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Thursday, March 13, 2008

Roosevelt Wins Top Library Award

By Lee Ross
Mountain View Telegraph
    Roosevelt Middle School has one of the top libraries in the state, according to the New Mexico Library Association.
    The library will be honored at an awards banquet in Los Cruces in April for being the top library in all the state's middle schools.
    "I'm really pleased we got the award," said Linda Kuelen, Roosevelt's librarian.
    A part of the library's success is because Kuelen and her assistant, Susie Gray, know the library's 21,000 books quite well, Kuelen said.
    Gray is a part-time educational assistant, but Kuelen said "she packs more work into five hours than most people do in 10."
    Kuelen said she and Gray work to discover the children's interests and match them with the books in their collection.
    "When (students) say, 'I don't like to read,' then that is a challenge," she said. "We talk to kids all day long ... we do not leave. Every minute kids are on campus our library is open."
    Also a certified teacher, Kuelen designs lesson plans with other teachers. She is working with one class to follow the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Alaska that covers more than 1,000 miles.
    "We're not just people who sit here and scan out books all day," she said.
    The library is decorated with posters done for a study of South America as well as "book autopsies" done by students.
    "We had kids trace the outline of a body and relate different parts of the book to the body," Keulen said.
    For example, if a character was thinking about something, that would be placed near the head. If he or she was feeling something, a note would be made near the heart.
    For some of Kuelen's lesson plans, students use the library's 23 computers to do research. There also is a projector that connects to Kuelen's computer, so students can follow along with what she does during exercises.
    She added that students often come to the library outside of class. At the time she was being interviewed, 45 students were using part of their lunch break to hang out in the library, Kuelen said.
    The library has bright red doors and a comfortable seating area with stuffed animals for company as the kids read.
    There are also plants hanging in the high ceiling of the room.
    Kuelen lets students put their feet on or even sit on the coffee table.
    "It doesn't look like the public library," she said. "It's just an awesome place to be."