Library Media Coordinators: 

Lin Linder    Susan Plotner

HOURS:

Monday-Friday: 7:45 A.M. – 3:45 P.M.

Extended Hours: TBA

POLICIES AND PROCEDURES

The checkout period for students is two weeks, with a limit of two books. Circulation procedures are listed on an info sheet at the circulation desk.

Faculty members have a six-week checkout period, for personal as well as for professional items.

Fines are 5 cents per day per regular book, with a maximum of $1.00. The fine is 25 cents per day for overnight books, with a maximum of $2.50. Fines stop when books are returned, so students should return their books even if they cannot pay their fine. The media center periodically has free fine or can your fine days so students can clear their fines throughout the year.

Students and teachers are responsible for damages or loss of books checked out to them. Current prices will be charged for lost books.

The LMC supplies passes for sending individual or small groups of students (five or less) without teacher supervision. Before sending your students, please complete all information as requested on the media center pass. It is very important that the LMC staff have a clear picture of your students purpose in using the LMC. Additionally, all Internet users will adhere to the guidelines provided in the North Hardin High School Acceptable Use Policy.

Passes will be delivered to you on organizational day. Additional passes can be requested via email or phone throughout the school year and will be delivered by a library staff member. For security reasons, please do not send students to pick up additional library passes.

Scheduling Classes

Student use of the LMC is through scheduled classes, small groups (less than 5) or on an individual basis. To schedule your classes, see a library media coordinator who will collaborate with you on completing a teacher-library media coordinator planning form. 

The library media staff also schedules use of our two instructional labs. The Trojan Lab, located in Room 215, houses 32 student computers, one teacher workstation, a laser jet color printer, an interactive Smart Board and LCD projector. The production lab, located in Room 238, houses 16 student computers and a laser jet black and white printer. Use of these labs is tremendous, so please schedule in advance, usually a minimum of two weeks. A teacher-library media coordinator planning form, as well as seating charts, are required for scheduling classes to the technology labs.

The schedule book for the LMC and both technology labs is located on the circulation desk in the LMC. To reduce scheduling problems, please allow the LMC staff to record the scheduling of classes in the schedule book.  

The LMC is fully networked, accessing the Internet through Microsoft Internet Explorer. The computers located in the LMC contain the following software: Microsoft Office 2000 with Excel, Access, Word, Publisher, and Power Point. Microsoft FrontPage has been loaded on some stations. Additionally, two computer stations can access Microsoft Works. All computers are networked to a black and white laser jet printer.

Computers in the LMC and both labs also have Inspiration, a graphics-based software program. The Production Lab computers and the black Dells in the LMC also have Roxio software for CD creation.

Our main online database is the Kentucky Virtual Library. Maintained by the Kentucky’s Department of Education, it is a portal to books, magazine and newspaper databases, biographical and literary criticism, encyclopedias, geographical information and guides to reading.

As a school, we subscribe to several additional online databases. For an excellent career and college database, use CX Online and its companion CD-ROM product, Choices. Choices can also be installed on your classroom computers by submitting a technology work order. For geographical information on U.S. states and countries of the world try Culture Grams Online. For literary topics, author information, books reviews and literary criticism, use MagillonLiterature Plus.  SIRS Knowledge Source contains three databases: SIRS Researcher for general topics, SIRS Government Reporter for information from and about the U.S. Government, and SIRS Renaissance for arts and humanities information. 

The professional collection is located in the main room of the library media center. Print resources as well as journals and magazines are shelved at this location. Come in and browse our new additions. As always, purchase suggestions are welcome and encouraged. The District also provides a large collection of professional books and journals at the Hardin County Educational Resource Center. 

The media center houses a collection of fiction, nonfiction, biography, story collection, and reference materials. To locate books, as well as videos, students and faculty should use the Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC) located at all computer stations. If the desktop of your teacher workstation does not have a link to OPAC, please submit a technology work order to have one installed on your computer. 

In addition to our professional journals and magazines, we subscribe to over 50 general interest magazines. Some of the current issues are shelved in the magazine racks near the library media center's office. The remaining issues are shelved in the magazine room. 

Teacher/LMC Collaboration

In order to strengthen the instructional role of the LMC, the media center staff believes in building partnerships with teachers. Through these partnerships, resource-based units can be developed that will focus on both content and information literacy skills. The LMC staff is prepared to design instructional units, locate examples of published resource-based units, and provide ideas for culminating projects that go beyond written reports.

The Big Six: A Research Strategy

Students are instructed in The Big Six, a research strategy developed at Syracuse University by Michael Eisenberg and Robert Berkowitz. English students follow this process as they complete their research projects. Other curriculum areas use this process on an individual basis. To assist student understanding of  The Big Six, the library media coordinators have developed activity booklets and a PowerPoint presentation.

