The Library Lantern
lighting up learning
January 2016 - Issue 1
A newsletter from your elementary libraries
It's a new endeavor for us -- a newsletter! We'll publish The Library Lantern as much as we can, ideally once every 9 weeks. We'll keep you up-to-date on books, authors, resources, and let you know what's new in our libraries. We'll send out the newsletter via email to teachers and also post it on our website. It is meant to reach anyone and everyone in our community, so please share it!
Newbery & Caldecott Winners
The 2016 Newbery and Caldecott winners were announced on January 11, 2016, by the American Library Association. A committee of librarians meets throughout the year to deliberate on the winners. The Newbery Medal recognizes the most outstanding contribution to children's literature and this year's winner was a picture book, Last Stop on Market Street, written by Matt de la Pena and illustrated by Christopher Robinson. The Caldecott Medal recognizes the most distinguished American picture book for children and this year's winner was Finding Winnie: the true story of the world's most famous bear, written by Lindsay Mattick and illustrated by Sophie Blackall. To read more about the awards, please visit the official press release here.
National Ambassador for Young People's Literature Announced
The Library of Congress announced Gene Luen Yang as the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, a two-year appointment meant to raise awareness of the importance of literature in the lives of young people. Mr. Yang is best known for his graphic novels including American Born Chinese. Kate DiCamillo served as the previous Ambassador. For more information and resources, please visit read.gov.
Spotlight on Tools
CANVA
Make posters, flyers, signs, and more for FREE! Completely easy with absolutely beautiful results. You can export as a PDF and print to a color copier with great image quality. You NEED to try this one--easier than Publisher, Word, or any of the others! www.canva.com
Tab Resize Chrome Extension
Perfect for note-taking while doing research, this Chrome extension allows you to split your screens. Keep INFOhio on one side of your screen with your Google Doc for notes on the other. Watch the tutorial by Mrs. Hamilton here.
PBS/IdeaStream News Depth
Looking for weekly student-friendly news coverage in a streaming video format? Look no further. This is made for Ohio students and is used in Elementary Schools across our region. Created by students, for students. Access the videos and resources here.
IWonder recently added to INFOhio
IWonder is a collection of safe, reliable websites handpicked by Ohio school librarians to support student exploration and Ohio's Learning Standards in grades 3-9. IWonder encourages students to pick a question and then leads them to a series of engaging sites to help them find answers. News sites will be added to IWonder on a regular basis. To explore, please visit http://iwonder.infohio.org. IWonder has been added to the list of K-5 resources on the INFOhio homepage, so you will also find it by visiting infohio.org.
Jackson library use is TOPS in our area!
When compared to 41 other Stark Portage Area Computer Consortium (SPARCC) districts, Jackson libraries--elementary, middle, and high--have the highest circulation statistics of all! This includes print and digital resources. Our three certified media specialists and additional library staff members work hard to get the word out about our amazing resources - and it seems to be working!
- Total books borrowed from all elementary libraries since August 1, 2015: 64,936 books
- Total Jackson INFOhio logins from July 2015-September 2015: 4,702 (the next closest SPARCC district was 1,124)
- Total BookFLIX use from July 2015-September 2015: 51,417 documents and 18,920 sessions (the next closest SPARCC district was 10,172 documents and 3,183 sessions).
WAY TO GO, Jackson!
Mrs. Hamilton, Elementary Library Supervisor
As Elementary Library Supervisor for JLSD, I put this newsletter together. My office is located in Strausser's library, but I oversee our four elementary library programs at Amherst, Lake Cable, Sauder, and Strausser. Our elementary library staff is proud to serve the Jackson community!
Fun Fact: The total number of materials selected, cataloged, and processed for our elementary library collections by Mrs. Hamilton since August 1, 2015 is 1,670 items.
Website: http://www.jackson.stark.k12.oh.us/libraries.cfm?subpage=1938270