Site of the Month: Lavonia Elementary School Media Center Handbook
Walter Minkel -- School Library Journal, 10/1/2003
When Judy Carter (jcarter@franklin.k12.ga.us) started this year as a new media specialist at Lavonia (GA) Elementary School, her principal asked her to revise the guide to the media center.
About the Guide: Rather than handing teachers a traditional paper guide that could be easily lost, Carter posted the document on the Web. (Click on "Media Center Handbook" to see it.) It includes the media center's mission statement, policies, the library's 2003–2004 calendar of events, and information on the school's participation in Accelerated Reader and the Georgia Children's Book Award. She encourages parents to review the document to read about the importance of information literacy, although she's creating a Student/Parent Media Center Guide, too.
A Self-Help Exercise: Carter says that creating the guide "helped me work through my own goals and ideas…. It was a great way to orient myself [in the new school]." She hopes to re-create it as a Web page to make it easier to use. To librarians who might want to create something similar, she says, "Look at as many handbooks as you can that are already in existence."
