Describes the National Library Power Program, a collaborative effort sponsored by the Dewitt Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund in cooperation with local education funds and public school districts that was designed to create public elementary and middle school library programs that are central to the education program of the school. (LRW)

Discusses inquiry in light of new emphases on student centered learning and electronic information technology. Topics include controlled inquiry, guided inquiry, modeled inquiry, and free inquiry; relationships among inquiry, media literacy, information literacy, creative thinking, and critical thinking; standards for language arts; and science…

Describes the process of building a new media center at Crestige South Elementary School in Centerview, Missouri. Discusses fund-raising efforts of the parent-teacher organization, the floor plan drawn up by the library media specialist, and the construction. Provides suggestions for rural school-library media specialists and school patrons for…

Discusses the planning process for migrating to a new library media center automation system, including identification of the need to migrate, solicitation of stakeholder support, enumeration of required attributes of a new system, writing the Request for Proposal (RFP), and maximizing vendor demonstrations. (MES)

Discusses the benefits of collaboration between teachers and school library media specialists. Topics include teaching information skills, lack of planning by teachers, time constraints, public relations by the media specialist geared toward teachers and administrators, and promoting library resources. (LRW)

Offers suggestions to make high school libraries more appealing to students, based on results of a student survey. Highlights include comfortable furniture; decorated walls; community information; limiting rules, including the amount of noise allowed; friendly staff; longer hours; more varied programs, including outside speakers; orientation…

Examines the Library Power program from the standpoint of student learning opportunities. Summarizes, from a student perspective, the findings of earlier studies and focuses on the areas of staffing, the facility, professional development, curriculum, instruction, and school reform. Highlights major lessons learned from the initiative. (AEF)

Explains how the relationship between school library collection development, curriculum development, and information problem solving can be improved by applying the Big6 Skills process to the selection of materials and teacher collaboration. Includes charts for cooperative planning that follow the Big6 Skills. (Contains 3 references.) (LRW)

Discusses the role library media specialists can play in promoting community-school interaction through use of the media. Highlights include newspapers; television and radio; electronic media, including Web sites and electronic publishing; newsletters; journals and magazines; conferences and workshops; and honors and awards. (LRW)

Describes strategic planning efforts in eight states (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, and Wisconsin) to implement guidelines in "Information Power" (1998, American Library Association) relating good school library media programs to student achievement success. Discusses Web pages; state conferences;…

Explains the educational value of picture books, what constitutes a picture book, what to look for in picture books, and how to select them for the classroom or school library. Gives advice on how small rural school libraries can get more books. Appendices describe 38 selection aids for children's literature and 10 children's book awards.…

Focuses on findings from studies investigating leadership for change in schools and districts which indicate that teacher- librarians must be mirror-images of other teachers if they are to have credibility with teachers and principals. Discusses the essential characteristics of knowledge base; technical skills; personal, interpersonal and team…

Describes a library-research-skills curriculum integrated with a social studies curriculum for emancipation celebrations for sixth graders. Using the school library media center and public and university libraries, students access, identify, and retrieve primary sources for evaluating and interpreting history. Student journal excerpts are…

Library Media Center 2000 (LMC2000) focuses on school library media services, technology, training, and advocacy--restructuring information and meeting linguistic, cultural, and multimedia learning needs. Over the last three years, San Francisco, California library media specialists have engaged in a process of professional development, networking…

Presents five curriculum guides for art, reading, language arts, science, and social studies. Each activity identifies library media-skills objectives, curriculum objectives, grade levels, resources, librarian and teacher instructional roles, activity and procedures for completion, activity samples, guidelines for evaluating finished activities,…