This column describes a new teaching tool, BrainPOP, which is a database that blurs the distinction between classroom and library media center. This collection of more than 300 short, concept-based, animated movies is intended primarily for use by teachers in classroom instruction. It is reminiscent of the single-concept film cartridges that used…

One critical role of the catalog is to help librarians manage and track their inventory, whether it's books, videos, journals, microfilm reels, laptops, or even access to study rooms. The phrase, "if you can't track it, you don't own it," is quite real for the library that is trying to monitor thousands or millions of items. In the last decade,…

Libraries must increasingly accommodate bibliographic records encoded with a variety of standards and emerging standards, including Dublin Core, MODS, and VRA Core. The problem is that many libraries still rely solely on MARC and AACR2. The best-trained professionals to lead librarians through the metadata maze are catalogers. Catalogers…

An online community is a group of people who connect with one another over time and through space using the Internet as their primary medium. Online communities also act, albeit through text. They organize political action, introduce to-be spouses, and create new products and tools. This article discusses how one librarian used online communities…

This article reports the results of Library Journal's 2005 Book Buying Survey. The results of the survey overall showed that attendance is high at the library and circulation is up as well. The survey also reported that fiction is what most people are reading. The how-to books also proved to be very popular. The article goes into detail concerning…

After a brief career in musical theater, Micki McIntyre entered the graduate library program at Columbia University, where she noticed a poster advertising free tuition to library employees. "There was a vacancy at the health sciences library, and that's how a theater major became a medical librarian." She's a medical librarian with…

It bothers Michelle Jeske that many people still don't know all that their public libraries can do for them, even in Denver, where 80 percent of the population has a library card. Fortunately, as manager of web information services at the Denver Public Library (DPL), she can reach out to people who never come through the library doors. Jeske and…

Catalogers, catalog managers, and others in library technical services have become increasingly interested in, worried over, and excited about FRBR (the acronym for Functional Requirements of Bibliographic Records). Staff outside of the management of the library's bibliographic database may wonder what the fuss is about (FERBER? FURBUR?), assuming…

The library media center is hosting an all-school team challenge, designed to celebrate reading and library skills. Students could choose from the contest categories like "Lord of the Rings", "Harry Potter", Author Facts Challenge and Opening Lines Challenge for the competition and those students who read more challenging books show their…

A Time Travel project in the library gives enthusiasm to students to connect with the past and reinforces their research skills while instilling respect for the past years. The librarian should choose one specific decade to highlight in the library and create an extravaganza that would allow memorabilia from that time period to be located without…

E-Books are books or other forms of text in digital form, an enhanced book without paper and at little or no cost, technologies that are already available at most schools can be used to expand the library media center's collection of books, at the same time making many books more accessible to students. Many tools are available for free to convert…

The library is a welcoming space for students and hence has to be met with certain requirements. Some of the tips that are presented to keep students comfortable include meeting students' need with humor and compassion, keeping signs and handouts simple, overdues be met with a Zen approach, finding out and giving what the patron needs.

A library media specialist describes the way in which she and her assistant re-evaluated the library media center program so that they could help students in finding books of their choice, easily. Library media center orientation includes remainders for students that there are often variations in library arrangements and formal and informal…

This article discusses the current status of teens in society. The article reports that half of all teens have been affected by the divorce of their parents; one in five lives in poverty; and approximately one in six suffers from depression. Thirty-five percent of teenage girls get pregnant at least once before age 20. This article discusses ways…

When Mary Ellen Icaza became Electronic Services Librarian at Montgomery County Public Libraries, she noticed that the readers' services information on the library web site was invisible, even to librarians. "And if staff can't find it," she says, "customers can't." She set out to help people find that material-and to turn a…