This professional librarian generates a daily positive impact on the academic achievement of 690 students ages 10-13.

First semester: 9000 titles checked out; 6000 students signed in. Excluding before/after school and classes scheduled.

As librarian, I make the library a safe haven from the tyranny of the middle school lunchroom. 
Kids find academics COOL AND COMFORTABLE.

As professional librarians, we are CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICERS making a direct and positive impact on every student’s academic achievement:
WE ARE ALL
• Certificated teachers, most with Master’s Degrees. Our education encompasses deep, broad knowledge of the arts and sciences.
• Up-to-date reading books our students read in order to recommend literature that ‘fits.’
• Continually learning and incorporating new technology, often begging for or even paying ourselves for training.
• Teaching students to ‘learn to discern’ bias, validity, timeliness of print and non-print information.
• Working with every student, teacher, and learning style.
• At the cutting edge of information literacy – the skill of successful researching – without which students will not succeed in college or in the 21st century workplace.

Take the MALL. Students say they go to the mall for stuff.

A student recently came to the library to ‘go on the computer and go to Google to get some stuff.”

Lots of time wasted browsing, not finding what you want – tired and frustrated –

Sound like the mall?  Sound like unguided research?

John Holmes, Head, Odegaard Undergraduate Library, U.WA excerpts:
“Librarians help teachers push beyond the safe harbor of the text book and help their students navigate the open waters of a new and increasingly complex sea of information. Libraries and librarians specially trained to understand, visualize, and manage the information environment are uniquely and strategically positioned to provide  structured learning opportunities outside the classroom.  As a university librarian, I see dramatic differences between students whose secondary schools have strong library and media programs and those who come from schools that have eliminated libraries or replaced librarians with other staff not trained in information science.”

Kathryn Hardesty
Pacific Middle School
Librarian