Lead story: End of School 2005

Encore for e-books

Five years ago, the School Librarian's Workshop ran a two-part article on e-books. At the time, it seemed as though this new format was going to be the latest rage. But the book-sized readers and competing technologies caused it to almost disappear from the scene. Now, thanks to a different approach, e-books are returning, and this time they are likely here to stay.

The most important difference is that you no longer need a special reader. E-books are downloadable not only to PCs but also to PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants),"smart" cell phones, and even hand-held global positioning systems. Ease of access and the love affair with anything you can do on a cell phone are making electronic books increasing popular, although still a small player in the publishing field.

E-books in the media center

Students are probably downloading e-books at eReader.com or Fictionwise.com. Both price titles below the paperback cost and offer discounts to subscribers of their free newsletter (eReader) or to those who opt to pay a small membership fee (Fictionwise). Downloadable reader software allows the books to be read on a variety of devices with many extras such as font choices and built-in dictionaries.

Putting e-books in libraries is another matter. Titles are normally encrypted to prevent printing out hard copies or sending to others as a matter of copyright protection. However, book jobbers are beginning to sell them, making them a viable option. You get electronic records for your catalog and, although only one person can borrow a title at a time, there are never any losses to deal with or overdue notices to send. Books are "returned" on time automatically.

Virtual reference

An even more interesting use of e-books for your collection is to start a virtual reference library. Currently, Gale Group has developed an easy way for you to bring popular titles into your media center without worrying about having enough copies or losing key volumes during a research project. You can search single or multiple volumes simultaneously by keyword, title, and a number of other refining options. You need no additional software, only the easily downloaded Adobe Acrobat. (For more information go to www.gale.com/gvrl.)

Titles in the Virtual Reference Library are 10 percent higher than the print version, but allow unlimited users. Unlike the e-books discussed above, Gale permits hard copy print outs and sharing information via email. As with ProQuest SIRS Interactive Citzenship, titles can be viewed in both html and pdf formats. Unlike Interactive Citzenship, which is by subscription and dynamically changes as new articles are added to the SIRS Knowledge Source database, these are owned by you and the text is fixed.

Implications

Once again, technology is changing how you think about what you do. E-books in various guises are probably here to stay, growing and evolving every year. Many public libraries have added them to their collection, and their circulation is impressive with patrons downloading books at all hours of the day and night.

An added bonus of having electronic books is that shelving limitations are not an issue. Many of you wonder where you are going to put the latest reference set, or debate weeding the fiction collection to make more room. Your students are extremely comfortable reading online and with the increase in text and instant messaging on cell phones, they are ready and eager to accept this new format. Talk with your vendor representatives and find out how easily you can get started.


Previous issues

Spring 2005: When they don't want your help

At a state conference, an attendee said that project-based learning had become a focus in her school. Teachers received in-service training and planned several lessons, all without input from her. They now sign up for the media center, bring their classes, and say they don't need any help. Students then log on to the computers and start searching Google. Her question was, "What can I do to get teachers to let me help them and their students?"

Although her issue appeared fairly specific, it shows up in many ways across grade levels. When teachers think their students are so computer literate and need no instruction or guidance from you, it is difficult to find a way to work collaboratively. It is sometimes even harder not to get angry and frustrated with them, which would only make things worse.

Baby steps

After calming yourself down, you need to move slowly and carefully. Do not argue with the teacher. Allow students to get to work while you do tasks elsewhere. Once they are underway, wander back and see how they are doing. Get a sense of what they are looking for and what success they are having.

While students are busy searching, ask the teacher if you could have five minutes to pull up one database that applies to the topic. Note that the district pays a lot of money to have this available. Even if you have several that might be helpful, focus on only one. Be sure that you stay within the time frame you promised. Once you have completed the brief walk through, request a few minutes to bring it to students' attention.

Dealing with brick walls

Most of the time, teachers are open to your suggestions if you are low key in presenting the information. However, some are resistant. Should your offer to show a database be turned down, just accept it for the time being. You can't go through a brick wall. Two alternatives are available, however. You can chip away at it or go around it.

Chipping away is slow but can yield results over time. Repeat your offer the next time the teacher comes in, and the following occasion, and so on, being pleasant despite the repeated rejections. Eventually the teacher, somewhat embarrassed or guilty about constantly saying no, will give you the opportunity to demonstrate. You have then made the first important chink in the wall.

A second approach is to work with teachers doing the same or similar units. If you get their support, you can mention that casually to your more obstinate colleague. The concern that their students are not learning something that others are getting can be the incentive to at least hear you out.

