Re: Suggestions - LMC in new High School

[Cathy Weaver <cweaver@CS.UAH.EDU>]

Mary,
Welcome to LM_NET! We built a new high school three years ago and our
former superintendent was a library advocate. Our center is 12,000 square
feet with a mezzanine. I was transferred from another school when it
opened and had no input into the floor plan. There are parts of the media
center that are blind corners and areas where students cannot be seen by
media personnel. We have good storage areas (equipment and textbooks are
adjacent to us), but we had to place our computers in study carrels,
on the bottom level, because the reference and periodical rooms where
they were originally going, could not be seen from the office areas.
Visit a lot of other sites to get ideas and talk to other media
specialists in your district for input. We have a beautiful facility, but
there are some things I would have changed it I had been in on the
planning. Another good idea: if a computer lab is placed in the school,
make sure it's near the media center. Ours is upstairs on another floor
and you may become the one responsible for troubleshooting (I eventually
did, when they moved our computer technician to the district office).
BTW, we have two media specialists (print and non-print) and one media
aide (who does xeroxing for entire faculty-not my idea!) The Xerox
machine is also located in the media center. So, she's really not a media
aide.
Good luck.
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Cathy Weaver                 cweaver@cs.uah.edu
Media Specialist
Central High School
Phenix City, AL.
Voice: 205-298-3626
Fax:   205-298-7690        "Sometimes you're the windshield,
                            sometimes you're the bug".
                                        -Mark Knoppler-
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