Web 2.0 has revolutionized one's ability to teach students in new and exciting ways. Students with disabilities can now overcome many barriers that once kept them from being successful in the regular education classroom. Media specialists can effectively advocate for students with disabilities. School library media specialists have the ability to…

Library teachers can no longer do business as usual--their students' deep learning is at risk! Expanding current collection of books, CDs, and DVDs is progress, but library teachers cannot allow their facilities to become warehouses for information resources. Their library learning commons should be a place buzzing with the hustle and bustle of…

The necessity to adjust to the prerequisites of the knowledge based society and economy brought about the need for lifelong learning for all in Asian communities. The concept of lifelong learning stresses that learning and education are related to life as a whole - not just to work - and that learning throughout life is a continuum that should run…

This article describes 40 years of interactive friendship and work between William Demmert, Jr. and Rosemary Christensen, who met during the First Convocation of American Indian Scholars in March 1970 at Princeton University and then in the fall of that same year as they both arrived in Cambridge, Massachusetts as graduate students in the first…

Today school library media specialists operate in an environment of daily challenges and controversies. "No Child Left Behind" established mandates that all educators are scrambling to meet. No matter how people feel about the way the legislation is being carried out, it is difficult to argue against its purpose--that all educators must…

This study reports on the steering of a self-access learning center in a Japanese university by its "middle management" committee over the first years of its operation. Middle management practice was informed by an ethnographic archive of various facets of center use, particularly concerning language policy and curriculum integration, issues about…

Political advocacy continues to gain ground in the state of Washington after the landmark Washington state legislative support of emergency funding ($4.09 million) for library media centers during the 2008 legislative session. This stepped-up political advocacy is due to the efforts of the Washington Library Media Association Advocacy members…

In this article, the author shares her experience in assisting seniors and two teachers at Kalamazoo (Michigan) Central High School when they joined a national contest to have the President of the United States deliver the commencement address to the class of 2010. One of the author's favorite memories surrounds the distribution of commencement…

Over 10 percent of all students in K-12 schools in the United States are English Language Learners (ELLs) today, and, according to the Educational Testing Service, that number is expected to grow to 25 percent by 2025. Much of that growth is happening in communities (and in schools) that do not have a history of large immigrant populations. Given…

The American Library Association says that the arrangement of library facilities should motivate students to use the materials to learn. Believing that changing the library facility can bring about important changes in the program, this author shares how she became a "decorator" and changed the library media center in an elementary K-6 school. The…

Baltimore City Community College (BCCC) leveraged heightened student interest and enrollment in the sciences and allied health with Maryland's world-leading biotechnology industry to build a community college life sciences learning and research center right on the University of Maryland, Baltimore's downtown BioPark campus. The BCCC Life Sciences…

The "Dear America" series is one of the most successful brands in children's literature. It inspired the publisher, Scholastic Books, to produce four related series that include more than 90 titles. Each book seeks to personalize important events in American history through the diary of a fictionalized main character. According to the publisher,…

Annie McQueen, librarian at David Starr Jordan Middle School in the Palo Alto Unified School District in California, is used to figuring out creative ways of getting what her media center needs, even though her budget is minuscule. McQueen gets additional support from the funds generated by the couple of book fairs she hosts each year. Plus, she…

It is the school library's responsibility to provide the tools necessary for students to utilize online resources effectively and efficiently. This education should also account for the increasing need for instruction regarding cyber ethics, particularly with the rise of cyberbullying. The teacher librarian is in the unique position to organize…

Recent years have seen a shift in educational institutions from the provision of traditional libraries to the creation of independent learning areas offering a greater diversity of facilities and services. This paper explores the essential characteristics of these places, especially in relation to student learning. The authors discuss six…