Information Literacy
The Library continues to offer Ninth Grade students Information Literacy sessions during National History Day. In conjunction with Ninth Grade history teachers, both members of the library staff provide intensive one-shot sessions in the Argyros Family Lecture Hall (MMLH). Topics covered include: the research process, information reliability, the structure and organization of information, and the information retrieval process. We hope that our Ninth Graders learned something from us, and wish them the best of luck as they continue to develop their research skills in the following years. The presentation and other helpful guides can be found and downloaded on the Library course in Canvas.
Collection Development
Last year, we encouraged students to contribute to the library collection, thus allowing them to take part in the building a library that they can call their own. The Library got quite an eclectic mix of requests, ranging from more light-heart romance novels to super intensive research dissertations. The popularity of novels such as The Fault in Our Stars brought on a wave of teen romance novels. David Leviathan and Rainbow Rowell were particularly popular. Another popular genre that has popped up in recent years has been Young Adult dystopian novels, popularized by the likes of The Hunger Games and the Divergence series. Requests for more of these types of novels were common this year, and include works by Marie Lu and Hugh Howey.
The Library also started conducting inventory on our collection. Replacement items for lost materials are forthcoming! We have also weeded out some of our fiction books, particularly titles that did not circulate very well and in bad condition. Weeded fiction novels will be replaced by more Young Adult and Popular Adult fiction.
Library Statistics Continue to Rise
Picking up from where we left off, the Library continues to play an important role in student lives. This is particularly evident when we look at this last year’s usage statistics. On the whole, usage of electronic resources has increased approximately 10% over the last year. With the introduction of EBSCO databases, students now have even more options to conduct research. This increase is expected, as faculty continue to utilize technology in the classroom. Circulation of physical materials has also increased, but—unfortunately—not at the same rate at electronic resources. The Library has increased usage of books and novels by about 100 titles. This is a great start, and we hope to improve these numbers in the upcoming year by calling on students to contribute to the collection.
Library Laptops (A Hot Commodity!)
Circulation of library laptops has been through the roof. The month of April saw 376 laptops move through the hands of students. And in May, that number increased to 434! We are glad that we can contribute to student success by providing them with the technological tools that they need to succeed at Sage. With the introduction of Canvas, the use of a computer or laptop has been increasingly more important. The Library will continue to meet these student needs by upgrading our laptops from 11 inch Thinkpads to 15 inch MacBook Pros in the following year.
Library Space Update
The Academic Resource Center has moved to the Library! We are excited to introduce this program into our space, and hope that students will continue to seek out help in the Library. As a result of this, we have been able to move to the entire Fiction collection to the lower library. Now, students have easy access to leisure reading! The Library is also getting new couches soon, expanding the space where students can relax with a good book (or perhaps take a quick nap between blocks!).
Commemorative Monthly Displays
We hope the community enjoyed our monthly displays. This year, we focused on using S.A.M.E.’s (Sage Advocates for Multicultural Education) question of the month as a guide for what we exhibited. Some of our celebrated/awareness months include: Hispanic Heritage Month (September), Disability Awareness/LGBT History Month (October), Native American Heritage Month (November), Black History Month (February). And while these collections did not circulate as much as we had hoped, we definitely had a fun time showing off the great resources that we have available for people interested in social equity and justice.
