Describes activities for an elementary school library media center that are centered around folktales with forest settings, including people as well as animals and plants which inhabit the forest. Highlights include reading and discussing folklore, descriptive writing exercises, small group activities, and examples of 12 literary characters. (LRW)

Discusses the role of the school media center and the use of technology to promote collaboration with teachers. Highlights include technological changes in the media center; changing standards in education; and linking media center technology with the curriculum to bring teachers in. (LRW)

Describes a study that examined the professional information needs of rural secondary school teachers in New South Wales (Australia). Concludes that teacher librarians have a pivotal role in meeting information needs, and that computer networks provide a means of overcoming the teachers' professional and geographical isolation. (LRW)

Discusses Newspapers in Education (NIE) Week and how it can relate to school library media specialists. Highlights include the convergence of news media, including news on the Web; ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) resources, including lesson plans; relevant books; Web sites; and Web journalism. (LRW)

Provides annotated bibliographies of five sources about women and their contributions to civilization that are suitable for upper elementary and middle schools and add depth to coverage provided in traditional reference sources. (LRW)

School library provision for students with disabilities was evaluated in 15 Australian schools over four years. Although examples of good practice were found, results indicate there is a need for improvement in service delivery. The need for enhanced communication and cooperation between school librarians and special education teachers is…

This case study of information-seeking behavior of second grade children in their school library media center focuses on how young children learning to read cope with searching for information in a largely textual corpus. Discusses children's search strategies; computer versus shelf searching; textual versus visual searching; and comparisons with…

Discussion of free voluntary reading focuses on a study that tracked students' reading progress in reading motivation programs in elementary and secondary schools. Topics include standardized test results for sixth graders; media center collections and circulation statistics; and correlation of total reading minutes and total reading score. (LRW)

Describes evaluation checklists developed by the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) and the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) for use by school library resource centers. Separate checklists are described for teacher-librarians, school administrators, district and regional library directors, teachers,…

Discussion of the integration of school library media programs into the curriculum highlights comprehension and inference generation as links between human information processing and subject area methodology. Long-term and short-term memory are discussed, and instruction in inference using narrative fiction is explained. (15 references) (LRW)

The first article describes the whole language approach as an outgrowth of individualized reading and the language experience approach, which encourages students to read books about their own interests, regardless of their reading levels. The second suggests ways in which media specialists can contribute to the planning and implementation of whole…

Discusses the positive qualities of teen paperback romances that may be perceived by adolescents but not by adult readers. Guidelines to aid school librarians in evaluating teen romances and suggesting books to young readers are presented. A bibliography of seven teen romances is also provided. (CLB)

Discusses the need for media specialists to be able to translate broad issues into specific questions that can be answered at the building level in order to improve school media programs. A series of specific questions for each challenge posed in "Information Power: Guidelines for School Library Media Programs" is presented. (five references)…

Focuses on the planning process described in "Information Power," recently published guidelines for school library media programs. Topics addressed include: (1) the rationale for program planning; (2) benefits and risks of planning; and (3) the steps in planning a curriculum-integrated program. An instrument for assessing preliminary conditions…

Explores the role of library media specialists in school curricula enrichment and the possibilities for utilizing both print and nonprint media to this end. Examples of media support for social studies, science, mathematics, and the arts are presented. The importance of networking and support systems to the success of media centers is discussed.…