Sand Pine Elementary media center shows library has gone far beyond books

[KERI WIGINTON | Times]

Belinda Pope, head of the media center at Sand Pine Elementary, arranges the Sunshine State books on Friday.

With the increasing use of technology in education, the importance of a school's media center continues to grow. The Florida Association for Media in Education has recognized the media center at Sand Pine Elementary in Wesley Chapel as one of 26 to meet its highest standards. Media specialist Belinda Pope spoke with the Times about the award and the changing role of what the school system used to call libraries.

What is a Florida Power Library, and why did you want to have one?

Last year was the inaugural year for that process, and it all came about because of our district self-evaluation process that we have. Our school did real well on that, so the district personnel kind of challenged us to go for it. Because they knew it was coming up.

Local novelist appearance marks first for bookstore

Bookstore browsers can mingle with writers this Saturday at the new Barnes & Noble in the Shops at Wiregrass.

Guests will include Sasenarine Persaud of Cross Creek, who will be at the store from noon to 4 p.m. signing copies of In a Boston Night.

What's new at New Tampa schools

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The Book O’Ween Parade is at noon Friday (Oct. 31) at Chiles Elementary. Help the “Donate Cash… Take a splash” fundraiser for salaries for the media center aide and computer lab teacher. If the $16,000 goal is met, each student gets a snow cone.

The Book-O-Ween Parade is at 8:30 a.m. Friday (Oct. 31) at Hunter’s Green Elementary. The UNICEF fund raising drive ends Monday (Nov. 3).

The Pride Prowl Book Character Parade is Friday (Oct. 31) at Pride Elementary. Volunteers are needed to help at the Fall Festival from 1-5 p.m. Nov. 15.

The Book-O-Ween festival is at 8:30 a.m. Friday (Oct. 31) at Turner Elementary.

-- Jared Leone, Times staff writer

Turner Elementary media center opens

Turner Elementary's Media Center opened last week. Mrs. Toselli's first-grade class, with the highest PTA membership, was the first class to check out books. We've got more pictures below. Thanks, Rachel!

County could name library for Carol Poland

A suggestion to name the New Tampa Library for longtime Hunter's Green activist Carol Poland has gotten a boost from the Hillsborough County Commission.

Commissioners voted unanimously Aug. 20 to ask the county's Library Board to consider the idea, requested by the New Tampa Community Council, and for county LIbrary Services Director Joe Stines to report back on Sept. 17.

Poland is a founding member and a former board member of the community council, the founder of New Tampa's first Neighborhood Watch and a founding member of the Friends of the New Tampa Library.

Poland, a former chief executive of a credit union in New Hampshire, built her community's National Night Out Anticrime Fair and Health and Safety Expo into huge events drawing thousands of people and is known for tirelessly lobbying police, fire officials, local politicians, the media and anyone she could think of to help protect New Tampa from the bad guys.

In its request to the county, the community council noted that no public facility has been named for a New Tampa resident. Naming the library for Poland, members felt, was a good place to start.

New library plan would hurt in Meadow Pointe

By Lisa Buie

MEADOW POINTE -- You’d think the title would have been easy to find in the Pasco County Library System. The book, Doubts About Darwin, was written by Thomas Woodward, a national expert in the intelligent design movement and a professor at Pasco’s own Trinity College. I was working on a profile of Dr. Woodward for the St. Petersburg Times and wanted to do my homework.

Pasco’s library system did not have a single copy. Not because they were all checked out but because the system simply didn’t carry the book.

The Hillsborough County Library System did. I checked it out from the Temple Terrace branch as part of Pasco’s and Hillsborough’s reciprocal borrowing program. All I had to do was show my Pasco library card. I did that a couple more times when I searched for personal books Pasco did not have.
It appears those days will soon be over.

The Tampa-Hillsborough Public Library Board has recommended that Hillsborough County withdraw from the arrangement because its north Hillsborough libraries are devoting so much staff time to serving Pasco County residents.

Under Hillsborough’s proposal, folks like me would have to pay $100 for the privilege of checking out books straight off Hillsborough shelves.

