When I look back, I am so impressed again
with the life-giving power of literature. 
If I were a young person today,
trying to gain a sense of myself in the world,
I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young.
~ Maya Angelou ~

Scholastic Book Fair coming to Jeffrey. 

See Mr. Halpern's picks for this year's Scholastic Bookfair

Library Media Center News - September, 2009

Library News –            

Welcome to the new school year. It is an exciting time here at the Jeffrey Library. Each year we address a number of educational functions in the library including: research skills, book circulation, independent library use and of course the promotion of a love of reading.

At each grade level we, in the library, collaborate with the classroom teacher to teach our students the skills they need to become efficient finders and users of information (research skills). The content area of the research is completely dependent on the grade level curriculum.

Every student comes to the library each week with their class to circulate books, periodicals, and CDs. If a student finishes reading their book prior to their next class’s visit, they can come to the library using their passport to return and check out library materials.

The use of passports is not only to enable book circulation, but to allow students to do some independent research (both online and in print), and to use the library computers to create their finished product, using MS Word, Powerpoint, Excel, Publisher, and KidPix. All of this helps create independent library users.

This year we are expanding our efforts to promote a love of reading. Your children will have books read to them, hear book-talks, do author studies, learn literary genres, etc. to help generate their interest in reading.

This year our district has invested in a new library catalog called Destiny . It will be a big improvement over our current system, Athena . Destiny is web-based which will make it much more user friendly. Once we install the system, in early November, we will provide more information on its many benefits.

The library is a wonderful place to work. Both Fran Guidone, our library assistant, and me love bringing the joy of our library to the students. If you would like to volunteer and spend some quality time in the library, your help would be most welcome.

And finally, we welcome all family members of our students to become Jeffrey Library patrons. If you want to borrow library materials from us, just stop by and we will enter you into our circulation system and you will be able to check out books and other materials.

We are looking forward to a great school year.     

Larry Halpern

Library Media Specialist