Bowdon Elementary School Media Center Orientation

Welcome! This is the entrance the BES Media Center. It is located directly behind the main entrance to the school. No matter what time you visit, you will be sure to see many other students inside. The media center is a busy place!

Media Center General Info The media center is open from 7:45-3:30 daily. Please use a quiet, inside voice in the media center. No food or drinks are allowed in the media center.

Checking Out Books Kindergarten -2nd grade students are allowed to check out one book at a time. 3rd-5th grade students are allowed to check out two books at a time. You will use our new touch screen Self-Check Out program to check in and out books. You must have your library card to be able to check out a book.

Media Center Layout

Tables The tables are available for students to sit at when during whole class checkout’s or during skills lessons taught by the media specialist, Mrs. Duffey.

Circulation Desk If you look to the left when you enter the media center, you will see the circulation desk. You should go there to check in and out your books as well as return books after checking them in.

Media Specialist’s Office Our media specialist, Mrs. Duffey, uses her office to work on projects that are her responsibility such as the BES webpage and the yearbook.

AV Storage Room The AV Storage Room is where we keep all of the audio visual materials. This includes books on tape, overhead projectors, dvds, and cd’s.

Workroom Teachers use this room to laminate, get bulletin board paper, or use the Ellison dye cuts.

Computers There are seven computers for students to use while in the media center. Look for the Surpass Safari icon to search the library catalog.

Easy Non-Fiction Books Here you can find the lower level non-fiction books. These are especially popular with beginning readers! All of these books are Accelerated Reader.

Kindergarten Books Since kindergartners are new at checking out books, they are only allowed to check out these paperback books from August through December. After Christmas they can check out the hardback books.

Accelerated Reader Fiction Books This is one of the most popular areas in the media center. Here you will find Accelerated Reader books from levels ------ to -----------. All of these books are arranged by reading level and then within that they are organized alphabetically by the author’s last name. Look at the colored dots on the end of each shelf to see what reading level each colored dot represents.

AR Levels At the end of each shelf, you will find a sign like this that tells you which level of books is on each row.

New Books New books are located in this section here. Students are only allowed to check out one new book at a time.

Holiday Books Books for specific holidays are placed on the shelves seen here. We have separate sections for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Groundhog Day, Valentine’s Day, and St. Patrick’s Day. Look for the different colored square labels on the spine of each book.

Chapter Books Here you will find the Chapter Books. These are all fiction and most of these are AR.

Non-Fiction Here you will find books organized using the Dewey Decimal Classification system. There are nine classes and all of the non-fiction books are assigned to one of these classes. The classes are 000-099

Quilts The BES Quilting Club created all of eight of the genre quilts and the beautiful patchwork settings quilt last year. The Quilting Club consisted of students members in grades 2nd-5th, parent volunteers, community members, and quilters. We are so proud to have these beautiful and unique quilts hanging on the media center’s walls.

Reference Reference books are available for students to read in the media center however, they can not be checked out by students. They must stay in the media center.

Biographies Biographies are in a special section so that they can be easily located. They are organized by the last name of the book the person is about, not the last name of the author.

Professional Materials Only teachers may check out professional materials.

Story Area This is the reading area where Mrs. Duffey and Mrs. Gerber read books to classes. It is also where the Promethean board is located.

Good-Bye Thanks for dropping by the BES Media Center! Be sure to come back soon!!!