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Bullard High School Library
Annual Report-June 2010
Highlights of 2009/2010
- Orientation for freshman and sophomore English classes
- Book talking with the Tayshas Reading Club
- Celebrating Teen Read Week
- Redecorating part of the library with the first Library Advisory Board
- Operating the High School library book fair
- Traveling with the Top 7 readers to Barnes and Noble
- Evening out with reading club members who read 10+ books,
one of which was non-fiction
Below are some of the members of the Library Advisory Board: Megan Polozola, Erin Clemons, Taylor Allbritton, Tiana Ballard, Jon Schmidt, Jeffery Marshall, Sheila Starnes, and Destiny Fawver. Not pictured are Susan Lowrie, Ashley Phillips, Ja'Kory Hunter, Mallorie Starnes, and R. J. Horton.
The Bullard High School Library is an active atmosphere for students to research topics, analyze data, and produce presentations and papers. The State-Funded online databases provide students with multitudes of resources for research, bringing hundreds of periodicals, professional journals, health publications, and online reference tools to students’ fingertips. To enhance student experience, the librarian conducts orientation for all freshman and sophomore English classes and collaborates with teachers to create database scavenger hunts focused on their respective classes. These activities enable students to be more successful in their high school careers, and the skills learned will carry over into their future lives.
Class Visits
The computer lab was visited by the following numbers of classes or groups each month in the 2009-2010 school year.
August-September |
154 |
October |
1281 |
November |
82 |
December |
87 |
January |
89 |
February |
98 |
March |
103 |
April |
91 |
May |
104 |
This means that a total of 936 classes came to the computer lab!
Now, what about class visits to use the main part of the library?
August-September |
79 |
October |
70 |
November |
20 |
December |
61 |
January |
42 |
February |
12 |
March |
10 |
April May June |
25 69 21
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So, a total of 397 classes came into the library for something other than the computers.
The grand total for class visits to the library, for both print and computerized resources would be 1303, as
compared to 903 for 2008-2009!
Neither of these statistics covers the numbers of students who came into the ibrary before school,
during lunch, during class time, nor after school. On average, the library served 30 students per day from
7:40 to 8:10, when classes started, and another 60 throughout the day, including lunch and during class
time, for an added total of about 16,200 independent student visits for the school year.
Curriculum Highlights
At the very first of school, Mrs. Hippler’s students used the library computer lab to develop an Inspiration project in which they created a Venn diagram and an associated outline. In August and September, Mrs. Foster's and Mrs. Vining's freshmen and sophomore students were introduced to the library through their English classes. The librarian presented an orientation lesson to expose students to the library resources. As part of the orientation, they completed a scavenger hunt, using what they had been taught during the orientation.
Throughout the school year, several other teachers utilized the library for various activities. As might be expected, the English classes comprised the bulk of the library traffic,coming to check out books, to take book tests, to find information, to create Inspiration projects, to create Scrapbooks, and to research, compile, and write papers. Thanks to Mrs. Hippler, Mrs. Hunter, Ms. Roberts, Mrs. Vining, and Mrs. Foster for inspiring so many young people to read and to research and for facilitating those activities by bringing them to the library.
All of Mrs. Vining’s speech students came in periodically to do research on topics such as current events, careers, or social issues. Usually, this research involved both the library proper and the computer lab. Thanks for your untiring efforts with students, Mrs. Vining.
Mrs. McFarland was another regular visitor, bringing her classes to check out a children's book, to use a program specific to foods and diet, to search the internet for information, or to look up recipes in cookbooks or on specific sites. Thanks for preparing our students for their future, Mrs. McFarland.
Also among the library regulars were Ms. Berry’s classes. The AP History class visited online sites to study different eras and movements in American History, and they used information gleaned to create reports and presentations. Economics classes discovered eye-opening facts about real life, and, again, they created presentations, reports, business cards, and even video commercials, which they edited in the library. Government classes came to the library each semester to research political parties, politicians, Supreme Court cases, among other topics. Government students were among the hardest working . Psychology classes came for research as well as to take personality profiles online. Thanks, Ms. Berry, for your
increasingly refreshing approach to teaching.
Other Social Studies teachers who used the library resources were Mrs. Dorsey, Coach Morrow, and Coach Nobles. Mrs. Dorsey’s students worked online with maps and used the various library resources to research world religions and cultures. She also used a site called Sheppardsoftware.com to challenge students to improve their map skills. Coach Morrow used the library computer lab to help her bring world history to life for her students. Coach Nobles' students came in groups to create video projects, using MovieMaker and the new Soundzabound program, the latter of which provides free music for student projects. Thanks, Social Studies teachers, for using technology to its fullest.
