Reader's Advisory

Today was a busy day for me. I had meetings and appointments throughout the course of the day, and between the abrupt and ongoing (yes, simultaneously abrupt and ongoing) grind of budgeting and planning, I tried to cram in the usual emails, messages and phone calls.

Yet the highlight of my day was a student request to help locate a book. I was moving from one thing to another, and moving quick as I could go, when I saw a student wandering from stack to stack with a certain look I've come to recognize on sight: vaguely confused curiosity united with awkward, constructed casualness. The "I'm lost, but I don't want it to be too obvious" look. (Don't laugh. Adults wear it too.)

I re-ordered my priorities on the spot and was able to help him find what he was looking for: The Portrait of Dorian Gray. (Not even an assigned text! Be still, my librarian heart.)

Oscar Wilde is one of my favorite literary personalities, and I find his work rich with meaning and humor. His Portrait is grim and dark, all the wry observations of Victorian wealth layered like soot in musing, intent turn of phrase. I always read that particular work hearing the voice of Dorian Gray, and it's possible to find the pieces of the country mouse starving into selfish ruthlessness in that prose. It makes you confront immortality, vanity, and the social responsibility of wealth.

"Like the gods of the Greeks, he would be strong, and fleet, and joyous. What did it matter what happened to the coloured image on the canvas? He would be safe. That was everything."

Paper Problems

This year we have seen a considerable increase in wasted paper as whole reams (hundreds of sheets a day) are left abandoned in the printers and copier. We've discussed this problem internally and we have gone through several options as possibilities, and in all likelihood it's a combination of circumstances.

In the last two years we have made it easier for students to print using personal devices. Though this ability is convenient, the connection is often unstable as students move around with their laptops. Laptops are also changeable as students install personal software and connect to home networks. Printing from these devices is also not prompt, relaying from several different devices, and so impatient students send a print "job" multiple times, resulting in extraneous copies that they then abandon or re-print in other places.

The Tech Team has been investigating some software options, but options like that can impede students from printing on their own, and could also add multiple steps to the printing process. Where possible, I prefer to look for cultural changes rather than ready technology answers, as "having the conversation" is often a first step in positive change.

We are still monitoring this issue, trying to balance cost and conservation with ease of use.

Poetry Contest Judging

http://www.poetrynation.com/

Tomorrow the committee of poetry judges meets to decide the winners of this year's contest. I am never conflicted about whether this is a good event, because it gives me so many opportunities to see of what our students are capable when presented with a challenge. I can feel the honesty in many of the works put forth, and I admire in particular the students who have mastered the haiku form, which encapsulates so much meaning in such a small number of words.

It is admirable that our students are willing to share their work with an audience; that's no mean thing, in my opinion. I am no poet myself, preferring prose in my spare time, and I definitely can't flatter myself in saying that I am capable of good prose, come to that. I feel that my lack of skill in that area gives me a greater respect for the potential of poetry in both long form and haiku (the major categories of this particular contest).

In the past, we have had a spoken word section of the contest, but because we only have two or three students who really have found their passion in that particular type of poetry, we decided to focus instead on written forms, and encourage our intrepid spoken word poets on during Town Meeting and similar events.

I look forward to meeting with the judges and discussing our favorites.

Blog-based Activity Example for MADE

From "HowToGeek.com"

I consulted a couple teachers and looked at a couple examples for this. I remember seeing a great blog assignment from Greg McCandless, who asked for some of us to comment back to his students’ posts and work; it was structured much like our initial assignment in this class, with students making individual posts on their own journals, and commenting at each other in response. Making the public available to your students and your students available to the public gives them additional points of view that you can’t offer.

Using Patrick Lemon’s upcoming Spring at Sage Seminar, “Build Your Own Computer,” I’m going to go through this activity in a purely hypothetical way, as I’m only supporting the seminar. It seems that a blog activity would be beneficial for a class like this, where the students might not know each other intimately or have any idea of their goals for the class (if any).

Though all students are participating in the seminar to build your own computer, all users have different expectations of their tools, particularly one as versatile as a computer. 

So to start off the class, it would be great to have a blogging activity where students introduce themselves and the things they’re looking for out of their computer. 

Some general categories might be:

• Productivity - Word processing, calendaring
• Graphics Editing
• Web Publishing
• Coding or Programming
• Gaming, which could be separated into various types that dictate graphic needs

After this activity we could then shake the students out into different smaller groups that have similar goals. 

