Out with the old, in with the new

……….Hello all. I find it hard to believe that it is still September. By now, you’ve hopefully settled into a bit of a routine to help you navigate through the long school year ahead. Life in the library, thus far, has been as expected, with its bumps and starts.

……….Right now we are working hard to weed and restock our fiction collection, and we would like to invite you to check out some of our recent acquisitions. Among our new arrivals are:

• Dark Dude, Oscar Hijuelos
• Evil Genius, Catherine Jinks
• Beautiful Music for Ugly Children, Kristin Cronn-Mills
• Dope Sick, Walter Dean Myers
• 11/22/63, Stephen King
• Peanut, Ayun Halliday
• Blueprints for Building Better Girls, Elissa Schappell
• Digital People, Sidney Perkowitz
• The Book of Numbers, Peter Bentley
• Eat Fresh: recipes for teen chefs, Rozanne Gold

……….The books that we remove from our bookshelves are usually deleted because they are either in really poor physical condition or there are multiple copies, but none are being checked out. We’ll keep these around near the entrance to the library and they are free to take home. If they are not adopted by anyone from our school, they will eventually be donated to various charities. Among the copies on their way out are:

This is what 200 books looks like. You should have read at least this many books by the time you leave high school. Just saying.

• The Broker, The Pelican Brief, The Runaway Jury by John Grisham
• Blindsight, Vital Signs, Mortal Fear by Robin Cook
• Weep No More My Lady,  Stillwatch, Moonlight Becomes You by Mary Higgins Clark
• Cyclops, Treasure, Inca Gold by Clive Cussler
• Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel
• Green Mansions by W.H. Hudson
• Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

 ………Do not fear, for we are keeping at least one copy of most of these titles (for posterity’s sake) but we need to make room for changes.

……….I would also like to remind teachers, students and others that the Haverhill High School library OPAC (Online Patron Access Catalog) is available for all to use at: https://haverhill-ps.follettdestiny.com

……….Finally, I would like to invite everyone to see the library media center as a welcoming place for academic work. Please bring your classes down to use the computer labs and feel free to ask me or Mrs. Sicard for assistance with anything. We understand that there are sometimes problems with the computers (logging on, finding documents, broken keyboards, trouble printing) and we are ready to deal with these and other worries you may encounter. We want to have the library media center full of students and teachers doing the work they need to do, and to this end, we try to accommodate everyone that asks to join us. We believe that a culture of work, high expectations and personal responsibility is infectious and that is what we are trying to create in the library media center.

……….We ask that teachers and students who have a free or study period, stop by to do their work somewhere in our library, so that by example, they might remind those who have forgotten why we are school, exactly what we’re supposed to be doing there.

Thank you for stopping by and I hope you have a great day.

 Copyright © henry toromoreno, 2013. All rights reserved.

Welcome Back, 2013 – 14

……….I hope your summer was great, but even more I wish for you a successful and exciting school year.

……….September is a bittersweet time for me. It is like a New Year’s celebration as we open the doors to our building and gather together to do what we do. And then, there’s the saying goodbye to another summer of our lives.

……….There are a lot of new faces in the building this year, and I want to welcome them to our family. I hope they each find at least one ally and I want them to know they can always find a quiet corner to gather themselves in the library media center (LMC).

……….I would like to use this post to share important information related to the Haverhill High School LMC:

School Extension:      1143

Hours:                            Mon. – Fri., 7 am – 3 pm

……….The High School’s library catalog is online and available for anyone to use. You will find it listed first in out Major Links categories to the right. Please make sure to bookmark that page and use it often to find out what we have on our shelves.

Review of basic library rules

• Students may sign up for the library (if they have a scheduled study), before first period starts or after the last school bell (2:05 pm).
• Subject teachers may send students with a pass (up to 3) to complete class work or take a test. (Please call to advise us if you are sending students out of a class).
• Teachers can sign up to bring their classes to the library by checking at the circulation desk for availability. We have two computer labs, each with about two dozen working PCs (depending on how the network is behaving that day). We also have room for a class in the “pit”.
• Hats, hoods, cell phones, head phones and personal electronic devices are not allowed. Every other rule in the student handbook also applies doubly true in the library.
• Personal electronic devices may be used if the student shows that he/she is doing school-related work. (Please ask us first; don’t make us assume you are breaking a school rule).
• The library is a large common space, available and welcoming to all who wish to convene (after making arrangements or getting a pass), thus anyone who disrupts or interferes with the WORK being done, will be asked to leave – and may be banned for some time, depending on the wishes of the all-mighty Oracle.
• Remember to leave the library the way you found it. If you moved a chair, put it back. If your students moved chairs, have your students put them back. Better still … don’t move the chairs.
• Food and drink are not allowed in the library. Food includes anything you put in your mouth that you intend to swallow or chew on. Drink includes water. I can’t make this any clearer.
• We are here to help anyone and everyone who asks for help, especially when they ask with a smile.

……….Please bookmark or subscribe to the library blog, as I try to share news and information that is mostly related to education, our library collection or other ideas that I believe are important to consider. I encourage anyone who is new to the blog to check out the video resources page for a number of reliable sites that have free streaming videos and other educational resources you may find useful for use in your classrooms.

……….I think that’s it; for now.

……….I hope this was helpful and I thank you, as always, for stopping by.

Copyright © henry toromoreno, 2013. All rights reserved.