Building on success

Once you have introduced the database, thank the teacher for being so open to trying something new. Suggest that next time, if you have the project in advance, the two of you can review possible ways for students to approach it.

Even after an initial success, you might be stonewalled or get a verbal agreement only to once again have the teacher bring in the class without discussing any of it with you. Be patient, and repeat the process of recommending a database. One day that brick wall will crumble completely.


Winter 2005: Treasuring women's lives

Put the focus on biographical research with a unit on National Women's History Month for intermediate through junior high students. Add skim reading, indexes, fact boxes, captioned photos, and arrangement of information to the list of skills to be covered. As the Internet has sharply increased problems with accuracy, raise students' awareness of the issue by requiring a second source to verify every fact.

Although what they choose to save varies, both males and females tend to collect things putting them in boxes (which look very different). The idea translates into the unit's culminating project as students design "treasure boxes" to represent the lives of the women they research. In creating these, they will need to utilize additional information literacy skills as they synthesize the information they find. As a bonus, the completed boxes make a great display for the media center.

Getting ready

Develop a list of women to research based on your collection and make up a cart with books about them to help students get started. Print their names, cutting them into strips. If you prefer, divide them by categories. Color code these fields so that students have some option in choosing their person. Bookmark selected websites. Here are some possibilities:

Bring in an assortment of boxes. If you don't have any of your own, find some at dollar stores or cover shoe boxes with wrapping paper. Put the strips into one of the boxes.

Setting the tone

Prepare students for the project by discussing what sorts of keepsakes they have collected and where they keep them. Next, model the concept by presenting a treasure box of your life. Have pictures of books and computers to illustrate that you are a library media specialist. A graduation cap with a date can indicate when you earned your degree.

Select appropriate ways to present your hobbies and interests as well as anything else you choose to share with students. Ask them what they would put in a box to represent themselves.

Moving into research

Explain that they will be exploring the lives of famous women through time and will prepare a treasure box that will characterize their person. Have students work in groups of two. If possible, select pairs with different intelligences such as verbal with spatial. Let one member of the group draw the name of a woman from the strips you placed in the box.

Ask how they plan to begin their search. When students name the Internet, have them be more specific, and introduce your prepared websites. Direct their attention to the books on hand. Review as necessary the difference between general and subject encyclopedias and what is meant by collective biography. Remind them that every fact must be corroborated.

Treasured lives

Have pairs display their boxes, explaining reasons for any decorations they made. As they pull an item from the box, let students tell what it represents and why it is important. When they finish, ask them to identify what they think their woman would most want to be remembered for. The question is an opportunity for them to reflect back on their research.

After the presentations have been completed, discuss the process. Have those who found discrepancies in "facts" tell what happened and how they resolved them. Finally, add further meaning to the project by asking them how they would like to be remembered someday.

Sample worksheet

Name of woman

Basic facts


Area(s) of achievement


Specific contributions


Sources (Number them and insert the appropriate numbers next to each fact)




Previous issues

New Year 2005: Changing our world

Students are often fascinated by reading about buildings, new kinds of transportation, and inventions that subtly but irrevocably have changed our world. While they approach nonfiction titles on these subjects for pleasure, they may sometimes be motivated to consider them as possible future careers.

From top to bottom

Goodman, Susan E. Skyscraper: From the Ground Up. Ill. by Michael J. Doolittle. Knopf, 2004, unp. 0-375-83109-8
Did you know that skyscrapers could not be built in earlier times because they needed steel (to support the weight of the building), elevators (to get people to the top quickly,) and electric light bulbs (for rooms without windows) -- all innovations from the late 1800s? In describing the construction of the 52-story Random House tower, Susan E. Goodman offers intriguing facts enhanced by Michael J. Doolittle's color photographs on every page. Readers of all ages will enjoy and learn a lot from the experience beginning with the first architectural drawings and on to the tower's completion. The New York City site adds problems including lack of space for building and deliveries which must be made at night so they won't cause traffic jams. A map of the world shows where all the materials come from.

Brimner, Larry Dane. Subway: the Story of Tunnels, Tubes, and Tracks. Ill. by Neil Waldman. Boyds Mills, 2004, 32 p. 1-59078-176-7
As the Industrial Revolution caused people to move to cities, traffic increased. Horse-drawn vehicles could not handle it all, and the smell of manure was everywhere. Subway details the need for transportation such as underground railroads which at first couldn’t be built because of lack of air in the tunnels. With the coming of electricity, London opened a deep-level subway line in 1890. After the 1888 blizzard paralyzed New York City, a subway was finally built and began operating in 1904, with the innovation (still used today) of local and express trains all at one fare -- a nickel a ride. More recently, computerized systems such as San Francisco's BART use space-age technology and need no conductors. Illustrations, an Author's Note, and index combine to make this a book students in grades 3 to 7 will enjoy reading.