These groups could continue blogging daily about what they’re needing to learn and do to meet the unique purpose(s) of their personalized computer. 

As part of the introductory lesson, the students could provide a video walk thru of the some of their common computer tasks using screen casting, showing some of the tasks, programs, and games they most like to use. Our students could also learn more about what they could be doing from their classmates with this multimedia activity. 

April, Poetry Month

Li Po (Li Bai)

The annual poetry contest is almost upon us!

 Anyone can write poetry. Give it a try! Every year we see many students turn their emotions and energies into this creative outlet, following in the footsteps of the illustrious and the inspired, standing in the long shadow of Basho, Poe, Angelou, Hughes, Yeats, Neruda, Homer, Byron, Li Po and Plath.

The library partners with the English Department for the poetry contest, and we offer prizes to the winners in long poetry and in a special haiku division.

Take advantage of this wonderful opportunity during the month of April.

The Johnson Family Library Blog

This semester the Director of Library is joining a number of faculty and staff who are participating in the Dean of Academic Technology's MADE course, a professional development course that dives down deep into the opportunities and features of our Learning Management System, Canvas by Instructure. Introductory modules go over using threaded discussion posts and blogs, and both features can be utilized as assignments for grades in Canvas.

We are utilizing this blog in the hope that it will be a more robust feature to promote our "libraryatsage," and all the things we're doing there. In the future we hope to expand to more diverse and media-focused platforms like Tumblr, and maybe even video, as there are exciting advancements in that field. Stay tuned while we plan for better and more engaging information literacy lesson plans and designs.

This summer we also welcome our new Library Coordinator, Miss Wahl, who joins us from Nashville Public Library system, and Michigan public libraries before that. She loves engaging programming and we are lucky to have her. Visit the lower library to say hello to Miss Wahl welcome her to the community!

End of 2014

It's been wild few months in the library!

Research
So far this year, we have seen implementation and launch of a one-search tool for all of our databases (new ground and impressive!), a brief training for employees during a faculty/staff meeting, and new faculty and student collection requests. Student requests included the Maze Runner series, Gillian Flynn novels, and the new Mortal Instruments book.

Technology in the Library
Technology equipment is flying off the shelves; we saw over 660 laptop checkouts over the course of October alone, all of them reused faculty notebooks. The overwhelming need for laptops on a daily basis is something the school as a whole is looking at from the perspective of technology. Over the course of October and November over 200 library materials circulated, including non-fiction and fiction, but not including textbooks, which are day-use only reserve materials.

The Johnson Family Library now has its own Instagram! Check out pictures here.

Additions to the Collection
We've received two great donations: 20 fundamental financial books from a generous alum and at least 100 of wonderful art books featuring detailed high-quality illustrations.

Utilizing a wonderful article in November's issue of School Library Journal, "Books That Help" by Erin E. Moulton, we have added a long list of realistic teen fiction and mental health books. Highlights include Ellen Hopkins' Perfect, George Harrar's Not as Crazy as I Seem and Amy McNamara's Lovely, Dark and Deep.

Recent additions can be seen on our LibraryThing by clicking here.

On the Move
We are very sorry to see our Library Coordinator move on to education administration at the university level, and we're searching for our next Library Coordinator. Information on the position can be found at www.sagehillschool.org/jobs.

August 2014 (Yearly Update!)

Wow, it’s been almost a year since our last post. Things have been so busy here lately, especially with the continuing use of technology in the classrooms! Here’s a quick review of new programs and cool things that have been happening:

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.

September 2013 update: Back-to-school Edition

School is back!

School is now in session and the beginning of the year has been great so far. Our students, especially the newer incoming 9th graders, have really embraced the communal spirit of the Information Commons we've established in the lower library. Over the summer, we've rearranged some of our furniture and added in more study tables to provide students with the space they need to study in a collaborative atmosphere. As always, the chess boards have garnered a lot of attention as competition continues to heat up.

The library is now on Canvas

There is now a library course on Sage Hill School’s new learning management system, Canvas. This new platform allows us to provide students and faculty with resources in a more efficient manner. We've integrated our library catalog, as well as our research databases, into Canvas which will now allow for easier access to library books, DVDs, and journal articles. We've also added some handy tutorials in the research database section so please review them if you need a refresher. If you'd like a librarian to demo a particular database for your class, please feel free to send an e-mail to set something up.

