Introducing Research Guides!

Posted on November 30, 2009 by aquist

The TCPS Library is pleased to introduce our first Research Guides. These guides are designed to help the at home researcher with a specific topic area. We are just starting with these, so please be patient while we work out the bumps! Your teacher will direct you when it’s OK to use these, as they are being published while in progress, but I do know that Ms. Z has already directed 4th graders to work with the Native American research guide, so jump right in 4th graders!

It is our hope that we can build more guides over the course of this year, there’s always so much research going on at TCPS!

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Access a wealth of resources from home!

Posted on October 13, 2009 by aquist

Did you know you could access fee-based databases and information resources from the comfort of your own computer, for FREE? It’s true! Our local public libraries, San Diego Public Library and San Diego County Library, both purchase access to a wide variety of databases, and for most of them access is free to home users with a library card. Don’t have a library card? What are you waiting for? They’re free to residents and they open the door to a lot of resources that can help you with projects, homework, and even daily life.

Databases like:

  • Biography Resource Center, with over 300,000 full biographies and another 900,000 short biographies
  • Got a health question? Check out Consumer Health Complete or Health & Wellness Resource Center for current, reliable information
  • World Book Online, the online version of the print encyclopedia
  • Daily Life America, with information and primary documents related to Americans day-to-day life both past and present, includes a State-by-State resource center with lots of key state facts!
  • Kids InfoBits & InfoTrac Junior, find articles in leading magazines, newspapers, and other citable sources in a wide variety of topics
  • NoveList K-8, find new books based on old favorites, this database can help you discover new books you will love (yes parents, they have this for adults as well!)

And those are only a few of the databases that these libraries offer. Take a look at the database listings linked above for your local library, I know you will find something there that will surprise you and that you will find useful.

Libraries… they’re not just for books anymore!

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Library of Congress presents an Exquisite Corpse…

Posted on October 5, 2009 by aquist

From read.gov:

Ever heard of an Exquisite Corpse? It’s not what you might think. An Exquisite Corpse is an old game in which people write a phrase on a sheet of paper, fold it over to conceal part of it and pass it on to the next player to do the same. The game ends when someone finishes the story, which is then read aloud.

Our “Exquisite Corpse Adventure” works this way: Jon Scieszka, the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, has written the first episode, which is “pieced together out of so many parts that it is not possible to describe them all here, so go ahead and just start reading!” He has passed it on to a cast of celebrated writers and illustrators, who must eventually bring the story to an end.

Every two weeks, there will be a new episode and a new illustration. The story will conclude a year from now.

The first installment is already available with the next installment, by Katherine Paterson, coming this Friday! Follow along with LOC’s Exquisite Corpse Adventure… and maybe create one of your own with some friends!

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National Information Literacy Awareness Month

Posted on October 4, 2009 by aquist

When you think of libraries and librarians, you probably think about books. And while it’s true that we do deal with books, our primary focus is information. These days information comes in a wide variety of formats and mediums, including books, websites, databases, audio and video, and yes, even blogs like this one. Our goal is to connect people with the information they need regardless of format.

Thus the library community is very pleased that President Obama has declared October 2009 to be National Information Literacy Awareness Month. Information literacy is a term used to define a set of skills related to information research and use. An information literate person is able to recognize when information is needed and able to locate, evaluate, and use it effectively. These skills are even more important now when anyone, anywhere, can provide any information they want for all to see.

At TCPS, information research and use skills are integrated into the core curriculum, and students at all grade levels learn how to find and use information. The library has traditionally supported this classroom work by providing teachers and students with access to print and video materials. Now with our library website and blog we can expand our information offerings.

The library now has a page with the bookmarking site delicious.com. This will be a place where we can collect and organize useful, free, web-based electronic resources of use to the TCPS community. We are in the very beginning stages with our bookmarks, but we hope to grow to become a valuable information resource for students, teachers, and parents! You can help! If you know of a really great online resource, email it to Jenny or me (akquist@yahoo.com) or put it in the comments.

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Celebrating Your Freedom to Read!

Posted on September 28, 2009 by aquist

Each year, during the last week of September, the American Library Association celebrates the freedom to read with Banned Books Week. This event highlights the importance of the First Amendment and “the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States.” (ALA website)

So, what’s your favorite book? Chances are someone, somewhere, didn’t like it or something about it, and maybe they even asked a library to remove it from the shelves. Resistance to such efforts is what Banned Books Week is all about. Books are challenged (a request for removal or restriction to access) for a wide variety of reasons, and the person issuing the challenge is almost always doing so in a effort to protect others from difficult or challenging information. Banned Books Week stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints for all who wish to access them.

Top Ten most frequently challenged books of 2008:

  1. And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
  2. His Dark Materials trilogy, by Philip Pullman
  3. TTYL; TTFN; L8R, G8R (series), by Lauren Myracle
  4. Scary Stories (series), by Alvin Schwartz
  5. Bless Me, Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya
  6. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
  7. Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily von Ziegesar
  8. Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, by Sarah S. Brannen
  9. The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
  10. Flashcards of My Life, by Charise Mericle Harper

Other titles that have been included in this list over the past ten years: Harry Potter, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Chocolate War, In the Night Kitchen, Captain Underpants, Of Mice and Men, Bridge to Terebithia…

More information on challenged books can be found on ALA’s website.

Sometimes it’s easy to become upset over a challenge to a book you like, but have you ever read something that you didn’t like? Something that you felt was wrong or inappropriate? Something that you just really didn’t think anybody else should read? If you haven’t, well, someday you will, and if you have… Banned Books Week is about protecting those books too. The freedom to read means not just our own freedom to choose what we want to read, but other people’s as well, even if it’s difficult or uncomfortable.

So this week, celebrate Banned Books Week, the First Amendment, and your freedom to read…

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Welcome to another year in the TCPS Library!

Posted on September 23, 2009 by jbelk
4th Graders Rock in the library!

4th Graders Rock in the library!

The year is off to a great start, and the kids are back in the library, enjoying books and finding facts. The library’s blog and website are off to a slower start than the other classroom pages, but we are looking forward to a great year of resource sharing.

By “we” I mean Jenny, our fabulous TCPS Librarian, and me, Amanda, TCPS parent, and well, librarian. I have volunteered to help Jenny with the website and blog so that she can focus her library time on the library. Over this year I hope we can build a great place online for parents and students to come and find great information resources and book recommendations.

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