LIBRARY
A robust school library supports a positive whole community of students and teachers by providing access to current, relevant, and diverse print and digital resources.
The lower school library curriculum and standards are grounded in inquiry, innovative leadership, and the growth of strong literacy skills to increase student achievement and the genesis of informed and active globally-minded citizens.
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Our collection is curated with the highest standards and to constantly maintain and deselect items that are no longer relevant or circulating. Our selection encompasses diverse, equitable, and inclusive works, authors, and characters in our fiction, non-fiction, biographies, and digital resources
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To access Destiny, our library catalog, please select "Library Catalog". If you have a request for a material that is not currently in our collection, please email me.
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If you would like to know more about our library, please click on the library handbook button to learn about policies and procedures.
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SCHOOL LIBRARIES ARE THE HEART OF TRANSFORMATION
The school library’s physical and digital spaces provide equitable access to information for our entire learning community
Discover the many ways that school libraries and school librarians stand at the heart of transformation as learners become thinkers, explorers, collaborators, and inventors preparing for college, career, and life.
STANDARDS
AASL Framework For Learners
Our lower school library at St Mary's Academy works to interlink our collection and curriculum with the Nationally endorsed AASL Framework for Learners.  The American Association of School Libraries (AASL) has created a researched-based framework that reflects a comprehensive approach to teaching and learning by demonstrating the connection between learner, librarian, and library standards. Each section of the standards framework was designed to reflect the others, ensuring that standards-related activities would be mutually reinforcing, simultaneously building capacity among learners, school librarians, and the school library
COMMON BELIEFS
From the AASL Standards Framework for Learners
`1 THE SCHOOL LIBRARY IS A UNIQUE AND ESSENTIAL PART OF A LEARNING COMMUNITY
As a destination for on-site and virtual personalized learning, the school library is a vital connection between school and home. As the leader of this space and its functions, the school librarian ensures that the school library environment provides all members of the school community access to information and technology, connecting learning to real-world events. By providing access to an array of well-managed resources, school librarians enable academic knowledge to be linked to deep understanding.
2. QUALIFIED SCHOOL LIBRARIANS LEAD EFFECTIVE SCHOOL LIBRARIES.
As they guide organizational and personal change, effective school librarians model, promote, and foster inquiry learning in adequately staffed and resourced school libraries. Qualified school librarians have been educated and certified to perform interlinked, interdisciplinary, and cross-cutting roles as instructional leaders, program administrators, educators, collaborative partners, and information specialists.
3. LEARNERS SHOULD BE PREPARED FOR COLLEGE, CAREER, AND LIFE.
Committed to inclusion and equity, effective school librarians use evidence to determine what works, for whom and under what conditions for each learner; complemented by community engagement and innovative leadership, school librarians improve all learners’ opportunities for success. This success empowers learners to persist in inquiry, advanced study, enriching professional work, and community participation through continuous improvement within and beyond the school building and school day.
4. READING IS THE CORE OF PERSONAL AND ACADEMIC COMPETENCY.
In the school library, learners engage with relevant information resources and digital learning opportunities in a culture of reading. School librarians initiate and elevate motivational reading initiatives by using story and personal narrative to engage learners. School librarians curate current digital and print materials and technology to provide access to high-quality reading materials that encourage learners, educators, and families to become lifelong learners and readers.
5. INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM IS EVERY LEARNER’S RIGHT.
Learners have the freedom to speak and hear what others have to say, rather than allowing others to control their access to ideas and information; the school librarian’s responsibility is to develop these dispositions in learners, educators, and all other members of the learning community.
6. INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES MUST BE APPROPRIATELY INTEGRATED AND EQUITABLY AVAILABLE.
Although information technology is woven into almost every aspect of learning and life, not every learner and educator has equitable access to up-to-date, appropriate technology and connectivity. An effective school library bridges digital and socioeconomic divides to affect information technology access and skill
SHARED FOUNDATIONS
Discovery and Learning
The AASL Standards Framework is anchored by six Shared Foundations—Inquire, Include, Collaborate, Curate, Explore, and Engage—which highlight the standards’ core educational concepts.
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Each Shared Foundation is elaborated by three to five Competencies for each learning category or Domain: Think (cognitive), Create (psychomotor), Share (affective), and Grow (developmental). The Competencies are measurable statements describing the knowledge, skills, and dispositions essential for learners and school librarians.
CURRICULUM
LEADERSHIP
Students gain purpose driven practice while engaging with the library curriculum. From collaboration, group projects, presentation, and assessments, students are given opportunities to demonstrate intentional and problem based learning in genre-study, roles in robotics units, source finding, resource curation, and interest discovery. In the library, students practice roles including scanning in and out books, shelving, and acting Library Assistants, book fair helpers, and engage in a variety of extra activities throughout the year such as author visits, reading challenges, and riddles to engage their interest and a love of learning.
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AASL Standards: Engage, Collaborate, Explore
SOCIAL JUSTICE
Social Justice is a core component of a functioning democracy and key for our students to become powerful agents of change. Our collection is curated to reflect a diverse and enriching selection of materials, and students ask deeply critical questions about the world. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity are reflected in our curriculum and our values, and we are constantly striving to improve our practice in these areas. Students complete an in-depth African American History Research Project, encounter special guests visits to learn about accessibility (Ms. Dorlyn and Guide Dogs for The Blind) work on the development of empathy through story and design, and challenge gender stereotypes with lessons such as this year's revealing "Draw a Computer Scientist" unit. Design Thinking in the Inspiration Lab is confronting local to global social and environmental justice issues as students tackle problems like climate change, plastic in the oceans, homelessness, poverty, recycling and sustainability.
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AASL Standards: Share, Include
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CHANGE
Growth is change, and the school library is essential in the growth of strong literacy skills. Students develop vocabulary and fluency, reinforce classroom curriculum studies, and listen to increasingly complex texts in a community setting. , and experience fluent reading in a . Students practice predicting, analyzing, and digging deeper in class.
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Students study change in plot analysis, meaning making, genre study, conflict, and plot in story to drive resolution. Empathy comes into play yet again as students transform perspectives with "window" books, in which students see the world in new ways through different eyes, and "mirror" books, in which students see themselves and their own stories represented.
Each book we read, each story we tell is a reflection of who we are as beings of change and what we can do to change our worlds, be it something small to have agency in our own lives or something large enough to change the world in which we live.
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AASL Standards: Think, Grow, Create, Curate
​​“Fiction... build[s] empathy... you, and you alone, using your imagination, create a world and people it and look out through other eyes... You learn that everyone else out there is a me, as well. You’re being someone else, and when you return to your own world, you’re going to be slightly changed… You’re also finding out something as you read vitally important for making your way in the world. And it’s this: The world doesn’t have to be like this. Things can be different.
Neil Gaiman
