Year End Report

Highlights of 2014-2015
Lyman Hall High School
Library Media Center
It was a great, productive year for the Lyman Hall High School Library Media Center. We
participated and hosted a wide variety of activities from collaboration with classes, to staff
development, to student activities in order to increase the use of the library and help
continue to build a sense of community throughout the entire school. All of these activities
helped to contribute to the mission statement of myself as the library media specialist.
Media Center Highlights from 2014 2015:
Weekly Tech Tuesdays were held for teachers in the building for 30 minutes after
school. Sample topics included Google Classroom, Mimio Vote, and Wix.
The Book Club met monthly in the LMC after school to have a lively discussion of the
book that was selected that month and to choose the book for the next month.
Refreshments were served and a true book club feel was had by all!
Coinciding with the Poetry in Motion display in the LMC, the librarian worked with
English teachers in the building who worked with
students on poetry in the classroom to display and honor
their work throughout the building.
The Poetry Slam was held in collaboration with the
Creative Writing teacher to showcase the work of
students.
The Trojan Tutoring Program, the student-run peer
tutoring program which is usually only available during
of the Trojan
school hours, was made available after school until 4:00 p.m. Home
Tutoring Program
during a two week period before both mid-terms and final
exams.
After displaying our iRead bulletin board where students took selfies with their
books that they recently read and gave them a rating, one student was drawn at
random to be a winner of a $5.00 gift certificate to Dunkin Donuts.
Created a source list for research on Genetically Modified Food labels for a grade 10
Biology class.
Collaborated with the Latin teacher to use Google Docs in her classroom as well as
the Latin Library for her Poetry unit.
Brought the new Vidyo equipment into the LMC to make more accessible to all
teachers in the building.
Collaborating to Deliver the Curriculum:
The freshman English class, co-taught with the Reading Interventionist, collaborated
with me to utilize Destiny to research a topic. I taught students how to use Destiny

and then locate the books in the library since this was the first time many of those
students were using the library at the high school level.
Worked with the Grade 10 Biology teacher to collate a list of Common Core
resources to use in students research on Genetically
Modified Food labels in order to research the topic
and create a brochure either in favor or against
GMOs.
Collaborated with the Latin 3 Honors class this year
on their poetry unit. This class did not have much
familiarity with Google Docs, so I taught them how to use Google Docs and share it
with their teacher while doing a literary analysis assignment on Latin poetry. I also
worked with the Latin students on using the Latin Library.
In an article I read in the School Library Journal, it highlighted why librarians are
important in the development of students. The research states Consistently,
reading and writing scores are better for students who have a full-time certified
librarian than those who dont. Students who are economically disadvantaged,
black, Hispanic, and have IEPs (i.e., students with disabilities) benefit proportionally
more than students generally. These findings suggest that staffing libraries with
certified librarians can help close achievement gaps (Kachel and Curry Lance,
Latest Study: A full-time school librarian makes a critical difference in boosting student
achievement). This was a clear finding showing the value librarians bring to the
curriculum and students achievement level.

Technology Integration:
Served as a member of the district wide Information
Technology and Library Media Management Team to act as
a voice for my position and my school and to bring back
critical information to my department and school.
Served as a member of my school Technology Team to
bring change to technology within the school and to have a
voice as to what technology changes need to be made.

Two new classroom sets of Nooks were allocated to the LMC.

Our LMC is a central
location for our Summer
For this first year of use, I signed them out to the Reading
Reading program
Interventionists to use in the classroom to deliver the
curriculum to a core group of students.
Tech Tuesdays were held every Tuesday in the LMC by the librarian for 30 minutes.
I either showcased one new app or piece of technology for teachers to use in their
classroom. Ahead of time, I told teachers what would be
covered that day as a teaser to let them know or to pique
their interest. Special requests were also taken if there was
some technology that they wanted some special training in.
Created an easy-to-use instruction sheet for the Vidyo
equipment and made the system more accessible to all
teachers by giving it a permanent home in the library for

meeting use, class use, etc.

The LMC website is a comprehensive site accessible off of our school website. The
website has links for library use and procedures, databases we subscribe to such as
SIRS, Proquest, Culture Grams and Iconn.org, a page dedicated to our summer
reading program, as well as a page that links to the Nutmeg Book award winners.

Collection Statistics:
The LMC currently consists of almost 24,000 print resources. The average age of the
collection is 1981 but we are working every day on weeding out the outdated
resources in order to make room for newer, more current, and more attractive
collection.
The LMC currently has access to almost 10 databases for students to connect to (at
home or at school) and use as a resource, and we continue to invest much of our
budget into databases.
Performed collection maintenance on the 000s, 100s, and 200s in the library.
Suggested weeding of 12 books and the replacement of 3 books.
My Great Staff:
My peer intern successfully helped to create and run the Love My Library display,
daily announcement and drawing.
The peer intern chose and presented two technology pieces to present to the staff
for a Tech Tuesday.
The Librarian Assistant consistently kept study hall teachers updated in a timely
manner of which students were present in the library.
The Librarian Assistant oversaw the after school hours for all students providing
assistance to any that needed it.
Publications and Community Outreach:
During Parent Open House, I opened the LMC to parents
showcasing student work, highlighting the technology that we use
in the LMC and was available to answer any questions that parents
had in the childs use of the LMC in their school day.
A quarterly newsletter was sent via email to parents that
highlighted what has been going on in our LMC as well as ageappropriate tips for students to use technology and upcoming
events.
Quarterly newsletter
A college fair was set up in our LMC for colleges, universities, trade
sent out to parents
schools and the military to display what they had to offer our
students in the future and to answer any questions our students
had for them. This worked nicely in conjunction with our Career Center which is
housed in our LMC.

LOOKING FORWARD TO THE FUTURE

Challenges and Issues:
The biggest challenge that needs to be addressed is the age of the collection. The
average age of the collection is 1981 which is quite old. While databases and the
internet are a fantastic way to get information, students still need to understand the
experience of researching and retrieving valid, up-to-date information from
relevant, modern, attractive print sources.
More collaboration with classroom teachers in the LMC is always a challenging issue
at the school. While most teachers bring their classrooms to use the LMC strictly as a
computer lab, how can I, as the librarian, get them to use more resources in the
library?

Goals for Next School Year

During the 2015-2016 school year, my goals are to:
o Bring more classes into the LMC, classes that have yet to utilize the services
there.
o Be able provide examples from classrooms of the teachers who have
incorporated the technology from the Tech Tuesdays to other teachers in the
building so they are able to see other concrete examples of how to
incorporate it into their own classrooms.
o Weed 10% of the books while maintaining enough budget to replace those
books with something more relevant and current.
Respectfully Submitted,
Kristin DePodesta
June 29, 2015

Works Cited
Kachel, Debra, and Keith Curry Lance. "Latest Study: A full-time school librarian makes a
critical difference in boosting student achievement." School Library
Journal (2013): Web. 29 Nov. 2014.