August 26th, 2012.  We have had a whirlwind of activity in the library over the last 16 days.  All the new books received have been processed and available for checkout and they have been flying off the shelf.  We are still waiting for our last container order of nearly 600 books which we hope to receive soon.

We have welcomed the addition of Barbara Boyer from the Elementary School Library to the Secondary School Library. This has greatly expanded the library’s reach to teachers and students.  With Barbara’s help the library is fully staffed and ready to assist students and teachers in their reading and information literacy needs.

Over the past 16 days we have over 1500 books and DVD’s checked out.  We have seen all the 6th, 7th and 8th grade humanities classes and many of the 9th and 10th grade English classes.  These classes have all had a brief into to the library and its procedures and had the opportunity to check out materials.  The library has played host to some General Environmental Science Classes and Chemistry classes who search the library for information to complete their scavenger hunts.  In addition during this time the library has hosted many teacher and admin meetings and is looking forward to continuing to assist the SAS community in this regard.  A note, the library is now tracking visitations and has been averaging over 600 visitors daily since the school year began.  We have had one day (Thursday, the first week of school) that we had over 950 visitors to come through the library in one day!  This was not all library connected in that Instructional Tech and the Apple center were working to assist students in the Mac rollouts, but if one does the math, and I have, that is nearly 2 visitors per minute between 7 and 4 pm coming to the Library Media Center for assistance.  Thats a lot of contact.  Bring it on.

We have greatly expanded our non-fiction holdings, our HS and MS fiction holdings, and our DVD collection.  We have also rolled out additional magazines for various departments and are looking forward to a great year of reading and researching.  Our magazines can be checked out over night.  Our books can be checked out for 2 weeks with 1 renewal period per book.  We also have our Kindles available.  While there are not a lot of titles on the Kindles at this time, we have a plan to work to fill them up.  We also have a functional E-Library.  While there are very few titles at present, one of our major tasks over the year is to work to make that a robust library that can provide students and teachers an additional avenue for finding that pleasure read.

So SAS, the Pudong Secondary Library is already hard at work and looking forward to another great year.  Have you found that next great book to read?  If not, drop in on the Library and lets see what we can find for you! TSBoyer