Library News

All Teachers, Students, Staff and Administrators

Please take the annual Library Service Quality survey to help the library improve! 

It's quick. It's anonymous.

$25 Raffle Prizes!

The survey closes January 30th. Our goal is to have ALL teachers, students, staff and administrators complete the survey so that we get actionable data to make improvements for everyone and focus our energies on new services. 

CVHS Library celebrates Black History Month this year focussed on the 2025 ASALH's national heritage theme: African Americans and Labor. 

Visit the library to learn more about the many contributions black and African Americans make in our historical and modern day workforce. 

Afro-Latino Authors

CVHS Library also celebrates Afro-Latino Authors with an intersectional book display, created in collaboration with Ms. Christensen's Advanced Spanish for Heritage Speakers course. In preparation for the display, which will appear mid-February and remain in the library until the end of the month, students research an Afro-Latino author or changemaker, read one of their books, and create a bilingual book display to encourage more students to explore titles and authors that bring a unique perspective to literature and our world. Titles and authors are selected in many genres representative of the scope of contributions Afro-Latinos make to our literary heritage and country. 

The CVHS Bring Change to Mind (BC2M) celebrates Seasons of Service at the library January 20-24 with a book display of YA novels that reflect, explore or celebrate some aspect of mental health. 

Visit the library to browse. Check out a book that might move you! Explore an aspect of the mind you didn't know about before.

Stop by the Library on Monday for free books! Bring your book bags! The library is making space for new books. Come take a look at our withdrawn books. Take as many as you'd like. 

CVHS students, teachers and staff now have access to current editions of the New York Times while on the high school campus, compliments of CVHS Library. 

Visit the library website for access to the New York Times (Current Edition) via the Databases A-Z or News Resources.

Knowledge for class. Knowledge for life.

Whether you are prepping course materials or planning for the weekend ahead, discover original, quality journalism that helps you
understand the world — and make the most of every part of life. 

• Connect to school Wifi and begin reading today.
• No user names. No passwords.

About our institutional subscription

All CVHS users have access to 

• New York Times U.S., Spanish, Canadian, Chinese and International editions.
• Current issues via direct institutional subscription with New York Times
• World, Business, Arts, LifeStyle and Opinion sections, NY Times Magazine and Interactive articles
• Does not include Games or Cooking

For older issues, citation management tools, and to download articles, use Proquest. Links to the New York Times via Proquest are on the library website.

Seek the truth. Find new perspectives. Inform your conversations on current topics!
 

This year has been a year of putting infrastructure in place for a modern library media center, with significant improvements to the library's teaching and learning environment. 

CVHS Library programs engaged students in civil society and heritage celebrations:

• Get out the Vote. The Alameda County Registrar of Voters and Library partnered to provide first-time voters trusted, non-partisan information.
• Hispanic American Heritage Month. A cross-disciplinary collaboration between the library, Advanced Spanish classes and Ceramics classes resulted in a lovely Day of the Dead Altar at the library. Inspired by student research , created by student artists.
• Native American, Indigenous, First Nations Heritage Month. An informative display of the Klamath River Dam demolition in Northern California and Southern Oregon inspired students to learn about the power of youth activism and benefits of devolution of land administration to native american communities.

The new Friends of the Library program invites volunteers and donors to support the library.

Districtwide professional development for all library staff included training in Collection Development Policies, Freedom to Read, and the American Library Association's Bill of Rights. Staff became familiar with National and State Standards for school libraries and identified priorities for districtwide action. A top priority for library staff is exploring a Collection Development Policy for all libraries to guide selection and deselection. Governor Gavin Newsom signed the California Freedom to Read Act into law, providing greater impetus for our libraries to develop a Collection Development Policy.

New Books and Grants for non-Fiction Books made important improvements to the library's fiction and non-fiction collections. The library will continue to improve its STEAM collections in 2025 and refresh our contemporary fiction including authentic literature in English, Spanish, Mandarin and other languages.

The High School Library Assistant Course has been aligned with CTE and NACE standards. Curriculum Development for Student Lead Library Services places greater ownership of the library, its operations and success in the hands of students. Students learn real-world transferable skills to secure future college and career jobs in information management, businesses and cultural heritage institutions.

Digital subject guides are under development for all high school subjects. Library guides provide teachers and students access to excellent information resources to expand their knowledge.

