Getting Close to the End of the Year!

As we close in on the end of another school year, we wanted to take the opportunity to collect some feedback on your use of the Main Library.  Throughout the year, we’ve tried to keep you informed about all the fantastic resources, events, and opportunities available at the ISB Main Library. Our goal is to foster a love for reading, support academic success, and empower students to become lifelong learners.  At the same time, we try to provide the same resources to teachers, parents, and visitors.  A few of the things we provide:

  1. Weekly messages to ISB Students, Teachers, and Parents. Includes: Weekly Book Recommendation, Technology Tools, Digital Citizenship Recommendations, and Highlights from the Library.  
  2. Library Events and Class Lessons: The Librarian collaborates with teachers to integrate ISB Research Standards as well as the ISTE Technology Standards by having classes come to the library or by going to individual classes to deliver instruction
  3. Digital Resources: The Librarian maintains subscriptions and tutorials for accessing databases, effective searching, resource evaluation, and Digital Citizenship instruction as well as others
  4. Book Talks: The Librarian works with teachers to encourage classes to come to the library or go to classes to deliver Book Talks where books are shared, recommended, and advertised to students as well as working with individual students to recommend appropriate titles.
  5. Student Spotlights: We proudly host student events, and display student artwork, projects, and clubs/activities in the library.  Additionally, we provide space for silent studying and extended time for exams. 
  6. Library Services and Resources: Through the Main Library website we offer specific research support, citation support, access to databases, and specific research tools to support the curriculum.
  7. Community Engagement: We strongly believe in giving back to the community. When we discard books, we donate them to local schools and libraries.  We also openly encourage parents to stop in and use the library as needed.  Lastly, in the afternoons, we have tutors in the library helping individual students. 
  8. Feedback and Suggestions: Your opinion matters to us! We are always taking suggestions and book recommendations. 

We would love to hear any suggestions or thoughts on the Main Library’s services.  Please complete this short form to help guide our programming for next year. 

ISB MAIN LIBRARY FEEDBACK FORM

 

Happy reading!

Christopher Bell, High School Librarian and Technology Coordinator

ISB MAIN LIBRARY FEEDBACK FORM

Bell Recommendation:

Every Last Fear by Alex Finlay

What is the worst horrible thing that you could wake up to in the morning? Almost all of your family has passed away is definitely top of the list. That’s how this book starts. However, for Matt, an NYU Film student, unfortunately, wakes up to this very thing. To make matters worse, the FBI showed up to tell him not only this horrible information but that they need him to go tell the only other surviving family member, his older brother, who by the way is currently incarcerated for murder. The plot then thickens as we find out that Matt is going to have to identify the bodies who were on vacation in Mexico. It also is mysterious that the FBI agents work in the financial investigations teams. Need a good who done it type of mystery – this is it. It moves fast and definitely written for older readers and adults.

Tech Tools

Snack Prompt | Discover The Best ChatGPT Prompts

How about a fun one today? I’ve done a lot of tools that are aimed at improving your workflow and your research. It is kind of fun as well to play around with the bots. If you need a cool idea, go add SnackPrompt.com. This is a place where people are putting up some very unique prompts and then sharing. You simply go in there and copy/paste their prompt into Chat to see what it gives you. Then you can modify it for your own use and purposes. An example is to put in your travel plans and ask it to give you an itinerary. There are workout ones, and there are ones that will give you recipes, and much more. Enjoy!

Digital Citizenship

Investigating all of the recent digital citizenship tools out there has had me taking a look at Microsoft, Common Sense and now Google has just updated their work as well.  It is definitely very robust and it is more of a fun approach to teaching and learning how to keep our kids safe online. Take a look at Google’s Be Internet Awesome Program.