About Our Library
St. Joseph School Library
The mission of our Library is to:
- provide an environment that ensures that students and faculty become effective users of ideas and information,
- develop the whole person,
- reinforce Christian values,
- serve as an integral part of the philosophy and curriculum of St. Joseph School,
- empower students with skills and experiences that will enable them to use libraries for life-long learning.
Statistical Data About Our Library
- Our Library Collection consists of over
15,000 volumes
- 1000 patrons use the library weekly
- 21 class sessions, K through 6 are scheduled weekly
- Two classes per week use additional time to work as a group in the library
- Each lunch hour is utilized for student study time and homework lab for
7th and 8th graders
- Spontaneous drop-ins by students occur all day, before, during and after
school
- Weekly circulation of books and other materials is approximately 600 and
growing
- Additional patrons are served on a regular basis, such as:
- In Touch with Art group
- Parents and younger siblings
- Montessori pre-school students
- The physical space of the Library and its annex, the Multipurpose Room,
are often used by groups other than classes, each in some form requiring staff
attention:
- School Commission
- Parent Club
- Catholic Librarians Group
- Foreign language classes
- Chess Club
- Assorted student, parent and staff groups
Our Library Management Activities
- we continuously re-examine and redefine the interrelationship between school curriculum needs and collection and automation development
- our collection is being culled to achieve a balanced expansion of holdings
- the library skills curriculum, which now includes electronic information retrieval, is being revised and adapted to the academic needs and abilities of the students
- we will examine what direction further automation should take to dovetail optimally with curriculum needs and projections, and projected availability of funds
- policies, rules and procedures, and goals are continuously re-evaluated and updated.
Our Goals
and Objectives
It is the goal of the Library to offer a setting which expands the intellectual world of the student through story circles, book talks and discussions, guidance in research and presentation of authors. These activities reflect the regular class curriculum and are intended to achieve the following:
- create curiousity for a story and its author and illustrator, thus stumulating reading
- expand the student's imaginative, spiritual and psychological world
- introduce the student to the classics and develop and appreciation for literature
- introduce the student to variations in style, vocabulary and the rhythm of language as used by various authors
- introduce the student to new fiction and non-fiction books in the collection
- supplement and enhance subjects that are being covered in the regular class curriculum.
A further goal of the Library is to provide a meaningful instructional program which is:
- child-centered and relevant to the students' interests, curiosity, needs, and learning styles,
- supportive of the school curriculum
- instills a positive feeling toward libraries in general.
This last goal is achieved by teaching library skills, as stated in the
Language Arts Curriculum of the school. The instruction of accessing information
and of enjoyment of leisure reading is a substantial part of daily operations.
Classified staff plays a significant supportive role in this process. For a newly
implemented automated system, this instruction is highly labor-intensive in its
initial stages as the students acquire searching skills simultaneously at each
grade level. This intensity does not diminish as the years go by but changes focus
as new technology (e.g., the Internet) is introduced. As students develop these
new skills, the objectives will change from year to year as well.
The Catholic School Librarians Association of the Catholic Archdiocese
of Greater Seattle adopted a new Guidelines for Catholic School Library Resource
Centers in January 2002 to reflect this change in technology.
The librarian and faculty work together to define the skills needed so that the students will be able to use the library resources effectively at this or any other library. The instruction of library skills also includes:
- learning to access the computerized catalog of our holdings
- learning to access online encyclopedias and other reference materials online
- accessing and searching for information remotely via the Internet
- developing an open attitude to other newly developing electronic library programs.
Our Strategy to Accomplish Our Goals
Learning objectives are introduced at a specific grade level and are reviewed each year as necessary. K-6 classes are scheduled into the library one time per week for a 30 minute period. By providing both written, hands-on, and interactive assignments, various learning styles are recognized and the formality of the instructional process is softened. The 7th and 8th grade classes are scheduled when requested by the teachers. Individual students may use the library anytime it is not occupied by another class.
Back to the St. Joseph School Library web page.
Learning Objectives by Grade Level for Our Library Program