Digital library infrastructure improvements have stabilized and improved student and teacher access to content. Library databases, the NoodleTools Citation manager and the Destiny Library Management System (LMS) have transitioned to Google Single-Sign On. A self-checkout station was enabled for high school students. CVHS Library acquired industry-standard Springshare software over the summer to support the integration of publisher content, the Library Management System, scheduling and blog software to provide the foundation for a public-facing 24/7 digital library. An A-Z list of databases provides clear, predictable access to databases. In the new year, continued work with IT and library staff district wide will improve student and teacher access to the library catalogs and communication infrastructure.

CVHS Library wishes all students, teachers, staff, volunteers and families a peaceful winter break! 

As we look forward to the new year, please join us for renewed fun in the library with:

• Volunteer and Donation opportunities for parents and families. Help us build our collections and services for our students!
• Help us support your child's academic skills by having them register for an Alameda County Public Library eCard. We will teach them in classes how to use the electronic resources (databases) to do research.
• Celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Lunar New Year, Black History Month, Blind Date with a Book and more. 
• Teacher lunches hosted by the Wellness Center
• Athena's Cooperative Cafe. Hot tea, coffee and chocolate with contributions from our community. Bring a reusable mug with lid.
• Word Wise Vocabulary builder. Students can build their academic vocabulary with short practice exercises and then self-test their knowledge. No grades. No stress. Just words.
• Research and writing support as students write research papers in the next semester.
• New policies: a districtwide task force is preparing a Collection Development Policy for our school libraries in compliance with the California Freedom to Read Act which becomes law in January 2025. Read more in our previous announcement.
• New books. Book purchasing for the library (also known as Collection Development) happens over the winter and new books arrive in February/March.

CVHS Library student assistants and staff completed the inventory of Non-Fiction collections the week before finals. 

CVHS Library holds more than 5,700 non-fiction titles valued at $190K and has kept its loss rate down to well below 1% (36 titles.) 

Students in the Library Assistant Course learned real-world work skills as they scanned the library collections, reviewed inventory reports and prepare post-inventory valuation reports. They learned about the theory and practice of “taking inventory” in a business or cultural heritage institution and put that into action at the library. The Library Assistant Course is an elective course where students learn transferable work skills beyond the library.

Also this year, in terms of inventory management, the library is experimenting with conducting two, partial inventories, rather than one week-long inventory, to minimize disruption during finals and reduce closure time during the school year from five days to four.  The library also continues to pilot a no-fines policy consistent with others in the state and is monitoring loss/returns, management overhead, and improved student readership.

All staff, please collaborate with the library to ensure it remains an open, vibrant, safe and welcoming environment. Please send students with paper passes during class periods. Students without a paper pass will be sent back. Please also instruct students to sign in on paper and electronically via QR code.  

The paper sign-in coupled with teachers' paper passes provide administrators the records they need, while the electronic sign-in provides counselors and administrators real-time data about a student's location on campus. Minimal student data is collected: ID, name, time/date and purpose (limited to: CVVA, ROP, printing, book check-out, other.)

During any given period, the library can have multiple students from multiple programs and departments from any of our population of 3,000 students, in undifferentiated spaces. The library and administration have been exploring policy and low cost technology solutions including library-specific lanyards for teachers or Teachmore library passes to balance the need for 

• real-time data for counselors about a student's location on campus 
• easily distinguishable and visually identifiable ROP and CVVA students 
• student privacy 
• appropriately assigned teacher & librarian accountability
• lowest cost solutions 

This is a work in process. We appreciate your collaboration!

If you need to send more than five students to the library during a period, please schedule an instruction appointment with Ms. Stambaugh and schedule instruction sessions so that your students can have undivided attention and learn information skills. Scheduling options are available on the library website under “Teacher” services in the hamburger menu.

Any single student sent to the library for more than 20 minutes should come with assigned work prepared by a teacher or counselor. Students will be returned to their classes if not using the library as a privilege, for research, study, free reading or class projects.

On September 29, 2024, Governor Gavin Newsom signed the “California Freedom To Read Act” into law which provides greater protections for all public and school libraries, librarians, and library staff when books are challenged. The law also requires that all public and school libraries adopt a collection development policy and reconsideration policy by January 2026. 

The California Freedom to Read Act goes into effect in January 2025 and provides a one-year window of time to prepare and adopt policy. 

For more information, Assembly Bill 1825 includes the new provisions that will be written into the California Education Code pertaining to libraries.

CVUSD librarians and Education Services have started the planning process for creating a collection development policy with broad engagement. More news will be posted throughout the year.  CVHS high school staff and stakeholders will be included in the process.

Questions may be directed to the district Teacher-Librarian, Emily Stambaugh.