Circulation stats are up

The library has added more technological devices to our collection. As the entire school community learns to use Canvas together, students have been checking out laptops at an increased rate. The library supports educational technology and will continue to provide students with the tools they need to succeed in their classes. The books the library has added to the collection over the summer have also fared well. Some of our newer, popular additions include: Eleven Rings by Phil Jackson, Everyday by David Levithan, Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and The Thinking Woman’s Guide to Real Magic by Emily Croy Baker.

National Hispanic Heritage Month

This month, the library—along with Sage Hill School’s multicultural group, S.A.M.E.—celebrates National Hispanic Heritage Month. Our display in the upper library exhibits various aspects of Hispanic heritage and history. Please stop by the upper library to learn more about a rich and fascinating culture!

Summer 2013: Lots of new things to be excited about!

Inventory

The Library conducted an inventory of the entire collection this summer. Out of our collection of 15,000+ print resources, we were missing roughly 100 books. We reviewed these missing materials and decided to replace the ones with medium to high usage. The Library will make an effort to remind our students to check out their books in the following school year.

Collection Development

We’ve added some new Young Adult and popular bestselling fiction books to our collection. These new titles will be on display for the first semester in the lower library. If you’re interested in reading something new, please visit the lower library and check out a book! Some popular additions include: The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer, The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman, and We are All Completely Besides Ourselves by Joy Karen Fowler.

New databases, new periodicals

The Library has subscribed to some new EBSCO databases, including Academic Search Premier, Consumer Health Complete, Literary Reference Center, and a bunch more. We are planning on integrating all of our resources—print and digital—into a unifying searchable index. This means that our students and faculty will no longer need to hunt down links to a database they want to use. The Library has also subscribed to some new magazines, including Cooks Illustrated, Harvard Business Review, and Yoga. Swing through the lower library and browse our newly updated periodicals!

More mobile shelving units

Our plan to move the entire fiction collection downstairs continues this summer as the Library received approval for adding four new mobile shelving units. The next step in the phase is to continue moving through the alphabet. We expect three-quarters of our fiction collection to be house downstairs by the end of the year.

Kindles and requests for eBooks

The Library purchased two new Kindles for student and faculty use. We are currently building a small collection of books in the curriculum. The Library plans to use these Kindles to meet resource requests on-the-spot. This means that if you have a request that is in the Amazon marketplace, we can purchase it on-the-spot and lend you a Kindle.

State of the Library: March/April 2013

Commemorative Month Displays

SHS Library celebrates Edith Wharton

The last few weeks the library displayed curated collections of books and educational flyers to celebrate the following commemorative months, all celebrated in March and April: Poetry Month, Women’s History Month, Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month, and Jazz Appreciation Month.

Poetry Contest

The Library is renewing a partnership with the English Department to host the annual Poetry Contest. Entries are submitted in many forms, including sonnets and haiku, and a panel that includes staff and faculty will select winners in May.

History Day Projects

The Ninth Graders finished up their History Day projects in the last few weeks as well, scrambling to get the last few research pieces included in their presentations. Many student requests were filled, further honing the library collection to support Sage Hill’s unique curriculum.

Wellness: Internet Responsibility Seminar

The Director of Library and Technology repeated the Internet Responsibility Seminar from last year this year for Ninth Graders in their Wellness classes. The presentation and discussion scenarios were adapted to keep up with the times, including newly introduced social media tools and mobile device practices. Next year, topics in the seminar may be hosted on our new Learning Management System, Canvas.

Collection Management

Various tasks have been undertaken to maintain the library’s collection of digital and physical resources. Many of our physical magazines and newspapers, such as The New York Times and Vanity Fair have been placed on the library ipad available for check out for our community. Specialized stickers meant to catch attention have been placed on our biographies and best sellers otherwise hidden in the collection. Overdue emails have been sent periodically and paper bills are being prepared in anticipation of the Annual Inventory in May.

State of the Library: January/February

JSTOR Database

Library Orientations: English

Ninth Graders visited the library with their English classes this month. After watching a video on how to search for resources at home, Ninth Graders explored the library and then gave each other group tours.

