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1. ANNUAL END OF YEAR
REPORT
JUNE, 2015
Compiled and composed by:
Karen Hornberger, Library Media Specialist
Palisades High School
Library Media Center

2. PURPOSE OF REPORT
This is our 13th annual report. The purpose of this report is to reflect upon
the school-year and to educate readers on the programs and services that we
have offered throughout the year, supporting both students and staff with the
goal of making students as academically successful as possible.

3. ARRANGEMENT OF REPORT
Section One provides data on our school, usage of the library, and our resources.
Section Two provides information on some ways in which I, the Library Media
Specialist, have supported student learning and achievement.

4. SECTION 1
• school data
• usage of library
• our resources
• usage statistics

5. OUR SCHOOL
Palisades High School is located in Kintnersville, PA with a current enrollment of
approximately 650 students and approximately 60 faculty members.
Karen Hornberger is the Library Media Specialist.
Corine Rillera is the Computer Lab Assistant.

6. LIBRARY VISITS
The category “other” represents visits from health, guidance, world
languages, etc.
187
220
94
English
Social Studies
Other

7. COMPUTER LAB VISITS
The category “other” represents visits from health, guidance, world
languages, etc.
310
295
340
English
Social Studies
Other

8. ADDITIONAL VISITORS
In addition to classes that visit, each period we also have:
• Student assistants
• Students on permanent pass
• Students using the cyber center
• Students from study hall
• Students using the copiers
• Students taking tests
• Meetings
• etc.
WE are a very, very BUSY and WELCOMING library!


9. OUR HELPERS!
This year, the high school library has had a student helper program in
which the students serve as “triage workers”. The student helpers were
the people that students came to when they needed to sign a book out,
receive help with the copier, and obtain supplies and passes. The helpers
also shelved books and pulled items teachers need for units.
This system was vital in allowing me to focus, without distraction, on
helping teachers and students. I no longer needed to worry about a
student who would like to sign out a book while I formally instructed a
group or informally worked with a student or teacher. I can remain in a
brainstorm session with another teacher to plan an upcoming unit. The
student helpers received community service hours and many, many
thanks.

10. WINTER DISPLAYS
Our student helpers helped decorate the library for the winter
seasons.
Can you guess which book is wrapped up on the far left? The
answer will be on the images slide at the end of this report.

11. OUR COLLECTION
In our collection, we have:
• Print books ( 19,971 titles)
• eBooks (over 8,500 titles in the EBSCO High School Collection & over
22,500 titles in the EBSCO eBook Collection)
• Advanced Placement Source (articles from scholarly journals, etc.)
• SIRS Issues Researcher (articles from national and global magazines and
newspapers)
• NoodleTools (bibliography/notecard/outline generator)
• Videos
• Audiobooks
• Calculators
• Video cameras
• Headsets
• Two Chromebook/Laptop carts
• PLUS… state-provided Power Library Resources!

12. TINICUM CIVIC ASSOCIATION
Tinicum Civic Association has, yet again, graciously donated money to
our library. We were able to update our collection mid-year, and chose
titles that students had been requesting. Our budget has been cut
significantly and this allowed us to order more books that the students
wanted. We were VERY grateful for their donation. Here is a slideshow
to share which books we selected this year.
The Tinicum Civic Association raises monies through community based
events with the purpose of supporting local non-profit organizations that
contribute to the general welfare or enhance the quality of life in our area.
Please consider helping the association by volunteering at or attending the
upcoming Tinicum Arts Festival, July 11-12, 2015 in Tinicum Park or by
visiting Stover Mill Art Gallery located on River Road in Erwinna.

13. OUR CIRCULATION
Total Materials Circulated (print and eBook)
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
Series1
Circulation in June represents summer reading circulation.

14. OUR CIRCULATION
In-House Materials represents the circulation of print materials along with AV
materials and remain the most popular way to use library resources.
eBooks solely represents eBook accesses (and excludes access to electronic
articles from newspapers/magazines, interlibrary loan materials, etc.)
Total Materials Circulated (print and eBook)
6011
2535
In-House
Materials
eBooks

15. OUR CIRCULATION
Total Materials Circulated by Genre
4262
1456
182 111
Fiction
Nonfiction
Biography
AV
Fiction remains our most popular print “In-House” material.

16. OUR CIRCULATION
Advanced Placement Source offers articles from scholarly journals with
over half originating from international publishers. This year, there were
2,056 searches performed within the database.
SIRS Researcher offers articles from national and global magazines and
newspapers. This year, there were 1,060 searches within the database.
NoodleTools is a bibliography/notecard/outline generator. This year,
there were 2,018 bibliographies created.
We only requested 54 interlibrary loans this year. In the past, we had
requested up to 350 annually. This significant drop indicates to us that
the rental of the eBook subscription is better serving our patrons
immediate research needs. We were able to provide 22 of our materials
to other libraries throughout the state.

