December - Time to nominate next year's Flume titles!

Wow! It's time to update the library news. We have lots of new titles that have just arrived - come by and check them out!

From now until January 15th, we will be taking nominations for the 2011 NH Flume Teen Choice Award list. Please consider any great books you have read that were published from 2007-2009. If the book is part of a series, it must be able to stand on its own (meaning you don't have to read the previous books in the series to understand the story). Paper nomination forms are in the library, or you can nominate a title online.

Page Turners book club meets today, in the library, during both high school lunches.

Celebrate Teen Read Week

Teen Read Week is here. The theme is, "Read Beyond Reality." We will be reading as a school for the first 15 minutes of block 4 on Tuesday and Wednesday, and the first 15 minutes of block 2 on Thursday and Friday. Thanks for your participation! Also, if you would like to vote for next year's theme, please visit the online voting site at the Young Adult Library Services Association.

Remember, if you check out a book at the library this week, you are entered in our drawing for Borders Gift Cards. Enjoy!

Welcome Back!

It's hard to believe that this is our 4th week of school. The library is in full swing now, with special displays for the Isinglass and Flume 2009-2010 titles. We also have a display of staff favorites - come in and take a look at what your teachers' favorites are!

The Page Turners had their first meeting last Thursday. If you missed that meeting, please come join us for the next one. Look for the yellow signs in the hallways advertising the next meeting date.

Finally, when it's time for you to do an Internet search, try using Goodsearch. This search engine is powered by Yahoo, and after you select Hopkinton School District as your charity of choice, every search you complete gives the School District 1 cent. It's free money!

Enjoy this beautiful weather.

Summer is here...

This is the last day of finals, and school ends tomorrow. What is on your summer reading list? If you need some ideas, check out the 2009/2010 Isinglass Teen Read Award nominees for grades 7 & 8, or the 2010 NH Flume Award nominees for grades 9-12. Feel free to ask us if you want some suggestions!

By the way, the 2009 NH Flume Award winner was Nineteen Minutes, by Jodi Picoult. This title was also the winner for our school.

Have a great summer, happy reading, and we'll see you in September.

And the winner is...

The Isinglass Award winning title for 2009 is...Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie by Jordan Sonnenblick.


Here at Hopkinton Middle High School, we had a three-way tie between:

Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie by Jordan Sonnenblick

Elephant Run by Roland Smith

Shark Girl by Kelly Bingham

Thanks to everyone who voted.

The Flume results should be announced shortly, so stay tuned!

Isinglass and Flume voting time!

Just a quick reminder to vote this week for your favorite Isinglass book or Flume book. We are collecting votes in the library through Friday, May 1st. You can also vote for your favorite Flume book online.

Also, Thursday, April 30th, is "Poem in Your Pocket" day. The idea behind this day is to carry a poem with you and share it with someone at some point in the day. Check out the Academy of American Poets' website for more information. We have poems in the library for you to choose from, or pick your own!

New eBooks in the Library!

We have just added 20 eBooks to our collection. These books cover a wide variety of subject areas, and can be accessed 24/7 from anywhere you have internet access. From the library homepage, simply click on Gale Virtual Reference, and once you are on the virtual reference page, you can place your search term in the search box and all 20 eBooks will be searched. Another option is to click on "show all," and then click on the specific title of the book you are interested in searching. If you click on the eBook index, the pages are hyperlinked from that location. If you logon to the eBook site outside of school, you will need a password (see the librarians for password info.).

Some examples of the reference books available online include: American Decades and American Decades Primary Sources (2oth century U.S. history), World Eras, Major Acts of Congress, World War I, World War II, America at War, Colonial America, Middle Ages, American Social Reform Movements, Student Animal Life Encyclopedia, and Bowling, Beatniks, and Bell Bottoms: Pop Culture of 20th Century America.

Take a look and please come see us if you have any questions.

Isinglass and Flume Voting Times Are Almost Here

This month, we will be finishing up our podcast series on the Isinglass Award nominated titles for this year. Voting for both this award and the Flume Award will take place in April. To listen to an Isinglass book podcast, click on "Isinglass Booktalks" on the left hand side of the library homepage.

For those Hopkinton Middle/High School teachers who are reading this, check out the teacher wiki (only available inside the school) for "websites of the week," URLs of interest that may be helpful, too!

Finally, starting this month, we will become a "bookcrossing.com" site. We will have a cart of books in the library, free for the taking, and each book will have a Bookcrossing ID number listed on the inside of the front cover. The idea is that after you read the book, you visit the bookcrossing.com site, plug in the book's ID number, and journal a brief entry about the book (anonymous - no registration required). After that, you are free to pass on the book by leaving it in another location for someone else to find. Please see the library staff for more details on this fun program, and look for the book cart to browse for free books!

End of Semester One - Already!

It's hard to believe that semester one for this school year is just about done. Semester two starts tomorrow, January 28, 2009, as a Day 1.

Look for lots of new books in the library, as we just finished placing an order. Many of the books we ordered were teacher and student requests. Some of the titles include Chains by L.H. Anderson, I Am Scout: The Biography of Harper Lee, Scat by Carl Hiaasen, and The Dead and the Gone, by Susan Beth Pfeffer.

If you have any feedback about our new online catalog, we'd love to hear it!

New Library Catalog

Over the past few weeks, we have been transitioning from our old library software, Spectrum, to our new software, Destiny. Our new software is web-based, so students, staff, and community members can search for materials from any computer that has internet access. Please take a look:

New Hopkinton Middle/High School Library Catalog

On the left hand side of the page, you can also select a search option titled, Destiny Quest. This is a more visual library search interface.

We are excited about this transition and we would love to hear from you regarding your experiences with this new software. Happy New Year!