St. Michael School Media Center

Lenten Reflections Series wiki page

stmsmedia — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 17:15:19 +0000

We are now hosting a wiki page for the St. Michael community Lenten Reflections series. This series is facilitated by Kathleen Rauh, a St. Michael parent. The wiki page will feature questions for the next meeting, a summary of the questions discussed if you missed the meeting or would like to reflect on them, and resources that are recommended to help further you on your faith journey.

Each week you are invited to watch, discuss and explore the meaning of videos from the NOOMA series, and how they relate to our yown Lenten Journey! Here is some information about the series:

Wednesdays during Lent: February 29th- April 4th

Time & Location: 8:00am-9:15am

Youth Room over Parish Center

The wiki is open to everyone. You can access it by going to the St. Michael Library Media Center webpage, and then clikcing on the “Collaborative Wiki” tab at the top. When you enter the wiki, you will see the Navigator in the right column. Click on the “Lenten Reflections series” folder.

Author Shana Corey is coming to St. Michael!

stmsmedia — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 15:51:00 +0000

We’re very excited to announce that author Shana Corey is coming to St. Michael! Ms. Corey says,”When I was growing up in North Carolina, my favorite books were about the olden days: Little House on the Prairie, the Betsy-Tacy books, The Little Princess, and All-of-a -Kind Family. These olden-day books directly inspired my first attempts at storytelling…. What I really hope kids take away from my books is … that history isn’t separate from us — we’re part of it– we’re connected to what came before us and we directly influence what comes next, because the truth of the matter is the world isn’t usually changed by faraway battles or famous people. More often it’s a series of small steps and invididual rebellions by real people who aren’t so different from us that end up turning the tide of history. I want kids to know that they can change the world, too.”

Ms. Corey writes about every day people who became American heroes. She’ll be here on March 14 to share with grades K – 4 her inspiration and the writing process. You can pre-order her books, Here Come the Girls Scouts and The Mermaid Queen using the form below. (All images are from Amazon.com.)

Shana Corey STMS Wed letter

Shana Corey order form

Easybib on Android

stmsmedia — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 22:28:04 +0000

EasyBib is now available as an app on the Android. All you have to do is scan the book’s bar code, and it creates your citation in your choice of MLA, APA, or Chicago style. Users can search for a source by key word or ISBN. Once your citation is created, email the citations to your EasyBib account. The iPhone and iPad also offer this app.

NEW K- 5 INTERACTIVE DIGITAL READING DATABASE!!!

stmsmedia — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:53:14 +0000

NEW INTERACTIVE DIGITAL READING DATABASE!!!!

We have an exciting announcement to make!!! We’ve just purchased a wonderful new Interactive Reading Database of ebooks! These illustrated books are fiction and non-fiction, for grades K-5, and can be read in English or Spanish! Students simply click on a book of their choice, and they can see the words highlighted as the book is read to them. This is a wonderful tool for strengthening Spanish, fluency in English, or just enjoying playing with the ebook format and reading a good book online.

This is a subscription database, so you may need a password to access it. Our user name is stmichael. Please see Media Center staff for the password.

Access the Capstone Interactive ebook database 24/7 here:

http://www.mycapstonelibrary.com/RuntimeBookList.aspx

Black History Month

stmsmedia — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 21:19:18 +0000

The library will be celebrating the achievements and literature of African Americans throughout the month of February. We will celebrate significant events, inventions and the African American people who had such an impact on the history of the United States.

We are very excited to offer the beautiful new book Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans by the multiple award winning author / illustrator Kadir Nelson. This gorgeous book just won the 2012 Coretta Scott King award. (Cover image from Amazon.com)

Some of the books we are sharing with the classes are:

The Real McCoy: The Life of an African-American Inventor by Wendy Towle.

“Where did the expression ‘the real McCoy’ come from? African-American inventor Elijah McCoy’s successful design of an automatic oil cup may have inspired the popular phrase.”

Aunt Harriet’s Underground Railroad in the Sky by Faith Ringgold.

“Be Be and Cassie learn of their great-great-grandparents’ long journey from slavery to freedom, guided by the voice of Harriet Tubman.”

Her Stories: African American Folktales, Fairy Tales, and True Tales told by Virginia Hamilton.

“Nineteen stories in this book focus on the magical lore and wondrous imaginings of African American women. Together, stories, illustrations, and the author’s notes combine to create a remarkable book that honors our heritage while giving us hope and inspiration for the future.”

