September is Library Card Sign-Up Month - a time when the American Library Association and libraries across the country remind parents that the most important school supply of all is @ your library® - it's your library card!!

Westhills Elementary School has partnered with the Bessemer Public Library to celebrate this event. A representative will be at Literacy Night on September 1, 2016 @ 6:00 p.m. to assist parents and students in signing up for a library card. Hope to see you there!!!

Westhills Elementary School Library-Media Center

Mission Statement

            The mission of the Westhills Elementary Library Media Program is to provide a collection of resources and information that will satisfy the educational needs and interests of students and staff in a setting where students may develop the skills they need to analyze, evaluate, interpret, and communicate information and ideas.  These objectives will be reached using goals that incorporate College and Career Readiness Standards.

Vision Statement for Westhills Elementary Library Media Program

In collaboration with the school’s learning community, Alabama’s 21st Century library media programs will be the center of teaching and learning by providing access to quality collections and technologies and by extending services beyond the library media center’s four walls and the school day.

Goals:

            The major goals of the WES library media program include:

1)     Selecting, acquiring, organizing, and making accessible instructional materials to support the educational needs of the school

 2)     Promoting the use of the media center by students and staff for a variety of educational purposes

 3)     Providing assistance in instructing students in skills, which will enable them to retrieve information and select appropriate resources

 Philosophy and Belief

 An effective school library, led by a credentialed school librarian who has a clearly defined role in information-centered pedagogy, plays a critical role in facilitating student learning for building knowledge.

Duties of the Library Media Specialist 

            The library media specialist (LMS) is responsible for managing the program, the collection, and the library media center. The LMS secures, organizes, and provides access to resources; works with classroom teachers to ensure students acquire the skills needed to access, evaluate, and communicate information; an works to improve resources. Approximately 60 percent of the LMS’s time is spent providing services for students and teachers and 40 percent for collection development and library management (Enriching Education, AL St. Dept. of Ed., 16).

Library Media Center Schedule

            The library media center (LMC) will open one full week after the beginning of school and will be open all official school days. The LMC will close one full week before the end of school for inventory.

            The LMC will provide flexible scheduling for the majority of the day. However, students will have a scheduled time each week (see schedule). Teachers may send up to three students at a time to the LMC to check in/out books or work on specific projects. Students must have a signed library pass specifying what they are to do, what time they left, and what time they are to return to class. If the LMC is in use or there is no space available, the students will be asked to return to class. No student will be admitted without a pass and students who misbehave will be returned to class.

Circulation and Overdues

             Enrolled students may check out books for a period of two weeks. Books may be renewed once. Reference books, periodicals, and non-book materials will not be checked out to students. Teachers may check out materials for two weeks or longer if necessary. Materials may be reserved by teachers with a written request. 

            Students with overdue books will not be allowed to check out additional books until the overdue book is either returned or brought into the LMC to be renewed. Overdue notices will be prepared and placed in each homeroom teachers’ mailbox for distribution to students.

             Lost books must be reported to the LMS immediately. If the book cannot be found, the student must pay for the book before they will be allowed to use the LMC again. Students will also be responsible for payment of damaged materials. 

Student Behavior

             Misbehavior will not be tolerated and should be handled immediately by the classroom teacher. Students will be required to follow all school and library rules

General Information

             Resources will be chosen for the LMC in accordance with the “Policy for Selection of Library Media Resources”. Suggestions for the selection of materials by staff or students are encouraged (forms attached).

             Nonfiction materials are arranged in numerical order by the Dewey Decimal System. Call numbers for nonfiction consist of the Dewey number over the first three letters of the author’s last name or the first three letters of the first word of the main title if there is not an individual author. Reference books have the letters “REF” above the Dewey number. Picture books and fiction books with reading levels Pre-2 are classified as easy with an “E” over the first three letters of the author’s last name.