Helias Library/Media Center
December 2018/January 2019
Happy Holidays!
I am probably on Santa's naughty list this year! I started off the school year on top of this newsletter, the library website, and book processing and then...the students arrived! It has been a wonderfully busy Fall semester filled with lots of collaborating, research projects, paper editing, and club sponsoring. Wouldn't trade it for the world! Hopefully, Santa will take pity and leave a book in my stocking instead of coal!
Oh Christmas Book Tree...
Oh Christmas Book Tree...how lovely are your pages. I LOVE this tradition in the library. Every year the Library Squad constructs our book tree and tops it with a star, tinsel, lights, and candy canes. This December, we have already gone through 1,000 mini candy canes. We've being doing this long enough now that returning students start asking near the end of November when the tree will be back. Merry Christmas!
Gateway Challenge Form is FINALLY Here!
We are saving trees this year and switching to Google Forms for our reporting of Gateway books. For every book read, students need to fill out a short Google Form using their Helias e-mail accounts in order for their selections to be counted. Each form completed counts as one entry into the drawing for awesome prizes in the challenge going on until early March 2019. You can access the form below or from the Helias Library website.https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfoa2w0elz45RFDPESKusyXpZ23GAxcVeqP18iw3RwlOXAV1Q/viewform?usp=sf_link
Yep...It's Green!
I rarely use my office, so I had a wish list that an incredibly kind, anonymous individual decided to make come true. Next semester, the office will be turned into an AV/media room for use by our students. It will have a green screen, microphones, MacBook, sound mixers, cameras...I can't wait to see the creative genius of our students through pod/webcasts, movies, music...the sky is the limit!
Favorite Book of the Fall Semester...
The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives was my favorite book of the Fall semester. This true story took place in Oakland, CA and involved Sasha, a middle-class white teen who attended a small private school and Richard, a black teen from lesser means who went to a large public high school. For eight minutes each day, their paths overlapped on a bus ride home from school. On one particular afternoon, a single act of reckless behavior ended with Sasha severely burned and Richard facing life imprisonment for hate crime. The novel read like fiction, and I kept having to remind myself that it was all true. This critically acclaimed book was both heart wrenching and uplifting and made me rethink my definition of "justice."
Helias Catholic High School Library/Media Center
Email: moliver@heliascatholic.com
Website: https://sites.google.com/a/heliascatholic.com/helias-library-media-center/home
Location: 1305 Swifts Highway, Jefferson City, MO, United States
Phone: (573) 635-6139