What's New @ the ASIJ HS Library

The HS Library staff will offer three separate library orientations for parents. Choose the session that suits you best.
November 8, 2010
9:00-11:00 AM, 1:00-3:00 PM or 7:00-9:00 PM

Learn how you and your child can access our powerful research tools

Learn the new Destiny library catalog
See all the materials you have checked out
Put holds on books
Create citations
Make and share resource lists of materials
Search vetted websites and databases, as well as books
See detailed information on books in our collections, such as reviews and tables of contents

Learn how to access and use our paid databases
Up-to-date newspaper and magazine articles from around the world
Encyclopedia articles
Science diagrams and charts
Historical timelines
Images
Primary documents and much more.

Google it!
Have fun with Google and some great new search tools.

Sign up here!

Linda Gerber
ASIJ Author Linda Gerber visited the HS yesterday and shared lunch with book club members and other interested students. Mrs. Gerber shared some information about her new book, Trance, and urged students to check their sources when they research anything. This came out of some experiences she had when researching the topics in the book.
 

College Books in the Library- Essays and Financial Aid
We have a great collection of books on the admissions process, how to write good college essays and where to find scholarships and other financial aid.
Essays and Admissions

Financial Aid and Scholarships

 
 

Spirit Day
The book sale on Spirit Day was a success as usual thanks to our many library volunteers who set things up and took shifts to sell. Our helpers included Grace Sekimitsu, Nakako Nakatsuka, Miyuki Higashi, Dawn Matus, Lim Huey Wee, Amara Wijemuni, Virginia Yamada, Misa Pinkley, Kagari Fogarty, Noriko Tanioka, Kae Sashida, Laurel Yamashita, Christine Beed, Stella Chen, Momoko Ohashi, Kelly Kimura, Matt Aizawa and Michelle Yuan. The HS Book Clubs also had a profitable day selling coffee, spiced cider, baked goods and used books.

Halloween Party
We’d like to thank all the volunteers to who baked for the Halloween party and sent in candy and other great stuff (we loved the eyeballs in jello). Huge thanks go out to those who came and spent the day frosting cupcakes, cutting up fruit and vegetables, arranging platters and making punch. The list includes Sandy Horowitz, Misa Pinkley, Julie Nelson, Lynn Klingmeyer, Keiko Marsh, Lynda Yonamine, Tina Nishida, Noriko Tanioka, Lim Huey Wee, Kaeko Kaminaga, Amara Wijemuni, Grace Sekimitsu, Kagari Fogarty, Laurel Yamashita, Mitsumi Nakagawara, & Virginia Yamada.. Please forgive us if we’ve missed anyone. We tried to keep track of all our amazing helpers. Your efforts were greatly appreciated by the students —- and if you have any doubt about that, just have a look at the photo to the right..
The kids were waiting outside the door ten deep!

For the rest of the photos go to our Flickr slideshow at

Once again, thank you so much for making this a great library and helping us make things fun for our students.

Last spring the International School Librarians of Japan invited Kevin Hennah, an Australian library design specialist, to address the group at a professional development meeting. Kevin pointed out many strategies for improving the look and flow of our libraries, including better signage, different arrangements of shelves, displaying front-facing books wherever possible, and better color schemes. As a result, many school libraries around Japan have had a facelift! Over the summer the ASIJ HS library was repainted in bright white and bitter red. The color scheme was chosen by the students. We rearranged the furniture to include front-facing books and the new look is very exciting. Click here to see for yourselves!

We’ve hit the ground running! All HS students have re-registered for Net Community logins along with their new network logins, their Blackboard logins, and their library Destiny catalog logins. We’re trying to get them to use the same username and password for everything. For the most part, it’s working.

The Net Community logins will allow them to access our paid databases from off-campus. These are very very useful when doing research because the information they get from databases is professionally vetted and edited.

All 9th grade students came to the library with their social studies classes for library orientations which included an introduction to the staff and library policies, a lesson on our library catalog, and an introduction to our many databases. We tested the logins and asked the tech staff to troubleshoot those that didn’t work.

We also visited 9th grade English classrooms to booktalk the new Sakura Medal selections. Take a look at this presentation. Some of the book trailers are very cool. This year the students who read Sakura Medal books will have a chance to vote for their favorite author, get many chances to win great prizes, such as a new iPad, AND get SAIL credit for their class (if they read and review 6 books)!

We had a very busy end of year.

In March we had visits from several authors: Jack Gantos, Vikas Swarup (the author of Q & A – Slumdog Millionaire), and Eric Walters
April brought a whole slew of events starting with a visit by James Bradley, author of Flags of our Fathers and Flyboys.
Our next event was Poetry Week, sponsored by the Poetry Club. On Monday the announcements were read in rhyme. On Tuesday we posted a huge poem in the upstairs hallway. On Wednesday we did Monster Poetry all over the library floor and on Thursday we staged a poetry invasion of the entire high school. On Friday the library hosted a lunch time Poetry Slam!

During April the HS Book Club Skyped with Australian YA author William Kostakis.

Later in the month we shifted our focus to the Sakura Medal. Ms. Hakone’s Advanced Japanese (Introduction to Literature) conducted a game (the Sakura Medal Challenge) to promote our reading program. At the end of the month, prizes were drawn and the voting commenced!

The winner of the Sakura Medal on the HS level was by David Poulsen. For a list of all the winners, click here.

In May the ASIJ libraries hosted a meeting of international school librarians and Japanese teachers from across Japan. On the first day we chose the new books for the 2011 Sakura Medal program. On the second day we had a professional development session with Australian library design expert Kevin Hennah, and Sherman Young, author of The Book is Dead.
We all left that day feeling very jazzed about rearranging and redesigning our libraries to better promote our resources and make our spaces more welcoming for the students. The HS library now has new front facing shelves, a new magazine shelf, and a new coat of paint! The students voted on the color scheme, which will be white with bitter red accents. We’re really excited about how it’s going to look when we get back in August.

The Valentine’s Day Party in the HS Library was a huge success. The next day so many students stopped library staff members in the hall to thank us for throwing them such a great party! Of course we told them it was a collaborative effort between the parent volunteers from the Friends of the Library and the library staff. So big thanks go out to Cecilia McHose, Cindy Schalow, Kagari Fogerty, Misa Pinkley, Sandy Horowitz, Catlan Brinsley, Mary Oliver, Denise Hersey, Tina Nishida, Bhawna Agarwal, Yumiko Nichols, Kelly Kimura, and Kaeko Kaminaga who baked, decorated, set things up and did crowd control. For more pictures, visit the HS Library Flickr site.

The HS library will host a Valentine’s Day party for HS students after school on Thursday, Feb, 11. If you can help out, either by baking or by coming to the library to frost cupcakes, help set up and do crowd control, please contact Friends of the Library President Cecilia McHose. Or call the HS Library.

A quick note: we were asked to contribute to the ASIJ Journal of International Education this month. Librarian Linda Hayakawa wrote about the Sakura Medal program, which is huge in all three Chofu libraries and across international schools in Japan. The article is here.

The Library worked with Japanese teacher Kaori Hakone to produce online student reviews of Japanese Sakura Medal books. Thanks to Mr. Saji for filming these sessions and converting the files to MP4. Here is one of the reviews. Click the link to see the rest.