Across the country, school improvement plans and school improvement committees are the guiding forces in schools. As school improvement plans are created, revised, and evaluated, library media specialists have an opportunity to demonstrate how they can play a critical part in the team that strives to increase student achievement in their building.…

Today's schools place a great emphasis on encouraging community service. At Raytown South Middle School, Library Helpers and community service go hand in hand. As of the beginning of April, 34 sixth, seventh, and eighth grade Library Helpers have come to the library media center 427 times and given 185 hours of community service. They have shelved…

In this article, the author discusses and provides some examples on how students and teachers should use library media centers. He also discusses the common problems with facilities design as it changes along with other aspects of society. He states that flexibility in design ensures that the physical facility will meet future program needs.…

Classrooms are places for learning. The library media center, which is the library media specialist's classroom, should also be a major place for learning. The author, as a classroom teacher for 20 years, knows that for learning to take place, consistency is crucial. Realistic rules and enforcement of these rules helps with this consistency.…

The rationale behind weeding books is to remove dated, obsolete, erroneous material and worn books in disrepair from the collection to make room for current titles. Students of Lakeview have discovered an innovative idea of creating an altered book from the weeded book by taking a hardcover book and changing the original cover by means of a…

Johnson Doug, a representative of the state library association decided to speak to the board members of the Left Overshoe Independent Schools when they threatened to implement a budgetary cut for the library school program. The local parents and teachers should testify to the board the advantages of a library program and raise voice against…

Results of this study confirm the paucity of books in classroom libraries and the insufficient school funding for the classroom library. A sample of New York City teachers reported that they spent an average of $378 of their own money on classroom library books, and received an average of $143 from the school each year for books and supplies.…

In the past, everyone knew what a school librarian did--a librarian helped kids find good books and find facts in big, fat dictionaries and encyclopedias. Then, in more recent years, the Internet appeared in schools and knocked the rationale for school libraries over like a set of bowling pins. Many librarians have spent more than a decade…

Over the last two decades, the topic of gender and computer gaming has generated much research interest. Researchers have examined a number of related issues, including the relative frequency with which girls and boys use computer games, the educational benefits of gaming and the types of educational games that appeal to girls. This article…

The idea for a family literacy event resulted because teachers wanted more time to share reading strategies with parents, and parents wanted more information on how they could support and encourage their children with reading at home. With great success, Holy Cross School, Kemptville, Ontario, hosted a Family Literacy Night that coincided with the…

This article presents a poem aimed at library media specialists. This poem relays how elementary school library media specialists can survive the monthly demands of their jobs.

While the idea of data collection is new for many library media specialists, traditional statistics such as circulation, age, value, total collection numbers, class use of the library media center, etc. have been gathered since the dawn of library time. Typically these statistics are gathered simply because it has always been done, but library…

For the forty-second time, the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) is sponsoring the publication of these Proceedings. Papers published in this volume were presented at the annual AECT Convention in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Proceedings of AECT's Convention are published in two volumes. Volume 1 contains papers dealing…

This article describes a practical, sure-fire way for media specialists to boost student achievement. The method is called data-driven collaboration, and it's a practical, easy-to-use technique in which media specialists and teachers work together to pinpoint kids' instructional needs and improve their essential skills. The author discusses the…

Teaching the evaluation of information resources can be daunting for both students and educators. In an information environment in which resource types are ever-changing, how does the school librarian assess the evaluative skills of students? The assessments ought to reflect the malleable nature of online resources. To engage students in a…