With Ebsco being added (thank you for the generous donation TEA technology budget to TSLAC for Rider 88) as a database that is available for your school, how do you plan to promote it for use within your school? If I recall, in the recent past, even in my school, when the state paid for the databases before, they were not much used.

Are we ready now for online databases? How will we encourage our students and teachers to make good use of them? Are we going to play and experiment? What will work for your school? If we share as many ideas as possible, perhaps a lot of good ones will stick and success will ensue! You are the experts and this is a blog--a good place to share.

Is anyone out there willing to give it a go?

Holly Weimar
SHSU Dept. Library Science
haw001@shsu.edu

I'm hoping that you can give me some ideas, articles, insight about an issue that is developing in Coppell. Our high school is overcrowded, so our superintendent and school board have made the decision to close an elementary campus, rezone the district, and refurbish that elementary school into an academy-type high school. A group of administrators (I haven't been included) have visited "high-tech" high schools all over the country. So far, the only campus they've visited with a traditional library is the Academy of Irving. I'm concerned that the thinking is that our new academy may not need a library or professional librarian. When I inquired about how students will find information and conduct research, the answer so far is that they can use the public library or maybe even a community college library. I need to read all I can about new non-traditional library service to students because I will have the opportunity to brainstorm this issue with the administrators and I want to be informed and ready.

If you know of articles, or have an idea about how to research this, would you pass that on? Maybe you've had this experience in your district and can tell me your experience as the director. Maybe you know the perfect professor at either UNT or TWU to contact.

You can email me directly: dmarshall@coppellisd.com
Thanks, TASL members,
Debra Marshall

Oops, didn't mean to say just professors at UNT or TWU, I meant to say at ANY of our great library graduate schools!
Debra

Would you take the time to share a best practice? Have you had an AHA! moment that would benefit other school librarians? Tell us about it by posting a comment. Let us know the grade levels you reach and the circumstances surrounding this best practice. We would love to learn more about what works in the practical school library setting.