No matter how busy you are with year-end activities, take time to encourage teachers to borrow books over the summer. If you are in a high school, the selection will of course include adult recreational reading, but at any level you want to acquaint them with titles they can recommend to their students, use as read-alouds, and/or create a web as part of reading units.

Choose old and new favorites. Pull lists of notables and award winners. You probably know which ones you own so you can quickly gather them. As you do so, you will spot other titles that you want to include. Use Post-it notes -- preferably color coded -- to separate genres, and place books in a spot where teaches can sit and browse through them.

Put a notice in teachers' and administrators' boxes inviting them to drop by when it's convenient, but inaugurate the display at a special time before or after school with coffee, cold drinks, and light nibbles. When people come in, make yourself available for informal booktalking if you are not occupied with a class. Then step aside to give them a chance to make selections on their own.

The payoff for your efforts comes in the fall as teachers return what they borrowed. As you share their enthusiasm for the books they read, take advantage of the opportunity to schedule their classes for special book talks, research projects or whatever else connects with their summer loans.

May 2004: Senior Service

Most media centers need the services of more than just a professional library media specialist to carry out an excellent program. When you are the only one there, clerical duties such as checking out materials, shelving, processing, and keeping things orderly take away from your time to work with students and teachers and do other professional tasks. Some of you have aides or clerks; others depend on student assistants; still others look for parent assistance to lighten the load.

Yet this last avenue -- parent volunteers -- is getting harder and harder to fill as single parent families proliferate and more mothers go back to work. What can you do to fill this void?

Senior citizens, an untapped reservoir of talent in every town, are a good prospect. They often have time on their hands and are willing workers who won't call you to say that their children are ill or that they have to prepare for a birthday party or that their tennis lessons will keep them from filling their time slot for the next few months (although many seniors are athletic and may take extended winter vacations). Furthermore, they are an excellent group with whom to make connections for support the next time a school bond issue is up for a vote, or the budget must be passed by your town's residents, or you have an intellectual freedom challenge.

How can you contact interested seniors? Try the senior citizen organizations, either calling or writing a letter, put an article in your local paper, or, best of all, check with people whom you know who may recommend others (such as grandparents of your students, retired librarians, or town officials.)

Getting Them Involved

Once you get some names, call and invite any prospects to come in and visit and look over your media center. Give them a tour, explain about your program and why you need volunteer help to make it excellent, and ask if they'd like to come in for a trial period to see if they enjoy being there. Be sure to ask what they like to do or are good at so that you can have the proper work ready when they arrive.

Do not ask them to do tiring things such as shelving books. If you are automated, before putting them on the computer inquire about how they feel toward technology. Some may want to learn, while others will be uncomfortable doing that work. See if they have any artistic ability, print or letter well for signs and bulletin boards, like to cover and/or mend books, or reinforce paperbacks with extra tape. Any of these skill will be a help to you, especially if you don't have time to do these things yourself. Even if someone is a "generalist" willing to try various things, you can ferret out what that person does best or enjoys most and try to set aside those jobs.

As senior citizens become used to your media center, they will have warm feelings toward the school itself, the students and teachers, and the need for improvements if warranted. They will also tell others what a good time they are having and will feel very useful as they see the results of their work. You, at the same time, will have the benefit of some additional help as well as making new friends you might otherwise never have met.

April 2004: Vendor Connections

Getting a call from a sales representative asking if it is possible to schedule some time may seem like one more imposition on your already hopelessly crowded schedule. Indeed, some of you make it a practice never to see any of these people. Yet they can be an invaluable source of information and advice - a connection to the world outside your district that is not easy to come by.

On the most basic level, sales representatives give you a hands-on opportunity to look at materials you might purchase. Each school has a unique approach to curriculum, and reviews may not mention something special about a book that makes it a "must-buy" for you. In addition, you have a wonderful chance to complain, praise and make recommendations. Perhaps you would like the company to bring out material similar to what it has done on another topic. Or you love the contents of a recent publication but absolutely hate the format - the print is too large or too small - the illustrations are poorly reproduced, etc.

