Library

A warm welcome from the Saint Ann School Library!  The School Library is both figuratively and literally the center of learning at Saint Ann Catholic School. The library collection is housed in two rooms in the middle of the upper floor of the building. The K-2 Library contains appropriate picture and chapter books, child-sized tables, and a dinosaur reading loft and cave perfectly suited to provide an inviting place for young children to learn to love reading and books. Recently remodeled, the beautiful main library serves the 3rd through 8th grades in a warm environment with a very good collection of about 7000 reference, fiction, and non-fiction books. There are library tables and chairs to enable regular classroom library instruction, three student computer workstations, a circulation desk for the automated system, audio visual equipment including a DLP projection system, an IP video conferencing camera, and a mobile cart housing 29 wireless laptop computers. The library became automated in 2003, using the Follett Automation System. The newly renovated space was funded by the Home and School Association's fundraising efforts, along with the 2006 Annual Fund Drive.

Kindergarten through Eighth Grades come for a 40 minute scheduled library class each week. Information literacy, library, research, map, and Internet safety skills are taught according to the Nashville Diocesan Library Curriculum. The library is open for student use outside of library class time for research, laptop use, or video conferencing when scheduled with the librarian. There are three scheduled study halls during the week for the Upper School, for additional checkout time or research.

The librarian, Ms. Judy Graham, serves as media specialist, technology support and assistant principal for the school. Ms. Graham is a graduate of Saint Ann School and has taught in one capacity or another at Saint Ann for about sixteen years. Also a graduate of St. Bernard Academy and Tennessee Tech University, Ms. Graham returned to school at Trevecca to earn her librarian’s license in 2000. She has attended workshops for training in the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools accreditation process and is active in helping other schools attain their accreditation. Ms. Graham loves the fact that her job not only allows her to be a lifelong learner with constant new challenges and projects, but that she gets to work with every child attending Saint Ann School. “My position at Saint Ann is an enviable one because our families are allowing me to help them prepare their most precious resources for a lifetime of learning.”

Mission and Goals

Saint Ann School Library Media Program




The following mission statement is one established by the American Library Association and one that aligns with the mission of Saint Ann School:

"The mission of the library media program is to ensure that students and staff are effective users of ideas and information. This mission is accomplished:

• by providing intellectual and physical access to materials in all formats

• by providing instruction to foster competence and stimulate interest in reading, viewing, and using information and ideas

• by working with other educators to design learning strategies to meet the needs of individual students."
  -Information Power: Guidelines for School Library Media Programs (1988), p.1

This statement supports our school mission of providing a quality, innovative education
within a nurturing environment.

The goals set forth in Information Power shall be adhered to in the Saint Ann School Library.
They are as follows:

1. To provide intellectual access to information through learning activities that are integrated into the curriculum and that help all students achieve information literacy by developing effective cognitive strategies for selecting, retrieving, analyzing, evaluating, synthesizing, creating, and communicating information in all formats and in all content areas of the curriculum.

2. To provide physical access to information through

• a carefully selected and systematically organized local collection of diverse learning resources that represent a wide range of subjects, levels of difficulty, and formats;

• a systematic procedure for acquiring information and materials from outside the library media center and the school through such mechanisms as electronic networks, interlibrary loan, and cooperative agreements with other information agencies; and instruction in using a range of equipment for accessing local and remote information in any format.

3. To provide learning experiences that encourage students and others to become discriminating consumers and skilled creators of information through comprehensive instruction related to the full range of communications media and technology.

4. To provide leadership, collaboration, and assistance to teachers and others in applying
   principles of instructional design to the use of instructional and information technology for learning.

5. To provide resources and activities that contribute to lifelong learning while accommodating a wide range of differences in teaching and learning styles, methods, interests, and capacities.

6. To provide a program that functions as the information center of the school, both through
   offering a focus for integrated and interdisciplinary learning activities within the school and through offering access to a full range of information for learning beyond this focus.

7. To provide resources and activities for learning that represent a diversity of experiences
   opinions, and social and cultural perspectives and to support the concept that intellectual freedom and access to information are prerequisite to effective and responsible citizenship in a democracy.

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Standards for Student Learning

The Saint Ann School Library must meet two sets of standards in order to maintain accreditation through the Diocese of Nashville and The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. The program also strives to meet the standards set forth by the ALA.

I.     Diocesan Standards:
       5.1.1  All schools shall follow a written procedure for selection and acquisition of materials.
       5.1.2  All schools shall establish an adequate circulation system.
       5.1.3   Students and faculty shall have access to the library media center throughout each school day.
       5.1.4  Space shall be available to adequately house all library materials.


II.     SACS Standards:
        7.1 The Media Center materials collection includes current technological formats in support of the school’s mission and instructional program.
        7.2 The collection of print and non-print media is current, comprehensive, and carefully selected in terms of the school’s mission and instructional program.
        7.3 The book collection contains a minimum of 10 books per student or 1500 books, whichever is greater.
        7.4 Evidence demonstrates that all students and staff have regular and ready access to media services, materials, and equipment.

III.     Information Power Standards:

1. The student who is information literate accesses information efficiently and effectively.

2. The student who is information literate evaluates information critically and competently.

3. The student who is information literate uses information accurately and creatively.

4. The student who is an independent learner is information literate and pursues information related to personal interests.

5. The student who is an independent learner is information and appreciates literature and other creative expressions of information.

6. The student who is an independent learner is information literate and strives for excellence in information seeking and knowledge generation.

7. The student who contributes positively to the learning community and to society is information literate and recognizes the importance of information to a democratic society.

8. The student who contributes positively to the learning community and to society is information literate and practices ethical behavior in regard to information and information
   technology.

9. The student who contributes positively to the learning community and to society is information literate and participates effectively in groups to pursue and generate information.

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Collection Development Policy

Objectives:



*To provide students and teachers with a wide range of educational materials on all levels of
difficulty and in a variety of formats, with diversity of appeal, allowing for the presentation of
any different points of view.

To make available to faculty and students a collection of materials that will enrich and support the curriculum and meet the needs of the students and faculty served.


Responsibility for Selection of Materials:

The responsibility for the selection of media resources rests with the library media specialist
working collaboratively with faculty, student, and parent suggestions


Criteria for Media Selection:

1. Supports and enhances the curriculum.
2. Intellectual content of the material is studied.
3. Supports the Mission and Beliefs statements.
4. Interest and comprehension levels
5. Supports the needs of the Accelerated Reading Program.


Procedure for Selection:

1. Review children’s book journals, such as School Library Journal.
2. Consider requests from faculty and students.
3. Purchase books which are needed for the Accelerated Reading.
4. Gift materials are judged carefully to determine their usage.

Challenged Book Policy

Any student or parent who wishes to challenge a book should adhere to the following:

1. A written challenge may be presented to the school library media specialist.

2. The librarian then decides if the complaint is valid. The librarian would then present the
   complaint to the principal and other faculty members. The book is evaluated for appropriate age level, and story content.

3. No parent has the right to determine reading, viewing or listening matter for students other than his or her own children.

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