Web Site of the Month:
Lakeview High School Library
Walter Minkel -- School Library Journal, 4/1/2002
Lakeview High School Library
server.remc12.k12.mi.us/lhslib
When Margaret Lincoln, a librarian at Lakeview High School (LHS) in Battle Creek, MI, learned in 1998 that her library was receiving 24 new Internet stations, she knew she needed a Web site. She wasn't well-versed in HTML, so she studied David Karlins's Teach Yourself Microsoft FrontPage 98 in a Week (Sams.net, 1998). It took her two weeks to build the initial site, but she met her goal—to put all the electronic resources LHS students needed in one place.
Heavy information users: LHS, a prosperous suburban high school with nearly 1,100 students, is in a community that uses electronic information resources heavily. Lincoln (mlincoln@remc12.k12mi.us) wanted to feature the newly available AccessMichigan collection of newspapers and other periodicals. That led her to create the site's Electronic Resources page, which lists AccessMichigan's individual databases front and center as part of her instructional goal of teaching all LHS students to refer to them before going to the Web. A link on the Electronic Resources page takes users to a page of Web directories and search engines, but it requires them to make one additional click, rather than offering the common Web search tools immediately.
Helping Teachers: Lincoln plans continually to refine the site as a starting point for student research. She's working now on helping teachers create and post sets of links to resources supporting the school's U.S. history curriculum. But even more important are the site's copyright resources.
Fighting Plagiarism: Lincoln created a Copyright Basics page that will be a useful model for other schools. The page defines copyright, public domain, and fair use, and (perhaps more important) lists guidelines for the fair use of intellectual property in a school project. The page was created because LHS's principal wanted guidelines posted for students as part of a schoolwide campaign to fight cheating and plagiarism. At the bottom of the Copyright Page is a link to a PDF copy of the Cheating Pamphlet every student receives and must read.