With many representatives now bringing materials to you in multiple formats, you can use your time together to get information for making key purchasing decisions. Will it pay to continue getting a print edition when one is available online? Can you have a 60-day trial to see if students and teachers like it? Who in the company can give you hardware requirements so you don't buy something only to discover it won't run on your equipment?

Beyond the Sales Pitch

Because they visit so many media centers in your geographic region, sales representatives are aware of what is going on almost everywhere. They know who has had budget cuts and who is doing a major technology upgrade. They usually have a sense of who has a good program and who is having problems.

If you are planning a remodeling project and don't know the right library media specialists to call for advice, ask the sales representatives. They can tell you the people who have recently completed one. Do you want to visit a media center with your supervisor in order to make a point about flexible scheduling or inquiry based learning or integrating technology into the curriculum? Ask for some names.

Finally, these annual visitors are a great avenue for communication. If it's been a while since your state conference, you may not have heard the latest good or bad news about one of your colleagues. As items come out or go back into their cases, vendor reps will put you back into the loop with some small talk. When they leave, they will take with them not only whatever order you have given them, but also a sense of your media center program which they can then relay to others when needed.

February 2004: It's an Ill Wind

When winds blow, change is in the air. Some bring better weather, others cause disaster. Many have been named by people who expected their regular seasonal arrival, by modern meteorologists, or, as in the last on the list, because the ancient Greeks considered some winds to be gods. As an introduction to a middle through high school unit on weather or simply as a mini-science project, have students research the different types of winds that blow over the earth. Cover the bulletin board with a large world map. As students identify where a particular wind normally occurs, have them pin its name to the appropriate geographic location. For whirlwinds, they can label the tornado belt of the American Midwest as "whirlwind country."

February 2004: African Environment

Studying biomes now occurs from primary through high school. At the secondary level the topic is included in some AP Biology classes and all Ecology/Environmental Science courses. In middle and lower grades the subject is taught in Science. As more districts try to incorporate interdisciplinary studies, lead the way with this project, perfect for Black History Month, which is easily extended into Social Studies. With a little pre-planning, you can make it work even if the two classes don't meet at the same time.

Phase One: Science

Start with science. Instead of groups researching a terrestrial biome in all its locations on earth, have them focus on those found in Africa. The Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia Online has an excellent "Map of Africa, Natural Vegetation" with a key that lists the following biomes:

• Tropical rain forest
• Subtropical evergreen forest
• Taiga or Boreal forest
• Chapparal or Mediterranean scrub
• Tropical grassland and savanna
• Temperate grassland (prairie, steppe, pampa)
• Semidesert
• Desert

Review the map and list with the teacher to determine whether to have separate groups for each of the above or if some, such as the second and third and the last two, should be combined. Together, develop an Information Sheet or modify the one shown here.

As this part of the research is conducted, remind students that all plants and animals in the biomes should be indigenous to Africa. Suggest that they check country information as well as ecology resources to locate facts. Give them a list of Web sites for some group members to begin working on.

Phase Two: Social Studies

In the interests of time -- which drives the curriculum -- as soon as science classes complete Part One, begin the Social Studies link which can be Sociology, World Cultures or Geography. If classes meet at the same time, schedule both into the media center simultaneously so that students can explain and hand over their initial findings. Otherwise, have the papers delivered the day before the social studies groups begin their research. Where a team approach is used, as is often the case in middle schools, the same students can work on the project in both classes while the teachers collaborate with you and each other. They may enlist the math and English teachers as well.

As with the science phase, you and the teacher need to discuss how groups are to be structured, what is to be researched, and how it should be presented. For example, are they to mirror the biome groups exactly? If not, extra copies of Part One need to be made so that students have the environmental information for all the countries they are investigating.