Library Orientations: History

Ninth Graders worked on their research topics with their History classes this month as well, learning how to use the library’s online resources and databases. Using student demonstrations on the screen, students created search queries and researched individual topics in the library databases.

eBooks

Overdrive has recently upgraded their website to provide clearer navigation. Kindle books available for borrowing from the Sage Hill School Overdrive site are easily managed by Amazon account! eBook usage is steadily rising, largely due to faculty use.

State of the Library: December

Bretford Mobile Shelves (from their website)

Space Update

                Mobile shelves have arrived downstairs and were promptly assembled. About half of the fiction section is being moved downstairs and has already seen an increase in usage, undoubtedly from browsing and visibility. In the next year, the library will look at moving the entirety of fiction downstairs for usage and logistical reasons.

eBook Update

                The library has enlisted the largest eBook service in schools to provide Sage Hill with an eLibrary. OverDrive is now fully operational, and a private beta was introduced to the faculty over the break. It will be rolled out to the students over the month of January. OverDrive provides ebooks and audiobooks in several formats for use on private devices as well as school-provided computers.

Technology in the Library

                One of the two iPads purchased at the end of last year for library use was stolen from the downstairs library on a busy service learning day. The remaining iPad is still available for community check out but is locked to a desk upstairs unless requested. The iPad’s ability to switch languages in settings has been used to write a paper and several of our print subscriptions are also available to read with its updated operating system. Laptop use in the library is slowly climbing every month.

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.

The Problem with eBooks

Image: Engadget

We're not the only ones trying to figure this out. Libraries and schools are trying to work within a system that is geared toward an individual consumer (you own your e-reader device, you own the license to a book/program/game). Publishers are actively limiting availability in school, public and library environments--limiting electronic "checkouts" to make an ebook's "shelf-life" finite. I've been discussing this actively with other Independent School Librarians, and even neighboring public ones at NBPL. For the full story of this problem, this is a great article:

http://mindshift.kqed.org/2011/09/school-libraries-struggle-with-e-book-loans/

 Feedback from teachers on how students are learning (or not learning) electronically would be beneficial to all of us. Currently, the library offers many ebooks, but they're all browser navigable reference books, and all of them searchable. We use Gale and Salem Press as providers for these books.

Here is a summary of the ways eTextbooks (not just books) are available right now:

Amazon/Kindle. Few to none of our textbooks available due to Publisher blocks. Exceptions being common English novels, classics, and recent non-fiction. http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000702481.

iPad offers reading for other book providers, one of the few, but students would need to buy/acquire any tools from the iTunes store.

Other physical eReaders, e.g. Nook. These devices are associated with their individual stores, Barnes and Noble, etc. Few textbooks available. None of the big guns. Nooks are popular with librarians because they're cheaper than the other options.

Important Note: There are copyright issues with using Kindles (and iPads) to check out to students. Further reading: http://www.libraryjournal.com/slj/home/891470-312/amazon_alters_rules_for_kindles.html.csp

CourseSmart. An eReader program for Android, iPad. For offline, you must "checkout" certain sections, not whole thing. Otherwise, must be online to work.

Publishers: Brooks Cole (Math). Some from Worth Publishers ( Econ). Some from Prentice Hall (English, History). Not all.

Some examples from CourseSmart:

1. European History textbook. 
• 180 Days Rental (6 months), e.g. September - February. 
• ~$60, savings of ~%50. Unless they need it March-July, then no savings. 
• http://www.coursesmart.com/the-west-in-the-world-renaissance-to-present/sherman-dennis-salisbury-joyce/dp/0077252713
2. AP US History textbook. 
• 180 days Rental (6 months), e.g. September - February. 
• ~$100. Savings of ~$90... unless they need it March-July, then no savings. 
• http://www.coursesmart.com/a-people-and-a-nation-a-history-of-the-united/norton-sheriff-blight-chudacoff-logevall/dp/9780495915256
3. Calculus textbook.
•  180 Days Rental (6 months).
•  ~$115. Savings of ~$100. ... unless they need it March-July, then no savings. 
• http://www.coursesmart.com/calculus-9th-edition/larson-edwards/dp/70000lti00728

CengageBrain.com. Publisher: Gale. Works with above CourseSmart apps.
http://www.cengagebrain.com/shop/en/US/storefront/US?cmd=CLHeaderSearch&fieldValue=9781413033083

eCampus.com. Publisher: Varied. Offers rented textbooks as well as used. Some eBooks available that link back to CourseSmart (above).

