In addition to this, library books often have a call number label. At IST our call numbers are at the bottom of the spine. The call number has two or more lines. The first line or lines indicate the location in which the book can be found. The last line indicates the first three letters of the author’s last name.

Our library books are either fiction or non-fiction. The call numbers for the fiction books have E, ELE E or F on the first line for “picture books”, “elementary fiction” and “general fiction” respectively.

Call numbers for non-fiction books have a 3-digit number on the first line. This 3-digit number is for the Dewey Decimal Classification System and it organizes non-fiction books under different subject categories. For example, the 800′s section is for literature and the 900′s section is for history and geography. Students at IST are taught how to locate books using the Dewey system from grade 1. If you would like to learn more about it, come see us in the library.

Once you have found the section of the library where your book is located, you need to look at the last line of the call number. This is the first three letters of the author’s last name. Within a location, books are ordered alphabetically by author. In this way, for example, a graphic novel by Neil Gaiman would  be found in the 741.5 shelves after the authors whose names start with F and before the ones whose names start with H.

We sometimes add a bit more information on the spine with colored stickers.

• New in 2011-2012 – white
• Early readers – red
• Easy readers for middle school – orange
• Wordless books – purple
• Mature topics – dark blue

Here’s a diagram to bring it all together. I prepared this for our wonderful volunteers who help us put books back on the shelves, but I thought that it might be of use to all of our patrons.

Sometimes we have more than two lines on the call number stickers, for example, for our books in languages other than English. Those books, in addition to having the same two lines that other fiction and non-fiction books have, may also have first a line with the letters WL to indicate World Languages and will have a line with the first three letters of a language’s name in English: CHI, KOR, FRE, GER, DAN. Under those two lines will come the rest of the call number as described above.

There you have it, how to read the spine of a library book at IST. Next time you check out a library book, take a moment to look at all the information we manage to put on its spine. We’re remarkable, us librarians.

 Source for the first photo:

Fiction Books. Photography. Encyclopædia Britannica Image Quest. Web. 17 Feb 2012. http://quest.eb.com/images/132_1250711

If you would like to download and print out this A4 size announcement, click here for the pdf file.

Panda Announcement 2011

The selected title for March is Out of Shadows, by Jason Wallace. It  is the story of an English boy who arrives in Zimbabwe shortly after that country has gone through a revolution that overthrew a white minority-controlled goverment. Click here for reviews of the book.

This promises to be a very interesting read as the book’s themes are bigotry, racism, shame and the struggle for multiculturalism.

Our first meeting was a lot of fun, and we hope that you will join us to help make our book club a vibrant occasion for book lovers.

Here is a brief biography from Oxford Reference Online (username: istianjin/password: welcome):

Here is a link to a New York Times slide show of Salgado’s work.

Lose weight and eat more healthfully/help my family eat more healthfully.

The IST library has a varied collection of healthy cookbooks for beginning to advanced cooks. Browse our 641.5 section for recipes to start a “Kids Turn to Cook” night at home or try out with friends. Don’t forget to bring us a sample!

Exercise more.

The 613 and 790 sections of the library have lots of titles on fitness and the different sports. Find a buddy to help you stay committed and come together to the library to find exercise resources. Remember, the important thing is to keep it fun.

Get out and do more in Tianjin.

We have several useful links for you on the library OPAC. (Links to the OPAC from home and school are found on the top left sidebar of this page.)

Click on the Visual tab,

 and then on  Local Events for links to online magazines for Beijing and Tianjin expats.

Stay in touch with current events/Help my child(ren) stay in touch with current events.

We have collected online newspapers for children on the library OPAC. From the Visual tab (shown above), click on Current Events-Many Languages. You will find links to online newspapers in seven different languages: English, Chinese, Korean, French, German, Danish, and Portuguese. Need more advanced news reports? Ask the librarians to show you how to access the Newsbank online database.

Learn/practice a foreign language.

Log in to the library OPAC to access the PowerSpeak Language database. We offer this language learning feature thanks to the IST World Languages department who fund it for the school community. You will need your library account login information to access PowerSpeak.  Parents are welcome to request a library account at the circulation desk.

Read more fiction/non-fiction.

