Welcome to the St. Michael School Library Media Center!
To access our library catalog (OPAC) click here.
The St. Michael School Library Media Center currently has over 13,000 titles available for academic, spiritual, and recreational research, reading, viewing, and listening. We follow a fixed schedule where every class meets in the media center once a week to enjoy the benefits of lessons on information literacy as well as browsing time to choose books to take home. Through a grant from Notre Dame, we acquired additional listening stations where students listen to audio books or a selection of Christian rock from our growing collection of music CDs. Aside from their scheduled library time, students may come to the library during the day individually or in small groups to choose reading and research material, to study, and to use various technology tools. In the 2010 -2011 school year we circulated 26,408 items.
Our curriculum in the St. Michael School Library Media Center is based on the American Library Association’s Standards for the Twenty-first Century Learner. This curriculum focuses on teaching students how to be wise and effective users of information. In the twenty-first century, libraries and librarians are responding to the avalanche of information available by doing what they’ve always done best: providing reading material and helping patrons find reliable information. In our Information, Technology, and Reading library classes, students learn how to work with information, find it, create it, evaluate it, analyze it, organize it, listen to it, publish it, present it, explore it, and understand it.
Mrs. Siekkinen’s Five Goals for the StMS Media Center:
1.) To prepare students for the challenges of the twenty-first century information society by helping them become more effective, more independent, and more self-reflective researchers, learners, and information users.
2.) To support the teaching and learning of the St. Michael School curriculum.
3.) To strengthen and build the students’ and the teachers’ faith relationship with God.
4.) To nurture and support the individual emotional and recreational needs of the students of St. Michael School.
5.) To support reading and literacy for academic success and pleasure.
Library hours – open to all students, staff, teachers, and administrators.
Monday – Friday (all school days) – 7:30 am – 3:15 pm.
Borrowing rules:
- PreK and Kindergarten may check out 1 book for a one-week period.
- First graders may check out 3 books for a one-week period.
- Second graders through eighth graders may check out 5 books. Second and Third graders have a one-week borrowing period while fourth through sixth graders have a two-week borrowing period. Seventh- and eighth-graders have a three-week borrowing period.
- PreK through third grade do not accrue fines for overdue books.
- Fourth through eighth grade accrue fines for overdue books – one canned good for each item for each day overdue, with a maximum of 1o cans owed, or, alternatively, 10 cents per day per item late.
- Students with books that are long overdue will be billed for the cost of the book(s).
- Students that finish their books before their next library class are always welcome to come for more books, without having to wait for their scheduled library class day.
Mrs. Siekkinen with a future librarian during CSW.
Mrs. Siekkinen is our library media specialist. If you have a question for Mrs. Siekkinen, she may be reached at hsiekkinen@stmcary.org.
All of our favorite things associated with the media center are on pages listed in the right column – such as St. Michael book clubs, teacher and student book recommendations, resources for class projects, and favorite web resources. In the column to the left are links to websites that we think are particularly helpful for finding more books (the Wake County Public Library site, Quail Ridge Bookstore, and the KDL What’s Next in a series site) or allow you to access great resources (Bubbl.us, Discovery Streaming) or interesting information (Vatican City).
Enjoy the Media Center and don’t be a stranger. We are here for your academic, research, and reading needs!
