The Sacred Heart Cathedral School library was completely remodeled in 2000 nearly doubling the floor space, plus, adding offices, AV storage, conference room and a courtyard with an amphitheater. Two librarians and two separate areas allow the library to be open throughout the whole school day for research, independent study, and to exchange books while scheduled classes are being taught.
The SHCS Library boasts over 22,000 books, over 1,4000 audio-visual materials, and over 1,150 pieces of software. In the summer of 2007, all-new computers were installed as well. The library’s catalog has been completely automated for 15 years.
The librarians are both certified and licensed by the state of Tennessee with a combined total of 43 years of teaching experience and 23 years library experience. One librarian is primarily responsible for library instruction in grades K-4 and one for grades 5-8 although both do assist all students and staff.
The library hosts annual fundraisers including the Scholastic Book Fair and the QSP/Reader’s Digest Magazine Drive. In fact, you can purchase music, DVD’s and magazines anytime throughout the year at the QSP website and SHCS will receive 40% of those sales!
SHCS is also affiliated with the Accelerated Reader program. The AR program is a curriculum-based assessment tool that provides a summary and analysis of results to enable teachers to monitor both the quantity and quality of reading practice engaged in by their students. Students administer comprehension tests voluntarily themselves, and the system is intended specifically to have strong formative effects on subsequent learning.
A student who uses the program selects a book from the more than 25,000 titles on the AR list. Each book is assigned a point value based on the number of words it contains and its reading difficulty.
After reading, the student goes to the computer and takes a multiple-choice comprehension test on the book's content. The computer scores the test, awards the student points based on the results, and keeps a complete record. Students select their own books and read at their own pace.
Ciancone's 4th Grade Authors
- Bartleby.com
Provides students, educators, and the intellectually curious with unlimited access to books and information on the Web, including 17,000 up-to-date biographical entries
- Biography.com
Features a searchable biographical database of 25,000 famous names
- Biographical Dictionary
Contains information on 19,000 notable people from ancient times to the present day; the dictionary is searchable by names, keywords, and dates
- Black History Month: Biographies
Presents the biographies of significant African-American individuals
- Distinguished Women of Past and Present
Includes biographies of women who contributed to our culture, such as writers, educators, scientists, heads of state, politicians, civil rights crusaders, artists, entertainers, and others
- Images of Greatness
Focuses on 12 famous individuals selected and researched by a class of fourth- and fifth-grade students
- http://www.42explore2.com/biographies.htm
This site is huge! Wonderful resources!!
- http://www.invent.org/hall_of_fame/1_1_search.asp
Search inventors in every possible way!
- http://www.loc.gov/families/
Library of Congress
- http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/chronological.html
Biographies of presidents, vice, first ladies, etc. photos of each.
- http://www.biography.com/bio4kids/bio4kids-meet.jsp
Meet famous people, stay on site—can leave
- American Library Association
Great web sites for kids. Includes the site below:
- http://www.invent.org/hall_of_fame/1_1_search.asp
Search inventors in every possible way KidsClick! This is one of our favorite places to start when we are looking for a few good websites on a topic of interest to children.
- Ivy's Search Engines for Kids
This is an interesting, briefly annotated list of almost 100 search engines for children.
- AOL@SCHOOL Search
AOL@SCHOOL "provides educator-reviewed classroom resources for K-12 students and teachers in math, science, language arts, social studies, and more."
- Awesome Library
This is a small, highly selective collection of approximately 30,000 educational websites for children.
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