Develop an Information Sheet that focuses students' attention on what they are to find. Include thoughtful questions at the end such as:

To what extent do the climate and the other features of this biome affect the people of these countries?

Which countries within the biome are most successful?

What factors contribute to a country's success or difficulty?

Are politics or environment the most significant predictor?

The questions are increasingly complex and may be omitted if students are not up to that level. You can still promote higher order thinking by having them decide in which country they would prefer to live if they had to select one, giving reasons for their answers.

Extensions and Variations

After science students compete their study of African biomes, the project can revert to the more typical one by having them find matching biomes elsewhere in the world. Based on their research, they can compare and contrast these locations with Africa.

Continue with the interdisciplinary approach by exchanging completed African reports. While science groups can discuss to what extent they agree with the final questions from the social studies projects, those in social studies can use the science findings to address issues of human impact on the environment or compare the adaptations of plants and animals to ones made by humans.

The more connections students can make, the easier and more thoroughly they learn. By acting as a facilitator between teachers, you can make interdisciplinary units possible without the scheduling problems that can occur with such projects.

January 2004: Top 10 Research

While research projects should represent authentic learning, you sometimes must respond to a teacher who simply wants the objective to be that students become familiar with the process. When you are unable to suggest a more practical approach, use the unit as an opportunity for the class to have fun.

Since the new century generated all sorts of lists from great and outstanding people to happenings, have students in middle through high school develop their own. Their task is to create a list of the top ten in any area. They could select rock groups, weather disasters, assassinations, inventions, or whatever interests them. Next, have them determine the time period from which the ten will be chosen. Obviously, if they are doing rock groups, they are limited to the second half of the 20th century, but those doing inventions might want to consider the past one hundred years or even reach back to the dawn of man. (The wheel was extremely important.)

Being given a wide open field from which to choose makes the task very difficult, so help students by first having them brainstorm. Instead of everyone contributing in a general free-for-all, divide the class into groups of four to six students and allow ten minutes for them to generate lists. Have one member from each group write the ideas that came up on an easel pad, eliminating any that duplicate previously recorded possibilities. Add suggestions of your own at this time.

Modeling

Take one example, such as Disasters. Again give groups time to decide how they would determine the top ten, sharing their strategy with the rest of the class. Analyze with students which approaches would prove most successful and what would be the best sequence.

For example, they will need to decide on types of disasters such as earthquakes and volcanoes, plane and rail crashes, shipwrecks, environmental or technological accidents, etc. Do they want to select only one subcategory or work with them all? Where will they find these disasters recorded? While many will choose the Internet as their first recourse, remind them of how simple and fast it is to find information in almanacs. Point out any other resources in your print reference collection that include such facts. Some details can be located in Statistical Abstracts of the United States.

Help students recognize that they will need to set criteria for rating the possible finalists and be able to explain why they are relevant. In the case of disasters, they might consider lives lost, damage costs, and long and short term consequences. Groups must prioritize their lists by importance. (To make their final decision objective, have them assign a numerical weight to each criterion. If they have three, give a weight of five to the most important, three to the second and one to the last.)

Making a List

Once groups know what they will be researching and have a fair idea of how to proceed, let them begin. Suggest they identify 15 to 20 candidates for their lists and write a brief description of each. Have them next discuss the possibilities, reducing these to a final ten.

To emerge with an ordered list, have group members divide up the finalists and try to find as many additional facts as possible. Before ranking the entries, groups must review the criteria they established and determine if they wish to add or delete any or change its priority.

By the Numbers

As each of the Top 10 comes up for discussion, let members decide to what extent it fulfilled the requirements they established, again assigning a number. For example, if an earthquake caused major damage to homes and businesses it might be given a nine, while one of lesser economic consequences might rate a five.

