The Book Fair Report

Preliminary reports show that our fall book fair was quite successful.  It appears that this was our most successful book fair ever.  I will not have a final account until all the paperwork is complete, but it looks like more than $2000.00 cash was earned for our school library program.  Scholastic, our fair vendor, also provides "Scholastic Dollars" to be used to purchase  library books directly from the fair.  Again, I will have more information about this once the final paperwork is done, but I have already selected more than $300 of books from the fair.


Once again I am completely indebted to the wonderful people who have helped make this fair the success it was.  Preschool and kindergarten aides Shawnee Murphy, Dreama Hewitt, Debbie Burns, Doretta Malone, Charlotte Hawkins and Bonnie Homchenko take on extra responsibility with each fair, as our littlest shoppers need the most help finding appropriate items.  I appreciate their extra efforts as well as those of all our teachers who make extra time for their children to shop.


Josh Salisbury, our music teacher, helped with all the class previews.  I know the children are particularly thankful for his technical expertise in getting our most popular item, the Top Secret UV Pens, to work.  He also set the ground rules for behavior which made the preview days much more orderly.


I have always been very grateful for my parent and grandparent volunteers who have helped with the before-school shopping and class previews.  This year I was blessed with a wealth of volunteers. They are, in order of appearance, Melissa Burns, Tracy Uphold, Angela Hanlin, Lauri Martin, Valerie Blosser, Eileen McCusker, Sherry Scarbro, Janna Lowery, Kathy Barr, Greg Rice, Devon Boyles, Beth Proctor, Shonet McClung, Christi Lyons, Tanya Bartley and Jessica Criser.  Brian Henderson and Lisa Nair helped with evening shopping.  Art teacher Charity Bolyard helped with sales after the Halloween parties.


I am particularly indebted to student volunteers Rylie Hollar and Katy Pasquarelli who helped set up displays before the fair.  Tiffany Shannon, Taylor Keeling, and Shylar Hanlin helped with sales.  


Finally, Christi Lyons and her daughters Taylor, Haleigh and Maddie, and third grade teacher Rhonda Hatfield helped break down the fair and rebox unsold merchandise.


I want to say thanks to all the parents for their support of our school library.  It means a lot to me.


I'll have more details about the fair and plans for the revenue at a later date.  Thanks again for everything!

The Book Fair Starts Today

Well, folks, I have a long week ahead of me, but it is very much worth it!  Our fall Scholastic Book Fair begins this morning at 8:30 AM.  The fair will be open from 8:30 AM to 7:00 PM Monday through Thursday, and from 8:30 AM to 4:00 PM on Friday.  Veteran book fair attendees will notice that I have shortened the evening hours by one; because I am at school at 6:15 every morning for Morning Adventures, I felt I shouldn't press my luck and stay open until 8:00 each evening!  I hope these times are convenient for parents.  If not, please let me know!


I am pleased with the content of this year's fair.  There are many, many great titles that I think the kids will be very excited about.  I think the parents will be pleased with the reduction on "non-book" items.  The selection, to me, seems like the best we have ever had. I hope you all agree.


One of my goals for money raised at this fair is to purchase sets of books to use with book clubs.  For example, in January, I would like to start a fifth grade book club reading either Rules by Cynthia Lord or Schooled by Gordon Korman.  I would like to have multiple copies of these titles available so the kids will not have to buy the books to participate.  Currently, our fourth grade book club is reading Cherokee Sister, by Debbie Dadey.


A student asked me Friday as we were setting up the fair whether I liked having book fairs.      I told her I liked having the fairs, and I liked it when it was over!  The real answer is a little more complex.  I enjoy having the fairs, because I get to see lots of parents that otherwise I might not come in contact with.  I think it is essential to my job to have a strong rapport with parents, teachers and students, and the book fair is an avenue to reach out to a group I might not see.


What I really like about the book fair is that it is essential to funding so many of the other things we do in the library.  For example, last year's fairs paid our renewal for Accelerated Reader.  Proceeds of the fairs have expanded our collection well beyond what our annual allotment from Monongalia County Schools can provide.  With these proceeds I am able to target materials that I think will be interesting to the kids, not necessarily the most literary or curriculum-oriented.  With these funds I have also enhanced what Mon County has provided in library software:  Brookhaven is the only school in the county that has reading program (Accelerated Reader) points for each book listed in the catalog; we are also the only school in the county that has TitlePeek, an Amazon-like feature that displays the covers of books in our collection.