9^th grade students will receive an orientation to the media center coordinated with their freshman English class. An optional orientation for 10^th grade students is available through the biology classes.

AUP and Network Permission Cards

As stated above, North Hardin High School has an Acceptable Use Policy, which expands the District’s Pupil Conduct Code on email and Internet usage. Students and their parents or guardians are required to complete a network permission card each school year. Students received these cards in TAP classrooms and they are returned to the LMC, where they are kept for the school year. To access our network (email and Internet), students are required to use a login/account name and password. The LMC staff will facilitate the student’s network access procedure during the 1^st quarter of the school year.

All classified and certified employees also will have a login/account name and password to access email and the Internet. The library media coordinators or the computer technician will have the responsibility for setting up this initial network account. 

         Plagiarism and Copyright Issues

Copyright laws can be very confusing for educations. The main principle to understand is the doctrine of "fair use." This doctrine "balances the free use of copyrighted materials by educators and the rights of the author to sell his work and the expressions of his ideas." (Copyright for Schools: a Practical Guide, 3rd ed., 2001.

Copyright information is provided in the District’s online Certified Handbook. Since copyright guidelines apply to all materials, teachers need to make their students aware of the need to give credit to all sources, from print resources to the WWW. If additional information on copyright laws is needed, please check the following web sites:  http://www.stfrancis.edu/cid/copyrightbay/; http://www.pbs.org/teachersource/copyright/copyright.shtm; http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/copy.htm.

Plagiarism occurs when someone's ideas or work is copied without giving proper credit to the original creator of the work. Plagiarism can be prevented by talking to students about cyber ethics and ethical behavior in general. Here are some great online tutorials that have been developed by schools and colleges:  http://www.northwestern.edu/uacc/plagiar.html and http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/wts/plagiarism.html. Another method to help students avoid plagiarism is to create project assignments that virtually eliminate plagiarism opportunities. For an excellent article on these assignments, read the following online article by Doug Johnson @  http://www.doug-johnson.com/dougwri/LPP.html. North Hardin also has a subscription to Turnitin.com, an online plagiarism prevention service. All teachers should take advantage of this service and create a personal profile, as well as register your classes. Please see one of the the library media coordinators for the North Hardin account ID and password..

The library media coordinators at North Hardin can also provide discussion lessons on copyright and plagiarism for your classes. We also provide MLA citation examples for lessons, when requested.

     Technology Labs

Two computer labs are available for technology integration activities. The Trojan Lab, located in Room 215, houses 32 student computers, one teacher workstation, a laser jet color printer, an interactive Smart Board and LCD projector. The production lab, located in Room 238, houses 16 student computers and a laser jet black and white printer. The computers in both labs have Microsoft Office software, Inspiration, and Choices. The Trojan Lab also has ChemTutor software and the production lab computers have CD burning capabilities.

Hardin County provides a part-time computer technician for each school. When you have problems with your computer, printer, password, email, software, etc., it is your responsibility to complete an online work order to our computer technician. The work order address is: http://tech.hardin.k12.ky.us/hcswo/wform.asp. This work order address can also be located from the District’s Technology web page. Computers in the LMC are always available for sending technology work orders.

Broadcast and Video Collection

The library media center broadcasts the school-produced announcements each morning and the Channel One broadcast everyday during TAP over our closed circuit system. A schedule of specific broadcast times for Channel One will follow at a later date. Look for information on additional Channel One broadcasts that can be taped, as well as KET programs, in your teacher mailbox or in the teacher's workroom. Teachers should send Channel One and KET taping requests to the LMC. Please supply your own tape if you wish to keep the copy. 

Our closed circuit system can also be used to broadcast videotapes to individual classrooms. The media center uses a taping request form for these closed circuit broadcasts. Please see the library media center staff for more information if this availability is needed

Our collection of in-house videotapes is small, with the exception of career and school-to-work videotapes. The District provides an Educational Resource Center from where videotapes are scheduled online and then circulated to individual schools. The videotapes are delivered to North Hardin via the pony, every Monday and Thursday (except holidays). Please use their online video reservation system when requesting videotapes from the Educational Resource Center. See a LMC staff member if you need help using this system.

Audiovisual equipment housed at North Hardin can be checked out for the entire school year or on an individual- need basis. The media center houses two traveling TV/VCR/DVD units, one for each floor.  Plan ahead if you need to schedule these units. Otherwise, check the neighboring classrooms around your location and ask to borrow a unit stationed in that classroom. Use our AV Request Form link to reserve this equipment.

To facilitate the use of multimedia presentations, the LMC has a laptop with/ LCD projector and two COWs (computer- on-wheels stations) available for checkout.  Other equipment available for checkout is as follows: digital cameras, video camera, external zip drive, video cam and  scanner. Again, please schedule these items ahead of time.  To reserve this equipment, please use our AV Request Form.