All Paths Lead to the Library

A new center of North Campus life

Imagine one building where a student might accomplish all of the following in one day: scour a shelf for a source book about the Renaissance to report on an early mathematician’s contribution to sixth grade math equations; settle into an armchair with an electronic reader to escape into one of Grimms’ Fairy Tales; join classmates in amphitheater seating to watch a teacher’s presentation on an interactive projector; and sit at a computer creating a collage in Photoshop for a language assignment on a country across the globe.

That one building—Poly’s new Library and Media Center on the North Campus—is already in daily, bustling use for all of these purposes and more. Teachers and their students from kindergarten through eighth grade have only begun to test the variety of ways interactive media, traditional books, a full computer lab, and multiple gathering and quiet spaces can be used.

Lower and Middle School Librarian Frances Callero started building a virtual library of databases, booklists, activity sites, and other resources long before the walls of the new actual library went up. A quick browse through her Libraries & Technology page on Poly’s main website easily turns into a much longer treasure hunt with stops along the way at favorite authors, a government database, and sites that offer writing tools.

The most exciting development for fall of 2011 is an integration of that virtual realm with a physical space that offers thousands of books, readily accessible computers and printers, comfortable open space, and endless learning opportunity.

The library staff offers teachers and students a bridge to the variety of resources for any project or interest. Complementing the librarians’ knowledge of the many wells of information, Kelly Ward provides educational technology support through the Media Center. She reports the center’s collection of new Mac computers is already proving to give students excellent platform flexibility for anything from word processing to filmmaking.