We support education

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

It's back to school time!  It will be quieter in the library during the school day now (except for storytimes).  It might be busier after school and in the evening when students with iPads and MacBooks need WiFi to do their homework.  We’ll be interested to see how that affects library traffic this fall.

 

The public library can be a resource for school in a number of ways beyond basic internet access.  Librarians still help people find information even in this era of search-it-yourself.  If you have a paper to write, whether you’re in middle school or graduate school, we can help you search for or order sources. 

One of the best sources is provided by the Minnesota state library agency.  It’s called ELM, the Electronic Library for Minnesota, and it can be accessed at elm4you.org.  You can get to it from home or we can help you with it at the library.  The website offers access to many databases of articles and encyclopedias, all high-quality, reputable sources.  If you’re in college and your professor requires it, you can limit your results to peer-reviewed journals.  Elementary school students can use the section especially for students their age that includes Britannica Learning Zone and Searchasaurus, a way to search elementary-age magazines, dictionaries, and encyclopedias.  I have used ELM countless times for my own grad school work as well as to help library patrons.  It has so much to offer.

Litchfield high school students sometimes come to us for help finding a book for a reading requirement.  We are glad to help you come up with ideas for that.  There are many options right here in our own building, plus we can order almost anything else you’d like to read.

Newsbank is a newspaper database that Litchfield Library subscribes to, primarily because it includes the Litchfield Independent Review in a searchable form.  But it also includes current event reports that could be useful to students.  This month’s include the latest articles on the Ebola outbreak, the threat of ISIS in Iraq and Syria, and the fighting in Gaza.  A social studies student may be able to use these special collections for current events homework.

If you’re getting ready to take a college entrance exam, you could check out one of our test prep guides.  We have the 2014 edition of Cracking the ACT from the Princeton Review and their 2014 edition of 11 Practice Tests for the SAT and PSAT.  We also have new test prep books coming in soon for the GRE, the LSAT, the GMAT, and the nursing school entrance exams. 

Parents looking for ideas for those lunchboxes could check out The Best Homemade Kids’ Lunches on the Planet.  This has been a popular book this summer.  The author of “100 Days of Real Food”, Lisa Leake, endorses it.  I am completely stuck in a rut for cold lunches, so I think my kids would appreciate it if I’d check it out sometime.

And for anyone interested in our educational system and teaching, we have the book Getting Schooled by Garret Keizer.  Keizer is a teacher who left the profession and then returned fourteen years later to the same school, putting him in a unique position to see what has changed in high school education in the past two decades.  Critics say his writing style is very engaging and that he has some unique insights on what should be changed in our schools. 

Supporting life-long learning is one of the purposes of the public library.  Whether you have little ones to bring to story hour so that they can start to learn pre-reading skills, students to bring in to do homework, or sources to find for your own college paper, we’re here for you.

Resources for Parents and Students at the Library

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

As we begin a new school year, there are many things to be excited about and sometimes a few things to be concerned about.  Our children get older and face new challenges.  Maybe they’ve had some difficulty with schoolwork or trouble with classmates.  One place I’ve always looked for help is at the library.  You can find books on all different kinds of parenting and educational issues.  There are also online sources of help available.

One new electronic resource that is newly available to Pioneerland cardholders is Tutor.com.  You can get to it by going to http://www.tutor.com/willmar and typing in your library barcode.  Live, one-on-one help is available from 2 p.m. to midnight.  You can even upload a paper for a tutor to work on with you.  There are resources to use on the site that are available all the time, including homework resources, SAT, ACT, and GED test prep guides, and even resume and interview guidance.  I took a quick look in the homework resources and found that you can choose a subject, like English, a school level, like elementary, and a more specific subject, like capitalization and punctuation.  Following that path, I found capitalization rules, a lesson in contractions, and some games that help teach capitalization and punctuation.  If you’re an iPhone or iPad user, you can download an app for the site.  I hope you’ll try it out!

We also have some new books at the Litchfield Library that may help parents to help and guide their children.  The book Red Flags or Red Herrings: Predicting Who Your Child Will Become is intriguing for parents who wonder how the traits they see in their child will affect their future.  The author, Susan Engel, is a developmental psychologist, educator, and mother.  She encourages parents to accept their children’s inborn traits, intervene for some issues, but to have perspective and not overreact about others. 

