ideas for high school freshman orientation

[Amy Kravitz <Hwy18a@AOL.COM>]

 To My Friends at LM_NET:

    Earlier in the week, one of my colleagues asked if I could post a
question to this listserv concerning ideas for conducting high school
freshman orientation in the library. I received many good ideas which I will
share with you:

1. A lot of librarians like to keep orientation as basic, clear, and
straightforward as possible. Many discuss library hours of operation, rules,
fines, regulations, etc.
ONe librarian likes to give her students an activity sheet with a media
center map so that they can walk around the library and answer questions on
the ditto pertaining to the different sections of the library.

2.   A specific media specialist encourages her fellow teachers to assign a
research report, so that the students must come in to take advantage of the
library and its resources.

3.   A media specialist from Texas likes to have her students participate in
a library scavenger hunt. The students walk around the library and deal with
topics such as completing a sample magazine request form, going to  the
shelves and finding books which fall under a call number in  question,
answering questions about library rules, etc.

4.    An Illinois media specialist likes to familiarize her students with the
library by having them work through specific exercises on worksheets. She
gives each student a worksheet which highlights using print resources and the
online catalog. this librarian also includes vertical file use problems as
well. Later on, the librarian hands her students a second worksheet  which
covers utilizing resources which require understanding of keyword and subject
searching.

5.     Another librarian works with her schools' English teachers and devises
a special assignment. Together they make up a list of topics which relate to
current social issues. After the students choose a topic of interest to them,
they research it
in various library resources, eg. TOM, SIRS, the Internet, magazine articles,
 books, etc. The student tries to find 3 facts pertinent to their topics in
each of the various info. sources. By the end of the research period, the
students should have enough information to write (at least) an informative
paragraph on the given topic, as well as a comprehensive bibliography.

6.     One media specialist suggests that you can make up a story and include
call numbers in the story to represent words in the story.  The students will
walk around the library and discover what the various call numbers stand for
so that they can complete the story.

7.     Lastly, two librarians use Microsoft Powerpoint to introduce their
 students to the media center. POwerpoint is a special program which enables
one to make slides, put on fancy visual presentations for groups of people,
etc. These people use Powerpoint to introduce students to the rules, hours,
services, etc. of their facilities.

         Thank you to everyone who responded to my query. I will pass on all
of the good information to my friend. Best wishes to all for a successful
year!


      Amy Kravitz
      K-5 Librarian
      Old Bridge, N.J. Twsp. School Librarian
      Hwy18a@aol.com

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