Again, this year, the Flip video camera played a starring role in immersing students into the use of technology. Most notably, Coach Nobles, Mrs. Hippler, Ms. Berry, Mrs. Gwartney, and Mrs. McKeethan inspired their students to learn more through the use of technology, namely the Flip camera. The librarians were constantly trying to quiet students whose enthusiasm for these projects seemed to know no bounds.
Thank you, teachers for realizing the amazing learning tool that technology can be.
Mrs. Spears’ Theatre Arts students conducted research all year long on topics such as theatre, costume, and design. They also used the library’s computers to type up scripts and to develop other theatre projects. Thank you for inspiring all of your students, Mrs. Spears.
In the spring semester Mrs. Turner brought her biology classes into the lab to work with an online simulation or to broaden their understanding by applying class work to a “game” designed to enhance learning. Thank you, Mrs. Turner, for using a creative approach to biology and genetics.
Mr. McCullough’s art students found the library’s computer lab and art books invaluable in their struggles to create something beautiful and original. Thank you, Mr.
McCullough for encouraging those with artistic talent.
The Collection
This school year, the BHS Library offered students and faculty 10,294 books and audio/video resources. Excluding computer use, 3181 items circulated this year. The numbers indicate that the heaviest areas of use are fiction and literature, graphic novels, social issues, and history; these statistics do not include the in-house use of reference works.
Statistics reveal that the library lab computers were used 12,747 times during the 2009-2010 school year.
Databases
The high school library subscribes to a variety of online databases to enhance student research. In order for students to become skillful researchers, they need to learn that databases are more reliable than most other internet resources, such as Google or Wikipedia. Such resources are loosely monitored for accuracy, while the subscription databases are as reliable as the print resources chosen specifically for research. The following are the databases to which Bullard High School Library subscribes:
- Soundzabounds (licensed music)
EBSCO Research Database
Consumer Health Complete
Student Reference Center
Natural and Alternative Treatments
- Texas Reference Center
- NewsBank
Archive of Texas History
Dallas Morning News Histical Archive
NewsBank Research and Homework Materials
NewsBank Kidspage
Library Hours
The library opened this year at 7:45 daily, and closed at 3:40 on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. However, the library had extended hours on Wednesdays, staying open till 5:30 so that students and their families could do research, create projects, complete homework, or just come in to check out a book.
Other Activities
On June 16, 2009, BHS Library hosted a Region VII high school librarians’ workshop, titled "What Do You Need to Know about High School Libraries?" Fifteen librarians from all over Region VII attended. Sharon Gullett led the workshop discussions about automation systems, school library administration, and the challenges of serving teenagers in the 21st century. The session ended with a discussion of Tayshas Award books, led by Bullard librarian, Carol Martin.
The group will again meet in the BHS Library on June 15, 2010, with the topic “Tracking Trends in School Library Services.”
Teen Read Week occurred October 12-16 this school year. To celebrate, the library sponsored several daily activities, such as matching characters with titles, unscrambling titles, and finding books by authors. The activities were ended on Friday with a Tayshas Reading Club meeting at which refreshments were served, future activities were discussed, and door prizes were given to everyone who attended.
December 3-14, the Tayshas Reading Club hosted a book fair in the library. The fair kicked off with a teacher preview day, during which snacks and drinks were provided for faculty and staff to browse and to shop. During each period of the day, a name was drawn from among attendees for a door prize of $5.00 worth of merchandise.
Monday, December 7, students began coming to the book fair, either individually or with their classes. Daily, patrons entered their names into a drawing for every $8.00 they had spent that day. Again, the prize was $5.00 worth of merchandise. Students and adults alike all seemed to enjoy the fair!
The evening of Thursday, March 5, parents met with Mrs. Beam and Mrs. Jeffus in the library computer lab to learn about financial aid. In order to benefit from the individual instruction, many of them got online to fill out the FAFSA forms at that time. All who came were pleased to have done so because they had learned so much about the financial application process.
At Mr. Franks’ Roundtable meeting April 14, about two dozen parents packed the library computer lab to attend a presentation by Mrs. Jeffus on several topics, one of which was the "Shattered Dreams" project. In fact, the "Shattered Dreams" planning group had been meeting monthly in the library on the same night as school board meetings.
Parents were thrilled to have be involved in a project as important and as impacting on young people as "Shattered Dreams" has the potential to be.
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