State of the Library: October/November

Space Update

                We saw a big return in our summer investment in the library space. Acoustics are a hundred times better, best demonstrated during the administration of extended-time PSAT tests in the upper library October 17^th. The lower library was very busy after all the regular-time PSAT students were released, but our extended-time students enjoyed a much quieter environment than we have been able to offer before. The furniture in the lower library is also being well-used and well-loved, particularly the couches, newly-upholstered chairs, and the low table with chess and checkers games available. (Chess Club has been revived as a student activity, and so far it has fostered good-natured sportsmanship across grade lines and social circles amongst our students.)

eBook Update

                The library has enlisted the largest eBook service in schools to provide Sage Hill with an eLibrary. OverDrive is used in the entire Orange County Public Library system as well as in our own Newport Beach Public Library, and it allows community members to check out eBooks the library purchases on popular consumer devices such as iPads, Nooks, Kindles, Macs and PCs.

The eCollection is very young and small, but we hope to continue investing in it as we do the physical collection, which will probably hit a “ceiling” of around 20,000 to 25,000 books in the next ten years judging from growth and physical space limits. We currently have a collection of around 16,000 that is still in robust use.

iPads in the Library

                Two iPads have been purchased for in-library use and were briefly on loan to the Admission Department for Open House. We’re currently calibrating the iPads, purchasing protective covers, and working out ways to keep them available within the library space, perhaps with a tether or a sign-out process. They should become available by the end of the month or the beginning of November.

State of the Library: September

Space Renovation

                Summer saw a great many positive changes to the library as the school sought to support a change of tone in the lower library that would accommodate student use of the space as a social environment and changing priorities in education toward collaboration and independent learning. Isolated single-seating desk space was all but eliminated in the downstairs space, and outdated stationary desktop computers were replaced with a set of new laptops available for student check-out in the library space. Upstairs, new desktop computers replace the old and offer robust computing in the quiet study areas for students that prefer isolation. Comfortable seating in the reading area by the magazine stands was added and a small table with mobile seating was also added for impromptu meetings. The biggest investment was an acoustic renovation to render the huge stone, wall, and high-ceiling area welcoming to many small groups all talking at once. Panels with high-end sound dampening material were installed on two walls and all along the ceiling, making an incredible difference when the library is full of conversation. We’re already seeing a difference with the amount of school-oriented study work and comfortable conversation in the different spaces created in the lower library by areas of furniture and equipment.

Database Accessibility

                All of the school’s subscribed database links have been moved to virtualclass.sagehillschool.org, where students go to access their class and course information. The hope is this will make it even easier for students to utilize library resources, recommended links, and help information.

Collection Management

                The annual inventory was completed in the middle of the summer slightly ahead of schedule, and the library is already processing replacements for the books lost and damaged over the course of the year. To reflect the available technology in the school, the library is removing outdated media formats (audio tapes, VHS tapes) and sorting the remaining media (CDs, DVDs) for easier browsing. Further collection expansion will be temporarily halted for a month or two while we wait for additional shelving to arrive.

Plans for the Future

                The library has received a generous donation to reupholster all the existing armchairs from last year, and those will arrive within the week to offer more comfortable reading seating upstairs and downstairs. In addition, small side tables will be added and there are discussions to acquire a handful of mobile reading and browsing devices (such as iPads or potentially other ereading devices) for check-out and student use before the year is out. These plans are still in the works.

After the survey on the use of eBooks at school last year, the library has been watching the leading available ebook and audiobook providers in the hopes that their pricing plans will change to reflect the times and a small independent school environment. A plan is in place to launch the most flexible and viable of the available services when the school is this year.

State of the Library: May

eBooks

 Congratulations to our drawing winner, Mr. Nguyen! J

The recent survey distributed to the community brought back very interesting results. 157 students, teachers, and staff members responded. The majority of respondents (70%) read ebooks, but about a third of those preferred print. For reading devices, iPad was the big favorite followed by Kindle and Mac computers. Only 42 respondents checked out resources for personal interest this year (as opposed to checking out for school use).  A surprising number expressed interest in audiobooks (37%) and 26% already listen to them. Again, iPads and iPods were the device favorites for audiobooks. The majority of respondents didn’t think Sage Hill was quite ready for ebooks in the classroom by a narrow margin, but on a scale of 1-5 with 5 being “I think we’re ready for them now” just over half chose a 4 or a 5.