I hope you all enjoy the fair!

Explorer Research at the End of Day Two

Mrs. Henderson and I began her Explorers project with the fourth grade on Monday.  I joined their classroom to teach each of the three classes how to use and why they should use online encyclopedias to start their research.  My rationale was that students need background information they can trust before they can evaluate whether or not information found using a search engine is trustworthy.

I began the discussion by explaining that in days of old writers researched their material thoroughly.  Then they submitted their manuscripts to publishers who evaluated their worth.  They in turn had editors double-check the writer's facts for accuracy.  As a result, the users could trust that the information in the published book was factual.

Today, of course, anyone can be an author, either on the web or of a published book.  The safeties for verifying accuracy of  information may not be in place.  For one class I created a wiki on DaSean Butler just to demonstrate how easy it is to create a web resource on a subject one knows little about.

After I showed the classes the features on World Book Online and Grolier Online, we looked at articles on the explorer Amerigo Vespucci.  Next, we looked at the bogus explorer site All About Explorers.  The kids at first thought that the information was obviously false.  Then I asked them if they would think the information was false if they had not read the other reputable articles about Vespucci.  They agreed that they would probably think the information was true.

I was very impressed with the children's reasoning skills. This is the first out of four years' students that have been able to accurately express what is wrong with information in the site.  While working with me in the library yesterday, several students told me that they found certain pieces of information on other websites, but that they needed to verify the information on other sites.  One boy found a book the biography section that's preface said the facts presented in the book were not true but based on the life of Marco Polo.  Guess what book is being removed from the biography section?

How Can You Tell If You Have Received "Good" Information? Part II

The world of publishing has changed greatly, to say the least.  Back in the day only the very affluent could publish his own work.  Everyone else would have had to go through a rigorous editorial process to determine if the work was worthy of publishing.  Once the work was accepted, editors would meticulously check and double-check facts, trying to eliminate misinformation, and in many cases, bias.  With the advent of the Internet and specifically Web 2.0, everyone (even me!) can be a published author.  Unfortunately, the editorial process is not there to censor and correct unintentional and malicious misinformation.  It falls to the user to be able determine what is worthy of their time.

The easiest thing a user can do to judge the content of a webpage in to have enough knowledge about the subject that you can spot the obviously false content.  This can be accomplished by using a reputable, traditionally published source as a first choice for background information.  Such sources include paid encyclopedia subscriptions such as World Book Online and Grolier Online, as mentioned previously in this blog.  When this isn't possible, web evaluations get a little tricky.

One of the first things web users might try is doing a Google search on the person or organization responsible for the website. Are they easily found using search engines?  Does what you find via the search indicate that this person or organization is qualified to write about their chosen topic?  If not, is there some indication on the page that indicates why the person writing the article is qualified?

Aside from the qualifications of the author, one should look for bias in the article.  Is the article providing balanced treatment, pros and cons, of the topic or is it only presenting one side of the issue? (Can we say this applies to political campaign ads as well?)  How important this consideration is depends on your needs.  Let's say you are looking for information about global warming.  If you already have lots of information supporting the idea that global warming is real, you may only be looking for a book that presents evidence that global warming is not real.  Again, check the credentials of the author or organization.

The date when a website was written can also affect the usefulness of information.  This is especially important in fields  where information is continually updated.  For example, solar system information is especially vulnerable to being obsolete.  Just for fun do a search on Pluto.  Is it still a planet (major planet? minor planet?) on the sites you have found?  Do a similar search on Jupiter's moon.  How many different answers to the number of moons can you find?

If you desire more detailed information about website evaluation, many sources are available to you.  One of my favorites is Alan November's resource page and a similar page on Sweet Search.  Both sites will give you useful information.

Good searching!

Brookhaven Open Library Night Mentioned in National Blog

Julia Benincosa of the West Virginia Department of Education briefly referenced our Open Library Nights in the FCC's Blogband blog.  Thanks, Julia!   Opening the Door to E-Rate in Our Communities

How Can You Tell If You Have Received "Good" Information?

