist and discusses how and what to teach special needs students. The second part views the media specialist as an information expert who must structure the library and its resources for students with special needs. The third section treats the media specialist's role as a professional who must collaborate with other teachers.

Assignments that engage students in inquiry topics of their own choosing contribute to motivation and thus to learning. Very often the topics chosen (particularly by high school students) are considered controversial by school administration, parents, community organizations, and others. This practical book discusses the processes, actions, and policies needed to support and encourage high school students in that type of inquiry. Building trusting relationships over time with administration and the school community will be stressed as a way to build a community of true inquiry in your school and library. Classroom teachers and high school librarians will value the advice and scaffolding techniques presented that will enable their school and high school library to become a safe place for student inquiry into issues of their own choosing— controversial or not. The author draws on her 30-plus years as a high school librarian, deeply concerned with the intellectual freedom of the researchers in her library media center and with offering help and reassurance to those trying to implement school library programs that allow all voices to be heard. Grades 9-12.

The first book published about independent school libraries since 1985, this work offers both the independent school library community and the broader school library community a wealth of insights into excellence in library practice.Independent School Libraries: Perspectives on Excellence offers readers insights into best practices in library services for school communities, using examples drawn from independent schools of various sizes, descriptions, and locations across the United States. Two overview essays introduce a statistical analysis of independent schools. Each of the remaining essays provides perspective on a different aspect of library practice, including staffing, advocacy, assessment, technology, collaboration, programs beyond the curriculum, intellectual freedom and privacy, budgeting, accreditation, disaster planning, and more. Because independent school librarians work across divisions and without a mandate to adhere to state or national standards, they have the freedom to explore and refine best practice in a school library setting. Fortunately, the ideas and methods they have developed, many of which are on display here, can be applied in any school library.

The first book published about independent school libraries since 1985, this work offers both the independent school library community and the broader school library community a wealth of insights into excellence in library practice.Independent School Libraries: Perspectives on Excellence offers readers insights into best practices in library services for school communities, using examples drawn from independent schools of various sizes, descriptions, and locations across the United States. Two overview essays introduce a statistical analysis of independent schools. Each of the remaining essays provides perspective on a different aspect of library practice, including staffing, advocacy, assessment, technology, collaboration, programs beyond the curriculum, intellectual freedom and privacy, budgeting, accreditation, disaster planning, and more. Because independent school librarians work across divisions and without a mandate to adhere to state or national standards, they have the freedom to explore and refine best practice in a school library setting. Fortunately, the ideas and methods they have developed, many of which are on display here, can be applied in any school library.

This text shows teacher librarians how to become leaders in their schools and apply their unique skills and insight to develop a timely and meaningful vision for the school's library.It can be very difficult to break the habit of addressing time-consuming tasks that are no longer mission critical. Having a vision and plan is the best way to establish a new, more effective pattern. As the education system, technology, and the world continues to evolve, it is paramount for teacher librarians to have a strategic plan to overcome today's challenges… and to be ready for the changes that are sure to come.This book describes two types of strategic planning for teacher librarians. Each methodology is presented via a sequential approach to the planning process. The first section of the text addresses those who are pressed for time and are lacking some necessary resources. The second section explains the classical approach to strategic planning for teacher librarians.