A review of the numbers will allow most items to fall into their natural final ranking. When a few seem close, additional discussion will resolve the issue or they can use the numbers they have assigned for clarification. This means that the nine given to an earthquake for the amount of damage caused is multiplied by the weighting given to that criterion (i.e. three) for a total of twenty-seven. Totals for each disaster can be compared and their position on the final list is easily seen.

Counting Down

Groups need to present their lists. To take the least amount of time, have them read the entries with descriptions, starting (in David Letterman fashion) with number ten first.

For a greater and longer lasting impact, have groups create a poster either for each of the ten or just a visual for the number one selection. The illustrations as well as a descriptive list can be mounted on a bulletin board for everyone to see and probably argue about. Some might choose to create a video or computer program as a format for displaying their winners. In all cases, each item should be individually featured and explained.

No matter how the lists are presented, you will have achieved several objectives. Students will have become more proficient in developing research strategies and discovered the fun in finding out. Perhaps most important, the teacher will have learned how well you can work together in creating meaningful units.

As days grow short, the early dusk is a perfect time for an elementary unit on shadows and optical illusions. Pull all titles on the subject, including fiction, and review them for ideas to add to the activity. Bring in and borrow as many lightweight flashlights as you can get.

Set the tone for the project by reading Robert Louis Stevenson's My Shadow. Ask students what they know about shadows and put their ideas on an easel pad. Talk about how shadows get bigger or smaller as the light source hits objects from different directions.

Divide students into twos and give each group a book. Use material on optical illusions if you don't have enough on shadows. Groups must discover at least one idea about the subject to bring back to the class. Add their findings to the information on the easel pad.

Experiments Based on Research

Have some groups trace the right or left hand of each member on a sheet of construction paper, putting the person's name inside and then cutting it out. At the same time have other groups work with the flashlight. While one shines it on a hand held above the paper, the other traces the outline, labels it and cuts it out. Repeat the process with the hand closer to the paper or with the flashlight held at a different angle.

Switch groups so that those with flashlights now do the tracing, and those who trace work with flashlights. Have them paste the different sizes of cut outs on a contrasting color of construction paper. Hang the hands on counter height shelves so that students can look at all of them. Ask them to explain what their experiments have proved.

Those working with optical illusions should reproduce one and be ready to explain what makes it fool the eye. Using what they learned, they should try to make a simple optical illusion of their own. (Railroad tracks meeting at a distant point with two equal sized objects of their choice pasted at different points along the tracks is a simple example. Another is to draw two circles of the same size, put a square around one with sides touching the circle and a triangle inside the other with points on the circle.)

Silhouette Stories

As a culminating activity, regroup the class into fours to create simple shadow plays. Have each group select a nursery rhyme or short story and trace appropriate objects onto construction paper. Keep the tracings small and have them tape straws to the bottom or side of their drawings.

To put on the "plays", set up an overhead projector and screen. Turn off the lights and have each group in turn recite the rhyme or tell the tale while moving the "puppets" along the glass top of the overhead projector. Particularly on an overcast day, students will enjoy the slightly shivery feel of objects moving on the screen in the darkened room.

Many of you bemoan the fact that teaching is the only aspect of your job administrators include in formal observations. Yet, you cannot fault supervisors for focusing on what they understand best. If you want them to assess your success in other areas, you are responsible for giving them the information. Eventually, you may get them to incorporate your documentation into their evaluations.

You need to provide written reports to administrators using statistics to make your point. No matter how busy you are, you absolutely must make it a high priority to provide these facts and figures regularly.

When Numbers Don't Tell It All

Historically, circulation statistics have been used to measure media center activity. Today they rarely tell the full story.

Most high schools have relatively low circulation as students photocopy from books, print out articles from full-text electronic subscriptions and download information from the Internet. Rigidly scheduled elementary media centers often have "required" book borrowing that is no indicator of student use, although the clerical time needed to reshelve everything does need to be brought to administrators' attention.

