DATE: Tuesday, August 24, 2004
EDITION: MARTIN-ST. LUCIE
SECTION: A SECTION
PAGE: 1A

STUDENT LIBRARY MOVES ONLINE

St. Lucie West Centennial High School lost one of its main features during the summer: the library.

Gone are the rows of tables and crowded book shelves, replaced by several computer labs and classrooms. The school's large collection of fiction and reference books are nowhere in site.

So how can a school as large as Centennial, with at least 2,325 students, eliminate its library?

School officials are quick to defend the move, saying they merely condensed the school's collection of books into several small offices, now called "the stacks." They also created two small reading rooms and added the online library, Questia , that allows students unlimited access to more than 70,000 books and 400,000 magazines and journals.

It is a bold change, unheard of by most school librarians and untested in schools in Palm Beach County or the Treasure Coast, but one Centennial and St. Lucie educators believe will enhance the way the high school delivers its media services to students and teachers. They even hope to improve students' grades and test scores.

"We're at the cutting edge at what we're looking at for libraries for schools," said Dianna Zychowski, Centennial's media specialist. "Those books are all still here and all still available. . . . The concept is to maintain the integrity of a library area but on a smaller scale."

Plenty of fellow media specialists have balked at the idea, including several at a conference she attended last spring, when - before she had created the proposal that would eventually transform Centennial's library - she said future libraries would need to be smaller, with a greater focus on technology.

"There were some others who were appalled, and they let me know that," said Zychowski, the district's only National Board Certified media specialist. "But we're not getting rid of anything. Anything I did in the big space I can still do here."

But the trend toward a reliance on online sources has some media specialists worried. Palm Beach County schools Manager of Library Media Services Janeen Pelser said electronic information can have users bouncing from subject to subject, without necessarily getting a complete picture of what they are researching.

"I do know that far in the future - 20, 30, 40 years from now - we will be different than the way we do things now," Pelser said. "At this point in time, we see the need for books and technology services."

Centennial administrators decided this school year would be a perfect time to revamp its library, as it would be just another change for students and teachers to absorb as the sprawling campus was divided into four small schools, each with its own assistant principal, guidance counselors and academic focus.

Program offers tips, tutoring

This is a popular trend with large schools nationwide, and many school libraries are trying to adapt, said Julie Walker, executive director of the American Association of School Librarians.

"I know there are some discussions about how library services will change with the advent of the school-within-a-school concept," said Walker, whose organization includes 10,000 librarians across the country. "I don't know if there is one definitive answer to that. This is a very interesting concept. If it is well executed I think it is fine."

Centennial's problem in the past, Zychowski said, was that the large, traditional library was not working. The space was often shut down for weeks of standardized testing, or it became a holding pen for classes when a teacher was absent.

She said the number of students who just came to the library on their own for research, and especially just to read, has dwindled. Zychowski said the new space will allow her to better do her job as a librarian, freeing her up for more time to make book recommendations and possibly start a book club.

Questia , the online library, is the piece de resistance of the school's new library program, and Centennial is the first high school in the state to use the program schoolwide. Walker, of the national school librarian association, said she is interested to see how the experiment works.

"This is a great pilot for us," Superintendent Michael Lannon said. "Centennial is pretty typical of an American high school, so we'll see what can be replicated elsewhere. I don't see anything that couldn't be replicated."

The school is spending about $12,500 - about $5 a student - with teacher access free. Lannon, the president-elect of the state superintendent's association, gave a presentation about the program at a meeting of state superintendents this summer, and hopes to create a "multidistrict" consortium, possibly with Hillsborough, Volusia and Lake counties, to use the online system across the state.

The site, which students can access from anywhere with their own logon and password, allows them to find an array of books, magazines and journals, all page-for-page as the hard copies, said Centennial history teacher Rachel Padrick, who is coordinating the program for the faculty.

Students can save the books or articles they are reading into a "bookshelf" for easy reference, can select certain passages to highlight in pastel colors and search within a book for key words. The program also has tutorials for formatting essays, research tips and allows students to create bibliographies or footnotes - in a variety of formats, depending on what the teacher requests - with only a couple of clicks.

Teachers will also be able to give students assignments on the site, with links to specific articles or books, and check student papers for plagiarism by clicking on the sources or quotes cited in the bibliography.

Students find it user-friendly

"I love that it's on the cutting edge. Questia is constantly adding features," Padrick said. "This whole learning center will be phenomenal."

Next week Centennial will be testing every students' reading level, and will track their library use every month, Principal Trina Trimm said. "We want to see if student use of books and research materials have any connection to test scores," Trimm said.

Questia , originally aimed at college students, is using Centennial to tailor its software for high school students, Padrick said, adding things like online study questions, quizzes and sources more appropriate for younger or less-skilled readers.

One of Padrick's classes did a project last spring using Questia , and several of her currents students have begun using it to research projects for other classes. Junior Jordan Schumann, with less than 15 minutes of instruction, was already using the site with ease, highlighting passages from a book about breast cancer, a topic one of his medical classes had just discussed.

"Its easier than actually going to an actual library," Schumann said. "I don't like reading all that much, so it's just easier to get on the Internet so I can finish the book whenever."

Classmate Beth Whitman was also surprised with how easy it was to look up magazine articles for her science fair project on bacteria.

"At first I thought it was the most stupid idea ever," Whitman said of the online library. "I thought it would be harder than it is. It is so much easier to find everything."

Staff writer Nirvi Shah contributed to this story.

lindsay_jones@pbpost.com

Online library

St. Lucie West Centennial High School's new library will include:

- Two reading rooms, with tables for silent reading or small group work. One of the rooms includes several shelves containing fiction books, categorized by reading level. The other room will have a magazine rack.

- Several rooms (formerly guidance offices) filled with the school's collection of books, called 'the stacks.' Every computer on campus has access to a card catalog, and media clerks or student aides can retrieve books for students. Books can also be requested by teachers via e-mail and delivered to the classroom.

- Computers with Internet access to reach the school's online library, Questia . The site contains 70,000 books and 400,000 magazines and journals and tools to help students write essays and research papers. Students each have their own logon and password and can access the site from any computer that connects to the Internet.

CAPTION: Staff photos by DAVID SPENCER

1. Teacher Rachel Padrick helps coordinate the Questia online library at Centennial High School that offers students access to more than 70,000 books and 400,000 magazines and journals.

2. Media specialist Dianna Zychowski launched the plan to replace rows of tables and crowded book shelves with computer labs, and create a smaller library with a greater focus on technology.