With so very few of our patrons utilizing the library for personal use, it’s unlikely the library will pursue a personal reading ebook collection in the next year unless the classroom environment fully embraces them as well. At present the price is too high to justify catering to such a small number of users (personal interest patrons who read exclusively in e-form). However, the library will definitely investigate audiobook options and, perhaps, cheaper ebook services.

The library hosted the spring meeting of the Independent School Library Exchange (ISLE), a group of independent school librarians facing the same dilemmas with e-books. To that end the meeting hosted ten e-book vendors to provide more perspective and hopes for a better cost-to-value ratio. The little mini-conference was very successful and offered more options and opportunities to follow the progress of the educational ebook market.

If you’re interested in this topic, I would be happy to discuss it with you and obtain even more input.

More Handy Stuff From Your Library

I recently added several hundred ebook titles to the library collection (http://library.sagehillschool.org) thanks to Project Gutenberg. These titles are out of copyright, and there are links from our library site to theirs, which offers free ebooks in many formats. Click “Catalog” and enter “Gutenberg” as a keyword to see a listing of these titles, which includes many classics.

For more free ebooks, you can check out Amazon’s Free Library for your kindle or kindle reader on iPad here: http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=2245146011 and visit http://archive.org/details/texts for even more obscure out-of-print collections. (Check out, in particular, the facsimile of the original author-illustrated, hand-written edition of Alice’s Adventures Under Ground by Lewis Carroll: http://ia700305.us.archive.org/7/items/alicesadventures19002gut/19002-h/alice_1.htm.)

Library Use

Historically library circulation declines in the last two months of the school year, as other programs, including arts and service learning, put on final shows, performances, and visits.  Circulation is at its lowest during testing times (December and May), when no new material is introduced, which is as it should be. There were still 238 physical resources that left the library in the month of March, and electronic resources nearly met February with 1268 articles accessed. Visit www.sagehillschool.org/library to see more of this year’s statistics, both physical and electronic, as they become available. We’ve also added many new titles, including local flora and fauna guides suggested by the science department, to our collection.

End of Year

              

 Please encourage your students to return their books to the library by May 21. We are starting inventory soon and we want as many of our resources as possible to be available for next year’s students. I’m also taking volunteers the next few weeks if you find the idea of scanning every book in our collection irresistible.

State of the Library: December

New Additions

Click here to see pretty graphical covers of all our new additions to the physical collection so far this year, thanks to LibraryThing, a free book collecting and review social network.
You can also visit the school website to see a smaller version (a ‘widget’) along with this year’s collection usage data: www.sagehillschool.org/library.



Usage

Though our Electronic Circulation is strong this year even in December despite only four class teaching days (see graph below), Physical Circulation, which includes books, videos, magazines, is the lowest its ever been. I'm extremely concerned about the relevance of our physical collection to the community, which has up-to-date additions this year in both popular fiction and requested reference resources. The lack of use is possibly explained by the altered schedule, which puts a lot of pressure on the first quarter and eliminates teaching days in December altogether. The new relevance of eBooks with our student population (see my previous discussion here), or that perhaps our students read less in their free time have also been suggested to me as possible explanations, and I have no doubt both play factor. I encourage you to let our students know about the collection and reference it in your classes if a student is looking for a book "my friend told me about"--and don't hesitate to come looking for your own reading, as well. Any suggestions on actions I can take to promote the collection are very welcome.

This Day in History
(Via Encyclopedia Britannica, visit www.sagehillschool.org/elibrary for more!)

Bogyoke Aung San with Clement Attlee,Jan. 1947. (AungSan.com)

1948:  The Southeast Asian nation of Burma (Myanmar) formally gained independence, completing the transfer of power negotiated by Burmese leader Aung San and British Prime Minister Clement Attlee in 1947.

1965: American-English author T.S. Eliot died in London.
1935: American professional boxer Floyd Patterson was born in Waco, North Carolina.
1809: French educator Louis Braille, who developed a system of printing and writing that is extensively used by the blind and that was named for him, was born near Paris.