Some examples from eCampus:

1. Economics textbook. 360 days rental. ~$30. ~$20 savings from new. http://www.ecampus.com/economics-example-1st-anderson/bk/9780716769347
2. Art History Book. 360 Day Subscription (12 months). ~$115. Savings of ~$75. http://www.ecampus.com/gardners-art-through-ages-global-history/bk/9780495093077
3. Many not available in ebook form, e.g. Geometry Textbook. http://www.ecampus.com/geometry-grades-911-mcdougal-littell/bk/9780395977279

Postscript: Overdrive
For non-textbook eBooks (fiction and non-fiction, primarily), the big provider is Overdrive, but they require a $4000 set-up subscription ($2000 for a custom site and $2,000 for books, no word on the cost for subsequent years) and we have to purchase any ebooks we want to make available through that system. Books vary, most around $20 range, audio can be as much as $100. If we stop subscribing, we lose all the ebooks we "bought." Further reading: http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/home/890089-264/kansas_state_librarian_goes_eyeball.html.csp

There are alternatives for Overdrive based in Follett and Macklin, but their breadth of availability doesn't yet compare. These are relatively new and are building available collections, mostly by fighting tooth and nail with publishers.

Searching Effectively

Image Credit: HackCollege.

In my library orientations, I set aside a section on how to search databases (and the internet, as well as Google) effectively.

The major points include narrowing down your question to key terms and similar tips. This wonderful article at Mashable brings some material from HackCollege to incorporate this and many other tips for students.

Check it out!

State of the Library: September

What of October, that ambiguous month, the month of tension, the unendurable month? - Doris Lessing

Hello all and welcome to the first "State of the Library" for the year. This is a monthly update of library activities and performance. I also try to give a few tools or insights of available resources that might help in your classrooms.

Electronic Resource Circulation

Usage
Physical resources (books, cds, videos, magazines) had a modest beginning this year with 123 checkouts, and as you can see from a comparison against previous years, that's a little below the median, higher than two years ago but lower than last year.

Physical Resource Circulation

Electronic resources took a jump from last year to 420 articles accessed (from last year's 253), continuing a trend in which electronic use exceeds physical. Still, last month's statistics would assign a checkout to over a quarter of our student population.

You can see other charts that isolate data from year-to-year or by database at the Library Wiki site.

Last month 8 classes received library training in classrooms and in the library, including Mr. Rice's psychology classes, Mr. Izurieta's advanced Spanish class, and Science Inquiry classes from Mr. Lee and Mr. Zarubin. Mr. Rice's psychology classes also set up blogs for research documentation.

Resources

San Jose, 1906

Primary Sources with Calisphere
The University of California's themed collections of primary sources chronicling the history of California. You'll find letters of environmental activist and scientist John Muir, historical maps of disasters, and collections representing California's diverse culture.

And with ARTstor:
Use these wonderful subject guides or follow the ARTstor blog to find collections of images for uses in history, languages, literature, theater, dance and more. ARTstor has recently come to agreements with the Réunion des Musées Nationaux (RMN), which will add 12,000 works from the national and regional museums of France, and the World Monuments Fund, which has added over 1,000 images of architecture and cultural heritage sites.

Don't forget to check out the fascinating work done by Mr. Zarubin and Dr. Haney with their students on gene mapping: link one, link two, and link three.

New Additions
We have many new additions to the library collection. We are in the process of replacing lost books as well as acquiring other works in fiction and non-fiction (as recommended by YALSA). We have also updated some study guides and college counseling guides after our summer weeding. I already have requests from the history, science and art departments for our next order!

October in history from Oxford Reference
• October 11, 1984: Kathryn Dwyer Sullivan became the first woman to perform a spacewalk.

• October 14, 1066: English king Harold II was killed at the Battle of Hastings, an event captured in the Bayeux Tapestry.

• October 22, 1879: Thomas Edison invented electric lighting, demonstrating 30 incandescent electric lamps connected in parallel with separate switches.

• October 24 and 29, 1929: The New York stock market crashed on 'Black Thursday' and 'Black Tuesday', wiping billions of dollars off the value of stocks.

• October 30, 1938: Panic spread when radio listeners confused Orson Welles' performance of H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds with a factual report of an invasion from Mars.