The Bridge

[Rhonda Crim-Tumelson]

I have been busy this month with summer school. The School Media and Materials for Children classes have consumed a lot of my time and many of my thoughts. In grad school, I have focused on instruction and marketing / outreach. But time and again, I find myself researching school libraries. There seems to be a divide between academic and school libraries, as if two separate species use these facilities. Students who graduate high school in May will become college freshmen only three months later! This reality makes me keenly interested in collaboration (some kind of bridge) between high school and college libraries.

I think that it is time to create a high school level research skills/information literacy class that is mandatory for graduation. If that can't happen, then it would be nice to have a standardized class that students could take as an elective. It might help them gain college acceptance. And it would certainly help to prepare them for college level library usage.

That's just my three cents worth.