With over 30,000 titles in six different languages, we can certainly help you get a great deal of reading material. Here are some ideas:

• Come to the library often. All students and teachers have library cards held for them at the library. Parents can request a library account at the circulation desk.
• Challenge yourself to read all of the Newbery Award winners (or the Man Booker Prize or all of the Panda Books for the year or any other literary prize. We make a big effort to include award winners from different parts of the world in our library collection.)
• Set a number goal, e.g., 50 books this year.
• Find a buddy to discuss your book choices with.
• Join our book club. We’re starting in January with Girl in Translation, by Jean Kwok. See the left sidebar for online registration information or talk to a librarian.
• Start a book review blog, on your own or with a friend.
• Purchase books at our book fairs or through the Scholastic Book Club offerings. Do you need to purchase a specific title? Ask us and we may be able to help you find it.
• Pick up an IST bookmark at the library. It has useful links for you to get the most out of the library online resources.
• Ask us for reading recommendations. We love to talk about books!

Make the library part of my daily or weekly routine.

We’re here to help you. Visit us at anytime for book recommendations, help with research, information literacy tutoring or just to chat about our good fortune in having access to such a wonderful library.

Last tip for a great 2012: Come to the library to get a library account if you don’t have one and subscribe to this blog so you do not miss on any IST library news. (Scroll down the right sidebar for the subscription button.)

Both books were performed at the last Library Club session this week, with the IST TAs as audience. The students had been given an oral performance rubric to help focus them and they all did wonderfully. The audience was greatly entertained and the students had lots of fun acting out Fly Guy’s antics.

Next up for the g2/3 Library Club? Reading and dramatizing The Shelf Elf  by Jackie Hopkins, a picture book about a shoemaker’s elf who learns to take care of library books. This book will also serve as a chance to practice locating and shelving of library books. Also in the plans for the club will be writing haiku poetry, inspired by the book Guyku: A Year of Haiku for Boys by Bob Razca.

P.S. Please let us know in the comments if the links we’ve included to the books work. Thank you.

Our first book will be Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok. This is the story of a Chinese American girl who is an excellent student during the day and a sweatshop girl at night. She is caught between the culture of her American high school and her mother’s culture. It promises to be a great read and one that will spark interesting discussions. This is also a Panda Book for Mature Readers this year.

We have one copy of the book in the library. It was for sale at this week’s book fair. See the registration form for online bookstores where you can purchase the book. You can also choose to have us purchase the book for you. The price will be around 200RMB. If you want us to purchase the book for you, please come to the library or send the money with your child so that we can place the order.

As this is our first book club meeting, we give you the chance to choose the day and time. Please fill out the form below to register. The deadline for registration and book purchase request is January 13.

IST has been the grateful recipient of several corporate and personal donations in recent years, most recently the donation from NNE Pharmaplan (Tianjin) of Danish books and the Airbus French and German collection. We greatly appreciate the support of our corporate community and we are also open to additional funding.

We welcome books in any languages that are in line with students’ academic needs and interests. We are especially interested in books in Portuguese as our Portuguese community is growing. Please note that we prefer hard cover books, recent fiction and non-fiction, and that we reserve the right of refusal if we feel that books would not be appropriate to our collection.

The IST library works for the entire community. We are grateful for your support!

Bo Kyeong and Do Won

]]> http://istianjinelearning.org/library/2011/12/15/book-donation-3/feed/ 0 http://istianjinelearning.org/library/2011/12/15/successful-book-fair-thanks/ http://istianjinelearning.org/library/2011/12/15/successful-book-fair-thanks/#comments Thu, 15 Dec 2011 07:41:33 +0000 Josianne Fitzgerald http://istianjinelearning.org/library/?p=1473 The Beijing Star Kids Book Fair held on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week was very successful. There was a good selection of high quality and popular titles, as well as our Panda Book titles, which can be difficult to find elsewhere. Thanks to the purchases of our community over the two days, the library was able to acquire over 3000RMB fiction titles for our collection.

We usually have three large book purchases a year. We submit an order in May, in October and in February. The titles from the book fair join our October purchases in a “new arrivals”  list that you can browse through on the library OPAC’s Visual tab.

Access the library OPAC from the QuickLinks menu on www.istianjin.org.

Click on the Visual tab of the OPAC and then click on New Arrivals. The list of new books in December is found in the button, “New books for December 2011.”

You could also come to the library and browse our new book shelves. But hurry – the library closes at 3:30 on Friday for the December holiday!

Some photos from the book fair: