Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh Launches New STEM Collection
RSSBy SLJ Staff
"There are some really cool new books in the nonfiction teen area," says Holly Anderton, teen services manager at CLP's main library, mentioning Glenn Murphy's Why is Snot Green? (Macmillan, 2007) as a recent addition to the STEM area. "These are catching teens' eyes more than they did 10 years ago." Anderton, along with staff from CLP's job, career, and education center, spent more than a year transforming a $25,000 grant from the PNC Charitable Trust Grant Review Committee into an extensive multidisciplinary virtual center where students can access book lists and other online STEM resources from CLP's teen website and then head to one of 17 branches to check out titles ranging from Murphy's investigative slice into the biology of snot to The Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman (Hatherleigh Press, 2008). "The staff is just aware that the books are coming in," says Anderton. "Because of the grant, we can now afford some of these books that are ridiculously gorgeous with graphics, and also very fact heavy." STEM subjects are enjoying a flood of interest from educators and librarians across the country who are hoping they'll encourage students to consider careers in these disciplines. Extra attention is on sparking girls' enthusiasm for STEM areas, and CLP's staff has crafted a "For Girls" section of its site with links to online groups, including BrainCake and Girlstart—organizations that focus on tween girls and their scientific interests. Although Anderton says hits on the new STEM site are sluggish, she expects those to increase exponentially as school starts and staff distributes bookmarks, posters, and other resources to teachers, librarians, and students this fall. "Our school system is instituting a lot of magnets, and our staff is doing a lot of selling," says Anderton. "We're getting to a more robust point now."
Dissecting the hue of nose goo is just one playful but popular ploy to lure teens to the newly launched teen STEM collection at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh (CLP)—an online and print collection that focuses on science, technology, engineering, and mathematic (STEM) subjects.
Students inside Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh's STEM collection area.
