Re: HIT: Middle Coll. Dev.

[Sammie Dresser <samdresser@HOTMAIL.COM>]

A big thank you to everyone for their responses as well as words of
encouragement.  Here are some of the replies.  The most popular advice was
to get the Middle and Junior High School Library Catalog from H.W. Wilson.

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SIRS CD-rom products and Gale's also are good!

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I had to put a library collection together (4,500 titles in 3 weeks!!!) for
a K - 8 school two summers ago. I HIGHLY recommend Follett's Titlewave (the
cd not the online) - it was wonderful! You can set your parameters for
almost any criteria - (for example:) I set mine for no copyright dates
before 1993 for outer space and minimum of 3 reviews, hardbound, grade
level 3 - 6, English, etc. It lists them all for you and gives you the
option of seeing what group(s) reviewed it and a brief annotation. You
click on what you want and it creates an electronic list for you. Very
helpful. (The only minus is you don't know if the review was negative or
positive, but the more reviews usually means good reviews).

You can also call your Follett rep and have them send out their specialty
paper catalogs which list only the recent "Best Books" for elementary or
middle school or high school (they also have their complete catalogs which
are like "bibles!"). Then you can just mark that catalog and use it as an
order form or request a typed order based on your marked catalog. They are
wonderful when it comes to sending the books - request them packed in
shelf-order and that's the way they come in the boxes - and the paper list
will come that way too - makes checking the list pretty easy. Follet was
the backbone of my collection - there were 99 boxes of books (about 30 to a
box) in the first shipment and about twenty more boxes in the follow-up
(fill) order. The easy's were all together, the refs were all together,
etc. Some people complain that they are slow, but I think it's usually
worth the wait. The prices are competitive for the service they offer, and
if I recall correctly, they don't charge for shipping. They also stand
behind their processing and fix the errors they make (if any) and want to
keep you happy. Can you imagine getting 99 boxes of books that WEREN'T in
shelf (or any kind) of order?

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I would like to suggest that you take advantage of Florida's SUNLINK as a
collection development tool.  You can take a look at what middle schools in
Florida have in their collections and we also have a Weed section.  In the
weed
section there are outstanding suggestions for replacements of the weeds from
all over the country.  There is an archive for you to take advantage of!  We
have the Sunshine Standards and they are basically the same as Virginia's
SOL.
I graduated from JMU in '91 I remember the SOLs.

The website for SUNLINK is http://www.sunlink.ucf.edu  The weed of the Month
Club and archive is at  http://www.sunlink.ucf.edu/weed/

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I use the Middle and Junior High School Library Catalog from H.W. Wilson as
a foundation for collection building. It covers both fiction and nonfiction
with core selections in each.  Each year I weed several sections of my
Collection. I use the Wilson Catalog to buy new books for the sections that
I weeded.

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I am an Independent Educational Consultant for Usborne Books, a division of
Educational Development Corporation.  I have the full line of Usborne books
available and would be happy to send you a catalog!  These are *mostly*
nonfiction books that were written specifically to educate and entertain
children.

You can check out the full line by going to my web page near the bottom and
click on the item that says "I want to give the children in my life the
best! Show me some books!!"

These books are the highest quality and content and available in both
paperback and library binding.  Let me know how I can be of service.  : ]

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Our Web site which is sponsored by the Southern Regional Education Board,
representing 17 states including Virginia, may be of help to you.  It is a
searchable database of reviews of print, audiovisual, software, and Web site
resources to support curriculum:

www.evalutech.sreb.org.

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I am also in my first year as a middle school librarian, having
transferred from our local high school after 3 years there.  My middle
school was also a high school a few years ago, then all the "good stuff" -
to quote the principal - was taken to the new consolidated high school.  I
am hoping to begin an evaluation program this year of the collection to see
how it stacks up in regards to the SOL's.  The social studies teachers I
think will be particularly helpful to me, and also the English teachers.
(Some of the English teachers have already told me that they need more in
poetry - they say the SOL tests are big on that.)  I am planning to buy the
Middle and Junior High School Library Catalog and use that as a checklist
of what we have.  Many of our books in science and geography particularly
are very dated it seems, having come here from two older schools that were
closed when this school opened.  I am also promoting the Va Young Readers
Program so have several copies of those titles (middle school and high
school lists) and am filling in with titles on the earlier lists as well as
making sure that we have all the Newbery Award and Honor books.  Also ran
across a list from a few months ago in School Library Journal of "sleepers"
that I have been ordering from if we did not have them.  Hopefully these
things will be a start in a few different directions.

        We also have some videos, but they were taken out of the catalog
last year
by the former librarian, so are now just on shelves in the workroom with a
colored dot on them to represent social studies, language arts, science,
math.  I really want to get them back in the catalog, but the former
librarian comes in to volunteer time this year, and will for the next
several years, and I feel a bit funny re-doing already something that she
just last year spent a lot of time undoing.  Can't help you much with CD's.
We have World Book on the network so that is available on all computers in
the library but that is about all of any value that I have found so far.
We do have online access to Electric Library and the 3 Grolier
encyclopedias - and Internet.

----Original Message Follows----
From: Sammie Dresser <samdresser@HOTMAIL.COM>
Reply-To: Sammie Dresser <samdresser@HOTMAIL.COM>
To: LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: TARGET: Middle Coll. Dev.
Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 09:11:35 EDT

Hello & Happy Friday Everyone!
I am a recent graduate of CUA in DC w/MSLS and this is my first library job.
   I became the librarian at the Manassas Park Middle School (VA) in August
and I need your guidance!!  Apparently until Feb. 99, this  school served
grades 7-12.  When the HS moved into its new building in 2/99, this became
the MS w/grades 6-8.  Our collection is lacking in almost every area
(reference as well as leisure reading).  It's not like I can see a gaps in
subject areas that need to be filled, it a cavern with everything needing to
be filled!  The big push in VA is teaching to SOLs (Standards of Learning)
as established by the Commonwealth and this library needs to have the
resources to support them.  I am interested in print as well as CD sources
and I am open to any and all of your suggestions. At this point, my goal is
to establish a good foundation of resources and then build upon it every
year. I have a fairly decent budget, but I also realize that this is a
long-term project that will years to develop.  Please e-mail me back and I
will take your responses and compile a HIT on the topic back to the LM
listserv.  I thank you in advance for your assistance.

Sammie Dresser, Librarian
Manassas Park Middle School
MP, VA
samdresser@hotmail.com

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