The statistics were staggering: For every two Pasco books checked out by a Hillsborough County resident, Pasco residents checked out more than 200 Hillsborough books. Overall figures show Pasco residents borrowed the most books from other libraries than any other Tampa Bay area county.

Linda Allen was not surprised. The director of Pasco’s award winning library system knows it’s good, but woefully inadequate.

Libraries might honor county border

For 12 years, public libraries around Tampa Bay have proudly served borrowers from neighboring counties for free. Now the cooperation may be breaking down.

The Tampa-Hillsborough Public Library Board has recommended that Hillsborough County withdraw from the arrangement because its north Hillsborough libraries are devoting so much staff time to serving Pasco County residents.

Those residents account for one-fourth of the materials borrowed from the Lutz Branch Library, one-tenth from Odessa's Austin Davis Library and more than one-sixth from the New Tampa Regional Library, the second busiest Hillsborough library.

Hillsborough's decision would seal off its books, CDs and DVDs to all non-Hillsborough residents. They could use Hills­borough libraries but could borrow materials only by ordering them through their home-county libraries or by paying Hillsborough an annual $100 nonresident fee.

"I'm sorry to hear that," said Linda Allen, Pasco County's director of libraries. "But if I were in the similar position, I would make the same decision."

In the fiscal year that ended in September, Hillsborough residents borrowed 2,180 items from Pasco libraries while Pasco residents borrowed 260,286 items from Hillsborough libraries.

Librarians have expressed pride in the widespread system of sharing among bay area counties.

How sweet it is

The Friends of the New Tampa Regional Library are planning their second annual Chocolate Extravaganza – a “Chocolate Thank You” for Friends and patrons of the New Tampa Library, on Sunday, June 1, from 2-4 pm at the library at 10001 Cross Creek Blvd.
 
The Chocolate Extravaganza, which is free and open to all, will feature samples of various chocolates, a chocolate fountain, and chocolate lollipops for kids. Friends president Gary Gunter promises thousands of chocolates will be given out.
 
Soleil Chocolates of New Tampa is a major sponsor. Circles New Tampa Bistro will have a chocolate fountain. Sponsors also include Sweetbay Supermarket, Karen Tillman-Gosselin of Keller Williams Realty, and Kauffman Tires and Central Bank, which will provide a “Giant Mystery Jar” of M & M's. (Win 'em all by guessing how many are in the jar.) Other high points: A performance by Buco the Clown and a drawing to win a Nintendo Wii.
   
Last years Chocolate Extravaganza drew almost 1,000 people, Gunter said. For more information call (813) 732-4203 or email gary@garygunter.com .
 

Romance novelist comes to Tampa Palms

The Northwest Newcomers welcome best-selling author Karen Rose to their May  luncheon, 11 a.m. on Thursday May 15, at the Tampa Palms Golf and Country Club. Cost is $20. Rose will share some of her secrets for writing romantic suspense novels. Her debut novel was released in 2003 and her seventh novel, Die For Me, was a New York Times and USA Today bestseller. RSVP please at (813) 412-4716. 

Bluford buzz?

Rachel Berenguer didn't care for reading much. It simply didn't hold her interest. Then the Weightman Middle School eighth-grader picked up one of the books in the Bluford High series. Not by her own choice, mind you. She was enrolled in the school's intensive reading program for low performing readers, and school reading coach Ann Shanks told the students to read at least one of the 13 titles.

One of Shanks' past students boosted his FCAT reading score from Level 1 (the lowest) to Level 3 (grade proficient) using the Bluford books, and she figured others might replicate his success. Rachel agreed to try, along with nearly 100 other students. And the books were a hit. "I read all the books," she said. "I think they're really good. They have good meanings, like about teenage life and what teenagers go through."

Borrowing an idea from Liberty Middle School, Pasco's Weightman launched a "battle of the books" for the kids in intensive reading. Students warmed to the idea immediately. "In other intensive reading classes, you just sit around and do work," said Zachary Shearl, 14. "In this, you can have fun and interact with other kids."