Building

Macaulay, David. Building Big. Walter Lorraine Books, Houghton, 2000, 192 p. ill. 0-618-46527-8 (paperback)
David Macaulay's titles have always made complex concepts of construction and the way things work accessible through a combination of lucid text and detailed and sometimes whimsical illustrations. Having read about one skyscraper above, readers from grade 5 and up can extend their knowledge by learning about ten others as well as details about the construction of domes, dams, tunnels and bridges in Building Big, a companion to the PBS series now available in paperback. This is definitely a book to inspire budding architects, engineers and construction workers.

Curlee, Lynn. Parthenon. Atheneum, 2004, 34 p. ill. 0-689-84490-5
Lynn Curlee has also written about and illustrated great buildings around the world, and his most recent, Parthenon, returns to ancient Greece where the Acropolis, considered "the most perfect structure ever erected" as well as "the birthplace of western civilization" was constructed as an offering to the goddess Athena Parthenos. Badly damaged over the years in battles, fires, and more recently, pollution, the temple later became a Christian church and an Islamic mosque. Parts were restored when the Olynmpic Games were revived; others had been taken away to the British Museum. The excellent full-page illustrations show the original design and its refinements, some of the sculpture, and a map of the building, all of which should be of interest to grades 4 to 8.

Traveling safely

Lasky, Kathryn. The Man Who Made Time Travel. Ill. by Kevin Hawkes. Melanie Kroupa Books, Farrar, 2003, unp. 0-374-34788-3
The work done by the men in the following two books has made it possible for ships to navigate the waterways and oceans safely, reducing risks in travel while increasing the number of travelers. In order to find their way, sailors needed to know the latitude of their location as well as the longitude which no one had yet figured out how to determine. After the British Parliament offered a prize in 1714 and many crazy solutions were proposed, young John Harrison entered the competition. In Kathryn Lasky's excellent book, she details his first sea clock, H1 (ready in 1735 and keeping perfect time during a sea trial), but the inventor and perfectionist wanted to make improvements so he built H2, H3 (20 years later with 753 parts), and H4 (a small pocket watch in 1760 which should have won the prize but an enemy said it couldn't be trusted). H5 appeared when Harrison was 79, sick, and tired. It met all the requirements but still received no prize. He petitioned King George III who in 1773 finally saw that Harrison received the prize money. The determination and problem solving ability of The Man Who Made Time Travel will impress readers in grades 3 to 6, as will Kevin Hawkes' illustrations including the clocks which are also on display in museums in Greenwich and London, England.

Morrison, Taylor. The Coast Mappers. Walter Lorraine Books, Houghton, 2004, 45 p. ill. 0-618-25408-0
Although the United States Coast Survey was created in 1807 to map our waterways, the 1849 gold rush and its increase in ship traffic, causing many wrecks, made it essential for George Davidson, leading a three-man team, The Coast Mappers, to chart the Pacific coastline. They planned to begin at Point Conception, considered the most dangerous place, but had to look at the stars each night in order to get an accurate location (which took sixty days). The distances needed to be exact, the job was dangerous, the conditions, horrendous, and they received little money from Congress to map over 3,000 miles, which ended up taking five years! Taylor Morrison, who also did the very clear illustrations, includes a bibliography and glossary as well as acknowledgments in this interesting and unusual title for grades 5-8.

Inventions

Bridgman, Roger. 1000 Inventions & Discoveries. DK in association with the Smithsonian Institution. 2002, 256 p. ill. 0-7894-8826-4
The urge to improve how we do things has continually propelled humanity forward as new inventions become integrated with the way people live. Roger Bridgman offers an overview of 1000 Inventions and Discoveries from the dawn of time through the 21st century in seven chapters. DK's usual picture and text format makes it easy for young researchers in fifth grade and up looking for information on a particular historical time period to locate items which they can then explore elsewhere in greater depth.

Tomecek, Stephen M. What a Great Idea! Inventions That Changed the World. Ill. by Dan Stuckenschneider. Scholastic, 2003, 112 p. 0-590-68144-3
What a Great Idea! is another chronological arrangement which offers fewer inventions but more detail. Each of its five sections (from before 3500 BC through the present) has an introduction providing background for the time period. Two-page spreads explain how the invention works, its impact, and "Children of the Invention" notes where it led. Web sites encourage students from grades 4 to 8 to try their hand at inventing. Index.