Nolo’s IEP Guide: Learning Disabilities is a legal guide written for parents.  Nolo is the premier publisher for legal books written for those of us who aren’t lawyers.  This book is a guide to advocating for your child who has a learning disability, understanding your child’s legal rights, developing an individualized education program, and resolving disputes with your school district. 

If you’re a homeschooler, you may be interested in Free Range Learning: How Homeschooling Changes Everything.  The author,  Laura Grace Weldon, advocates what she calls natural learning.  Falling somewhere between structured homeschooling and unschooling, Weldon recommends following the child’s interests, using meaningful work to teach, and connecting with others as natural ways to learn.  She also emphasizes the importance of play, curiosity, and slowing down.

Our new DVD Stop Bullying: Standing Up for Yourself and Others gives students concrete steps to take to respond to bullying.  This video is intended for students in junior high grades and up.  It shares advice from experts and stories from kids who’ve been in bullying situations.

Whatever kind of parenting or education-related topic you’re looking for, I hope you’ll take a look in our catalog or speak to someone on our staff to help you find something you can use.  And remember to try Tutor.com.  Have a great school year!

Kids ask good questions

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian
6/3/11

I’ve been speaking to elementary school classes from Litchfield for the past few weeks, telling them about our summer reading program and about the library in general. Our children’s librarian, Jan Pease, usually leads these presentations but has been out on medical leave, as she wrote in last week’s column. While I have really missed having her here taking care of children’s programming, it has actually been a good opportunity for me to introduce myself to kids in Litchfield. Since then, they’ve been saying hello to me like I’m a familiar person when they come into the library, which is fun for me. It’s also been fun to hear the questions they come up with when I ask them what they want to know about the library and about summer reading. I’ll share some of those questions and answers with you.

One of the basic questions is “How do you get a library card?” The answer for a child is that they need to bring in a parent or guardian, who can fill out the application for them. We need to have the parent with them in the library when they apply, because there are responsibilities that come with a card. The card is free. If they’ve had a card before and lost it, there is a $3 fee to get a replacement card.

I’ll give you the answer for an adult while we’re at it: bring in a photo ID and something that shows your current address. This can be accomplished with one document if you have a current driver’s license. Then you can fill out an application and get your free card.

One of the questions we asked the kids is “How many books do you think we have here in the library?” Their answers ranged from 300 to infinity. It’s somewhere in between. According to our 2010 annual report, we have 46,513. We also have 1306 audios (books and music) and 2255 videos. These numbers are always changing, of course, and we’ll firm those up a bit when we do inventory later this year.

The kids asked me, “How many people come in the library every day?” That’s a good question. We count everyone who comes in the door for a week, twice a year. Based on those statistics, we have about 77,584 visits to the Litchfield Library in a year. That comes out to roughly 249 visitors a day. Yes, it’s a busy place.

One of the kids asked if they need to come to meetings to be in the summer reading program. The answer is no, you just sign up at the library, pick up your sheet for keeping track of time spent reading, and bring it back in for a prize when it’s complete. I also told them to be sure to pick up a new sheet once they’ve finished one, because we don’t want them to read for only two weeks in June; we want them to read all summer long. Kids can lose a month of reading progress in school for every month of summer vacation if they don’t keep reading. We want them to keep it up so that they’re ready to go in September when school starts again.

Even though kids don’t need to come to any programming for the summer reading program, we do have a kick-off party happening on Thursday, June 9th, from 6-8 p.m. Kids can sign up for the summer reading program, make crafts, and listen to musician Dennis Warner at 6:30. Elementary school students can also come to Fun with 4-H, to Summer Vacation Book Club (for 3rd through 5th grade), and to family story hour on Thursday evenings. There will be a couple of other fun events for kids coming up this summer, as well.

Some children wondered how we got all of the books in order on the shelves. Their teachers and I told them that the library has moved a few times since the first Litchfield Library was built in 1904, and that it all was set up in this building around ten years ago. But we’re always working to put the books in order on the shelf when they’re returned or when new ones come in: fiction in alphabetical order by author’s last name, non-fiction in Dewey Decimal order.

I was also asked, “What’s the oldest book in the library?” (I’m not sure!), “What’s the newest?” (there’s something new every week), “How many books can you check out at a time?” (the computer will stop you at 99, but you should limit yourself to what you can keep track of), and “Is this your job?” I am so privileged that this is my job. There’s always so much to do, but it’s a beautiful and fulfilling place to work, and it’s great to make connections with kids and help them understand that the library is for them. I told them that if they ever need help, they should ask a librarian and we’ll help them find what they’re looking for in the library.