Add It Up By Breaking It Down

Be sure to carefully record the number of scheduled classes to showcase the extent of your involvement with curriculum in the various subject areas. List classes day by day, having separate lines for different levels of a course. (For example, if Ms. Jones brings in two section of "B" level tenth English and one section of tenth grade honors English for three days, you record them as two entries on each of the three days.) Now, extend that idea to highlight your specific contributions.

Many administrators assume that when classes come, you merely stand by offering the resources and teachers do the work. If you are involved in a lot of direct instruction or work closely with students, place an asterisk or other symbol next to the date and time that you were presenting information. Include that total with the sum of all classes. If it will look good, show the figure as a percentage.

Offer a breakdown by subject (or grade if that is more appropriate). Then go one step further and give the number of different teachers (without their names) from each subject area who made use of your expertise. After a while, you will be able to compare statistics with those of the same month in the previous year. You can demonstrate your commitment to improving your program by informing administrators that in the next year you plan to reach "x" more teachers in a given department.

A Few More Numbers

Some numbers are not easy to record. When your schedule is full or for reasons of convenience, teachers may prefer to have you prepare a cartload of materials for their classroom. While the books may be officially circulated, the fact that the class was doing research using pre-selected media center resources is not documented. Include in your reports the number of these you prepare and approximately how many titles were put on the cart.

You need to remind your supervisors of the time it takes to get these items back on the shelf. Also, call to their attention that frequently the cart is returned and students come to the media center independently to continue using the resources, asking for individual help. These numbers are an important indicator of media center activity.

Annual Numbers

Total everything in your annual report. This is your big chance to prove what an overwhelming job you and your staff (if you are fortunate enough to have help) did. Do a monthly summary and compare it with previous years. Get the word out as to how many classes and individual students were served in the course of the school year.

You do a great job! Your media center program is a vital element in the educational process. Make sure everyone knows it.

No matter what the size of your budget, everyone orders books. Reading reviews takes up a lot of time, but, unless you are in a very large system with access to copies of new materials, the only way you know what is new and suitable for your school, other than examining the titles displayed at conference exhibits, is to study the reviewing journals. The ideal way to handle this task is to read them as they arrive, making notes on cards or otherwise preparing your wish list. Unfortunately, the numerous other demands on your time make this difficult to do in an organized manner, and you are often confronted with a pile of unread periodicals.

Furthermore, once you have noted the titles, you must then place your order. While some districts do electronic ordering using a hook up to a jobber, most of you do not have that option. With clerical help disappearing in many cases, doing the physical job of ordering often falls to you.

Spreadsheet Solution

If you have Microsoft Excel available, an easy way to put together your list is to ask your computer teacher, technology department, or a savvy parent to set up a simple template for you with the name of your school and columns for author, title, ISBN number and price (or whatever information you normally include.) They can then add a basic formula which gives you a running total of how much you have spent as you go along, and you can sort alphabetically by author or title when you are ready to close the order.

One big time saver is that you no longer have to add up a column of figures. A second is that once you have a blank template, you can set up a file for a specific month or whenever you do your orders and add to it as you have a few free moments.

When a book is lost, it's easy to enter the information for purchasing a new one right away rather than waiting until you do your formal order and having to stop and remember what you needed to reorder. If someone requests a title, you can open up the file and put it right in. When you finish up a file and send out an order, just enter your blank template and give it a new title, and you are ready to begin again.

Keeping Track of Orders

While some of you place one or two orders at specified times, others can do so throughout the year. In that case, it is hard to keep track of exactly what books you have purchased, and checking through your past lists also takes extra time which you don't have. If you are in such a position, use your accumulated order files and merge them into one large one, arranging it in alphabetical order for your ease in finding authors or titles. This is a third time saver, allowing you to tell at a glance whether or not you have already received a particular book without having to go to your catalog or OPAC to make sure.

Book orders, while a vital part of your job, often hang over your head like a cloud, because there are so many steps involved. You want to be extremely careful with your money, getting the most for your dollars, while expanding your collection to suit the needs of students and teachers. Anything that makes this more efficient will give you a little more time to spend on all of your other media center tasks.