Students will also perform Black History Reader’s Theatre plays in the library about Jackie Robinson and Harriet Tubman, after watching short Discovery Channel video clips about their courage and achievements.

We are also working on a display of books by and about African Americans for students, teachers, and parents to browse or take home to learn more. Come check them out!

Upcoming Fifth-Grade Book club meeting!

stmsmedia — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:53:58 +0000

Hi Book Lovers!

Our next meeting of the fifth grade book club is coming up! We’ll meet on Wednesday, February 29, to read an exciting spy suspense thriller. Our book is I, Q: Volume 1: Independence Hall. Fifth graders…. if you’re in the mood for suspense involving teens tracking down terrorists, we’d love to have you at our meeting! For more information, click the link called “All about books” in the right-hand column, and then click on “Fifth-grade book club.” Happy reading!!

Catholic Schools Week is Here!

stmsmedia — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:52:22 +0000

The kids love the Kindles!

stmsmedia — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 23:10:12 +0000

Mrs. Cortina and I are thrilled to announce that the Kindles are a smash hit! Our students love them! Hooray! They were launched on time on December 14. We now have 20 Kindles circulating in grades 2 – 8. Look for photos to come of the students with their Kindles!

The “bleeding edge of technology” with the Kindles

stmsmedia — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 16:03:40 +0000

Ah, technology. The glories and the annoyances of brand new, beta technology. Have you heard of the “cutting edge” of technology? My “Human Information Interaction” professor used to refer to the “bleedging edge of technology” when we were frustrated by the software we were using in that class.

Here in the STMS library, Mrs. Cortina and I are working on the bleeding edge of technology with the Kindles, and with the quickly shifting world of ebooks and digital media licensing rights.

Some of you may be wondering, why is it taking so long to get the Kindles out? Preparing the Kindles for library circulation involves many things that folks who are not librarians don’t know about. These include cataloging the devices, cataloging the ebooks, deciding how to distribute them fairly, deciding on loan periods, writing an acceptable use policy for them, procedures for holds, choosing a wide range of ebook titles for 8 grade levels with a small budget, deciding appropriate age levels for the titles, etc.

Mrs. Cortina and I have resolved most of those issues and challenges, and now we are challenged by the current state of flux with ebook rights and licensing. When we decided to acquire the Kindle brand ereader, the number of copies of Kindle ebooks one could put on Kindle devices was unlimited. For example, if a library purchased one copy of The Lightning Thief, the library could download that copy to all of its Kindles. In recent months, however, Amazon announced a limit of 6 devices to each copy purchased. Thus for grades 2 – 8 to get a copy of The Lightning Thief ebook, we would need to buy several ebook copies. This is very expensive for libraries,which can’t afford to buy all of their titles over and over. In response, we have been crunching numbers to see what we could afford, title by title, with grade level appropriateness.

After Amazon announced the limitation on devices, many libraries then switched to leasing ebooks titles from vendors. Feeling this backlash, and losing customers, Amazon began to reconsider its policies for libraries. We’ve been talking and emailing Amazon about this for weeks… with different representatives telling us different things. Last Tuesday, someone in upper management at Amazon told Mrs. Cortina that we could download one title to as many devices as we wished, unless that particular title had a certain number of devices specified. However, when we began to download them, some of the supposedly unlimited titles only downloadedto six devices. To make things more complicated, the six devices to which the titles downloaded were random, which is a challenge for us as a Catholic school, since our Kindle devices and corresponding titles are designated by grade level for appropriateness.

It has been difficult to proceed with the budgeting, ebook titles, and downloading, when Amazon’s legal representatives, and Amazon’s technology department, are not on the same page. We are told one thing, and plan the budget and title selections accordingly, and then when we order and download the titles, they do not correspond to what we have been told.

Please bear with us as we walk on the bleeding edge of technology!

Kindle countdown… are you ready??

stmsmedia — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 23:47:35 +0000

Mrs. Cortina and I have been working hard on getting our awesome Kindles ready to circulate! To get them ready for check-out, we’ve ordered the jackets for the Kindles. After I found out recently how damaging the production of leather is to the environment (who knew???), I wanted us to find a non-leather jacket for the Kindle. Mrs. Cortina negotiated a great price for us and we’ll be ordering them this week. Check out our Kindle jacket model here. The countdown is here…!