March is a very busy month for the Hawthorne High School Library Media Center. There are a variety of displays and activities taking place, which students are encouraged to partake in!

To start off, the Library Media Center is highlighting books in a series. The aim of this display is to encourage students to follow their favorite characters from one book to another. Some of the series on display include, The Door Within Trilogy, The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings Trilogy, and The Hunger Games Trilogy.

The Library Media Center is also launching a new book recommendations system. The system uses the app QR Reader to scan aQR code, which reveals on the smartphone book recommendations written by fellow HHS students.

Additionally, the Library Media Center is continuing its display of Red Dot Specials. The Red Dot Specials are books from USA Today’s 100 Top Sellers of 2013 that are owned by our very own Library Media Center . These books can be viewed on the poster hanging on the Library Media Center’s door. Each book that has a red dot next to it is available in our library. Some of these books include Beautiful Creatures, The Hunger Games, and The Great Gatsby.

In addition to displays, the “I Read!” campaign is launching this month. As part of the campaign, posters are appearing around the school showing staff and students reading their favorite books, and there will also be bookmarks created displaying these pictures. The posters were created by John Di Lonardo’s Media Arts students. This poster campaign will continue throughout the school year, ending in May. The goal of this celebration of reading is to advocate the value of books and inspire everyone to take out books from our school library and read.

Many classes can be found this month in the Library Media Center as they learn about the new program, Turn-it-in. This program allows students and teachers to access originality reports in an attempt to educate and teach students how to avoid plagiarism. Library Media Specialist, Theresa DiGeronimo, has been giving lessons to several different classes to teach them how to use Turn-it-in. Some of these classes include Matthew Corvo’s US History I class, Chris Ward’s AP US History class, and Debbie Clark, June Murphy, and Kelly Clifford’s English classes.

Joanne Dalessio’s Anatomy and Physiology classes also took a trip to the Library Media Center to create eBook accounts, a new form of technology introduced to HHS this year. These accounts will assist students in completing assignments by using an eBook textbook.

The Library Media Center will also be in use for some important school events this March. PARCC pilot testing will be taking place in the computer labs, including the Library Media Center’s lab, from March 24-March 26.  Guidance will also be using the computer lab the week of March 17 to instruct junior students on the use of Naviance.

March is a busy month in the Library Media Center, so make sure to stop by and partake in all the displays and activities available, and make sure to participate in the March raffle for a chance to win a copy of the wildly popular novel The Da Vinci Code.