The following list of websites are of value for school librarians. Check them out!

THE BIG FOUR

• American Association of School Librarians. The American Library Association's division for school librarians. See here for the latest professional news and tools.

• NC Wise Owl. North Carolina's Department of Public Instruction site for teachers, librarians, parents and students. Contains subscription resources plus specialized support for school librarians under the "Media/Technology Zone."

• Learn NC. UNC's teacher network providing lessons plans, articles, a link to NC's Standard Course of Study and many other resources.

• NCSLMA - North Carolina School Library Media Association. The state association, affiliated with AASL, provides information about the annual state conference plus various awards and grants. Go to the site to subscribe to the NCSLMA listserv.

OTHER USEFUL SITES

• Public Education Network (PEN).
  A fine source of current education news. Consider subscribing to their weekly email newsletter, NewsBlast. A companion weekly news source comes from ASCD, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. The ASCD SmartBrief requires a sign-up but is free. A sample newsbrief is available to example at the sign-up page. Both sources provide quick summaries of the top national educational news.

• Banned Books Week site
  Every September the library field celebrates the freedom to read through Banned Books week. This site is by columnist Barbara Feldman and includes website links to highly challenged books. ALA has a sites as well (www.ala.org/bbooks) but it's slow to load.

• Certification Requirements for 50 States
  The University of Kentucky is attempting to connect to certification requirements for each site. Not all states have information in web form but most do. North Carolina's certification information is available from the NC Department of Public Instruction -- www.dpi.state.nc.us select "Employment" and then "Licensure and Teacher Education."
  
  
• Wake County Public School System
  A well designed website with links to schools, most of which have school library media pages. Three other local school systems may be found at Durham Public Schools, Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools, Chatham County Schools. Various downloadable/printable listings of schools, superintendents, DPI staff may be found at North Carolina's Education Directory.

• Springfield Township [PA] High School Virtual Library and University [of Illinois] Laboratory High School Library
  Here are two fine examples of high school library websites. The first uses a site map and has been created and maintained by Joyce Valenza, author of many books for school librarians, notably Power Tools. The second site uses a more conventional approach to provide entree to useful information. You will find many other useful models for websites as you search. Peter Milbury, Dave Loertscher and Blanche Woolls sponsor a website called School Libraries.Net, a collection of web pages created or maintained by school librarians from the U.S. and many other countries.

If you find another relevant site of interest to school librarians, please send it to Evelyn Daniel and we'll post it here.

Revised 8/28/2006