What do you do when you need to find information about a particular topic?  If you are anything like me - and I would bet most of you are - you probably "Google it" or look it up on Wikipedia. These tools are easy to use, free, and most times offer fast, hassle-free answers to our questions. The problem with relying on these resources is that the quality of information they provide varies greatly from being too scholarly for the general reader (too much information) to being absolutely false. How do we know what we can trust?

As adults we most likely will begin a search with some prior knowledge of the topic we are searching.  This prior knowledge helps us determine whether or not we think the information we receive on a website is valid. Children, on the other hand, need to be given background information that is reliable before they can make valid judgements about information they find online.  Where can they get reliable, accurate background information?

 Enter the online encyclopedia.  Monongalia County School students have access to two wonderful subscription publications that have evolved from the print counterparts of older generations.

 The first, Grolier Multimedia Online, is available to all residents of West Virginia free of charge. It is provided to us by a grant from the West Virginia Legislature to the West Virginia Library Commission. Its print edition predecessors include Encyclopedia Americana, Academic American Encyclopedia, and the New Book of Knowledge.  All three are respected encyclopedias recommended by the American Library Association.   Their combination into one multimedia package makes Grolier Online a very comprehensive source for background information.

The second encyclopedia, World Book Online, is provided by Monongalia County Schools using part of the technology funds designated by our special levy.  World Book is my absolute favorite reference resource, dating from the days of my childhood when my parents bought a print set for my brother and me.  Fortunately, parents today don't have to shell out the $800 for a set and worry about keeping them up-to-date with annual supplements. A huge advantage of online resources over the print version is that articles are being continuously updated.  Because the articles in World Book are written by experts in the fields of each article, we can reasonably trust the information in these articles are accurate. Because World Book has for many years geared its content to curriculum needs of students, we can be assured that articles written on a particular topic are at a comfortable reading level for your student.

If children or adults feel the need for additional information beyond what is provided in encyclopedia entries, the user might want to investigate websites and periodicals on the topic.  Both World Book and Grolier provide links to recommended, preiselected magazine articles and websites. Again, because of the authority of the authors, we can reasonably expect these additional sources to provide valid, current information.

If there is a drawback to using these sources, it is that a username and password is required for access. Becuase this blog is a public forum, I cannot post them here. However, the logins and usernames for each source are available on our Edline webpage.  If you have any problem accessing these logins and passwords, email me at lsmartin@access.k12.wv.us, and I will be happy to provide them for you!

Parents, I hope you will encourage your child to use these resources as a first choice for finding information.  I know it is not easy not to use Google as a first choice, but I believe that using these online encyclopedias will lead to a more productive online experience. Once your student is armed with solid background information on his topic, it may be appropriate to "Google" additional information.  Next week in this blog I will discuss additional strategies to evaluate information found on the web.

Oh, the Things You Can Do on Our Library Catalog

Did you know that when using the Brookhaven Library online catalog:

•   Students can create their own login?
•   Students can send friend requests to other students and teachers?
•   Students can search for books they want to read and place hold requests?
•   Students can request materials from other Monongalia County school libraries?
•   Students can keep online lists of books they have read, books they want to read and books they are reading now?
•   Students can renew their books online?
•   Students can write reviews of books they have read and recommend books to people on their friends list?

  Want to get started using our online catalog?  Here are the steps:

1. Point your web browser to http://lib.mono.k12.wv.us.
2. Select Brookhaven Elementary from the list of school libraries.

In the upper right hand corner, click. 'Create an Account.'. The children will need to know their nine digit lunch number in order to create an account.

On this screen enter your last name and lunch number.

On the first screen children will enter their last name and their nine digit account number.

On this screen enter your birthday information.  On this screen enter you birthdate.  Don't worry; this information is secure and already on the server.  Students enter this information as a way of confirming their identity.

On this screen, enter your user name and password.

1.  Finally children will create their unique user name and password.  An email account is not needed to sign up for Destiny Quest, but it can be entered if you desire.

Enjoy!  If you have any questions, call me at 3042919236 or email me at lsmartin@access.k12.wv.us.