Donkeys and Elephants, Revisited

Almost every state has a social studies standard requiring students to learn how to be citizens in a democratic society and participate in the constitutional system of the United States. With an upcoming presidential election, you have the perfect opportunity to collaborate with teachers on a curriculum unit that shows students in grades six through high school the real-life relevance of what they are studying. As they research candidates and issues, they will discover the influence of the media, explore the role of the Internet, and learn to be critical listeners and viewers. The object is to make students aware of how each side in a campaign uses words, images, and its own version of the facts to put its candidate in a good light and the opposition in a bad one. Since both sides do this, you need not be concerned about favoring one party over another.

Issues in Black and White

Begin with the classic symbols of the two parties. Find clip art silhouettes of a donkey and elephant and cut them out. Trace the outline onto white paper, cutting it out as well. Add details such as eyes if you like. Mount them on a bulletin board or an available wall with the black and white donkeys and elephants facing each other. Position the pairs under signs identifying their political party. You can add a symbol, such as a horse (of a different color) for a third party candidate.

Direct students to search periodical databases and local newspaper websites for favorable and unfavorable comments made by and about candidates. Have them copy these, citing the source, and paste them within the silhouette of the appropriate animal with positive statements on white and negatives on black. (If you are troubled by the colors, choose two others, putting a plus on the positive one and a minus on the negative.)

Getting into the Campaign

Once the donkeys and elephants begin to fill up, have students give speeches about the presidential candidates, using the quotes as notes. To prevent the activity from becoming overly partisan, particularly in locales where one party dominates, let them choose the candidate they are to extol from a box.

As students use the statements, they will realize that some are in direct conflict. Challenge them to determine which are accurate and which are distortions, misrepresentations or lies. Have them identify the latter by writing their findings on red paper which they can post with yarn connecting it to the offending comment.

The Web, the Media, and the Past

Give students the candidates' Web addresses, and have them compare the sites. Let the class discuss how much these will influence voting and why. Do they think one of the sites is superior? Are negative comments about candidates more prevalent on the Internet? How can they recognize the truth?

Add a dose of history by having students explore past campaigns to see how the press treated office seekers. Arrange their findings around the perimeter of the display. Since even George Washington was attacked, they will have many interesting statements and accusations from which to choose.

As a summary, divide classes in half and have them debate whether campaigns are cleaner now or in the past and whether the media goes too far or serves a needed role in the democratic process. By the time Election Day arrives, they will be very familiar with the candidates as well as our evolving means of bringing the message to voters.

This article first appeared in the November 1996 issue

School begins 2004

Me, a leader? Why?

The daily requirements of a library media specialist are incredibly demanding no matter what your level. From the moment you walk in the door until you lock up at day's end, you rarely have a quiet minute. Why in the world should you add to this load by becoming a leader in your building? And if you were to consider it, how would you go about making it happen?

For yourself

On the most basic level, you need to become a leader to preserve your job. While there is a shortage of library media specialists, it is equally true that, faced with tight budget dollars, your position is often the first to be cut. By being proactive, you can minimize that likelihood.

In a rigidly scheduled elementary school, teachers don't know what you do unless you are a leader. You may think that covering their duty-free periods will guarantee your position, but contracts can be rewritten, and teachers would rather see you go than have their class size increase because one of them is eliminated.

At the high school level, it is more frequently a case of shrinkage. First you are reduced from two library media specialists to one. Next, your clerk is made part time and later eliminated. No one speaks up for you because they haven't a clue as to what you do.

For your program

In the best of all possible worlds, media centers would be extremely well-funded. After all, everyone pays lip service to them being the heart of the school. The reality is that your budget represents a tempting chunk of money to administrators needing to reduce expenditures. The less they know about your program, the easier it is to slash your accounts.

If the media center is a hive of activity with students and teachers always present, administrators will try to find other ways to cut costs. They will work even harder to avoid this if you are seen as a leader, contributing to their success as students do well on standardized tests and teachers rely on your services.

For your students' future

Students from a very young age recognize the "pecking order." They seem to instinctively know who is significant and who isn't. Those who are not are frequently deemed unworthy of their attention.

To prepare students for their future, you want them to recognize and accept the importance of what you teach. Once you are perceived as a building leader, you gain their respect. When they consider you someone of importance, they are more willing to learn the skills they need to manage information and become lifelong learners.

Leadership Skills

Becoming a leader doesn't happen overnight. One activity or program won't do it. The process is ongoing. You start small, build on your successes, and learn from your failures.

In subsequent issues of The School Librarian's Workshop, this department will present an array of methods for becoming a leader. Some will seem easy and natural; others may not work in your situation or require more time than you can manage. Pick and choose among them, but always have something going that will make you a visible presence in your building.