As the school year begins, make time for an Internet "orientation" for teachers and -- if you are willing to do an evening presentation -- one for parents as well. Media hype has made the Net the land of hyperbole. Whatever is discussed is referred to in extremes. Sex sites and lurking predators seem omnipresent. Equally extolled is the access to a wealth of free information ready for download. Much is true; the exaggerations however, serve to frighten and confuse parents and faculty.

What is needed is a balanced account that offers solutions and information in a clear manner. An orientation will help adults separate fact from overstatements and come to decisions about their role in guiding children and young adults to use the Internet safely.

Minding Your "P's"

Prepare a PowerPoint presentation that allows time for discussion and questions as you progress. In dealing with the Internet, five "P's" cover the fears, the real dangers, and some solutions: Pornography, Predators, Privacy, Propaganda, and Partnership in learning (both parents and teachers).

The first two "P's" are at the heart of parental fears, the third is an area of concern not many realize. Although everyone wants to shield children from pornography, the Web is not nearly as sex-laden as the media would have people believe. According to a fact sheet from the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom, "sexually explicit sites now constitute 2.3% of the public Web." The "public Web" is the 41% of the Internet that is totally free, requiring no payment or authorization to use.

Predators are in chat rooms and no one (adults included) should enter one without knowing basic rules. You never give out your real name, your location or phone number. You absolutely don't arrange to personally meet someone with whom you are chatting. (Adults who do so, need to exercise extreme caution such as bringing a friend and choosing a public place for the meeting.)

Privacy is hard to maintain on the Internet. Young people -- and adults as well -- need to be careful what information is given out. The Federal Trade Commission has a "Kidz Online Privacy" site which presents rules for parents and children. Surveys show that to get free gifts, children will reveal where their parents vacation, the cars they drive, etc. While this is not directly dangerous, you don't want to be needlessly targeted by different marketers. See the accompanying list for websites on privacy and other issues discussed here.

Handling the "P's"

To deal with the first three "P's", you have three options. You can ignore, filter, or teach. Many parents, recognizing that the extent of the dangers are overstated, are willing to trust that nothing serious will happen to their children and that the moral training given and the relationship they have will be sufficient to prevent any real problems.

Filters are being hyped as the best way to safeguard youngsters. What is usually overlooked is that they fail to block about 15% of objectionable sites including "hardcore pornography, hate speech and violence." They do block approximately 20% of sites that are non-objectionable and useful (ALA Office of Intellectual Freedom's fact sheet).

Instead of relying on imperfect tools and blind luck, opt for a third alternative. Teach students how to become "street smart" on the Internet and thereby prepare them for the information-rich society in which they live.

The Fourth "P"

Propaganda wears a slick face on the Internet. Good graphics can make almost anything sound convincing. Because no one controls the content of the public Web, users are responsible for determining what is misinformation, biased presentations, or outright lies.

Lessons in website evaluation are vital to protect youngsters from these skillfully constructed traps. They need to learn to assess sites for validity (Is it accurate, current?), credibility (What is its authority? Is it objective?) and relevance (What is its quality, connection to the topic, depth of coverage?).

The Final "P" is for Partnership

As noted earlier, teaching students how to safely navigate the perils and pitfalls of the Web is the surest course to keep them safe and become "efficient and effective users of information." Teachers, parents, grandparents and caregivers need to be aware of how young people use the Internet and become savvy enough to offer guidance. Let them know that you are always available to help them so they can do their part with students.

The Internet is a wonderful and dangerous place. When you are in partnership with the educational community, students get the best of the Web as they learn to safely navigate its pitfalls.

The big ideas to remember about the Internet: Teach children to surf safely. Guard your privacy. Verify accuracy. The responsibility is yours.

Useful Internet Sites

• SAFE KIDS
• GetNetWise
• KIDZ PRIVACY