17. SECTION 2
• supporting students and teachers
• making resources available to the world

18. GLOBAL NEWS SEARCHING
For many years, I had taught students to seek various perspectives while researching,
which included finding cultural perspectives. However, whenever we would look for
these perspectives, they were very difficult to find. There seemed to be no one place that
you could look to type in a keyword to locate information on one specific topic from one
specific region. As a result, it became a goal of mine to develop a portal that researchers
could use to access this information. I did it this year using Google Custom Search
Engines!
The first class to use the site was Scott Antoni’s social studies class. They were required
to use the database to search forms of government in other regions of the world. Not only
did the students have fun, but it opened their eyes to many unexpected results! The
students were most surprised to learn of Korea and China’s views on democracy. Scott
and I are spreading the word about how useful this tool is as an avenue to locate various
culture’s perspectives on so many varied topics of research.
Link below for the blog post and SlideShare:
Keyword Searching Global news by Region (Blog Post)
Keyword Searching Global News Sources (SlideShare)

19. HERO’S JOURNEY!
Nina Piper and I collaborated during this school year. We asked her 9th
grade English students to discuss the concept of the Hero’s Journey
through a blog with each other. We had two classes speak with each other
about the concepts of the Hero’s Journey as a whole and also in relation
to To Kill a Mockingbird and The Odyssey.
The students commented that they enjoyed the change from the
traditional classroom learning experience. We were very proud of how
seriously they took the content and added unique thoughts to the
discussion.
Here is our class blog

20. TRUMAN PROJECT
The Truman project is a regular project where I collaborate with social studies teacher,
Erin Banas (refer to page 21).
My role during the unit is to provide students with resources which include primary
sources and articles from scholarly journals, instruct students in using NoodleTools,
teach the students how to properly annotate a bibliography, and to check in with them
each day. Some ways in which I did this were face-to-face offers of help/support and a
Google Form Survey which is designed to determine the specific areas they may need
help.
This year, I had noticed a trend that the students needed additional resources specific to
the Soviet involvement in the war and the Japanese code of conduct known as Bushido. I
added these resources to better support the students. I also added research tutorials onto
the home page for them to refer to right within the portal that they were using each day
during this project.
It is really nice to work with Erin each year; we both love developing the project further
and seeing the various essays that the students produce!

21. CITATION GENERATOR INSTRUCTION
While working with students and editing many, many essays, it became
apparent that many students were using EasyBib instead of NoodleTools (our
school’s adopted citation generator). I created many citations in each in order
to compare the services. Once I evaluated the differences, I recognized that
EasyBib continued to produce incorrectly formatted citations (as it had in years
past).
I set out to inform the teachers about the common pitfalls while generating a
citation within EasyBib and even some that they may encounter using
NoodleTools! I began to include the findings within lessons that I was
presenting to students. I wanted them to understand where to locate
inaccuracies within a generated citation and how to take a moment to check
that the citations were correct.
Here is my instruction sheet for our students

22. ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY INSTRUCTION
Based upon feedback and questions during instruction, my Annotated
Bibliographies SlideShare received many updates this year.
Additions were:
 When do you create your annotated bibliography (slide 3)
 When to stop annotating (slide 4)
 We offered a new examplar (slide 5)
 We created sections to align the presentation to our rubric and discussed
many items that were typically verbalized during instruction.
Thank you to Erin Banas, Carol Harder, Morgan Flagg-Detwiler, Kevin
Ronalds, and Patty Ivins for working on developing this instruction with me.

23. EPORTFOLIO SUPPORT
Our school launched an ePortfolio program during this school year.
9th grade students (and each class which follows) will continue to add
to and develop their portfolio each year, which will then be reflected
upon and presented at the end of their senior year. I was asked to
provide lessons and support to all 9th grade students who were to
complete this project. Lessons included sharing how to embed
within Google Docs, upload a PDF, etc.
Our ePortfolio is one which follows our students from middle school
to high school, however many new technology skills within Google
Sites and Google Docs were added. I look forward to helping to
offer input on how to further develop this product with students and
teachers.

24. REGULAR SUPPORT
In addition to the collaborations featured in previous slides, I do
extensive work each year with our seniors as they conduct their senior
research projects and I also regularly support classes in smaller
segments (some which are indicated below).
 Support Amber Schlosser’s students with resources/presentations during
the Julius Caesar, Arthurian Legend, and nonfiction research units.
 Support Carole Lee Deemer’s students with resources/scholarly
journals/annotated bibliography during her 11th grade research unit.
 Support Kevin Ronalds’ social studies Modern World History class with
Google Sites/Infographic/Google Map/Prezi Timeline
 …and more!

25. INTERVENTIONS AND SUPPORT
This year I worked with struggling students conducting senior research
and helped throughout the entire process wherever they needed help.
In addition to supporting struggling students, I worked with teachers to
modify instruction and rubrics to better support their “strugglers”.
I also worked directly with teachers of the senior research classes to
help to them review and provide feedback on thesis statements, outlines,
and annotated bibliographies to ensure that the students each were able
to produce quality work.
By evaluating student produced work, I am better able to develop
quality instruction and effective resources.

26. MEETING OUR 8TH GRADE STUDENTS
I was asked to work with our 8th grade students who were experiencing great change
with their 8th grade final project. The final project was now a research project and I
helped their new librarian, Lynn Ashton, develop a site for the students to use during
the project and helped set up trials to subscription databases. I went to the middle
school to teach the 8th grade students where to locate information and how to work
with statistics and annotate the bibliography (on a beginner level).
Since I was not available in the building, I created a screencast on statistics (however
they may prefer my SlideShare!) and a help sheet for annotating bibliographies that I
housed on their site.
I worked with 32 eighth grade students (via email/Google Docs) providing feedback
on thesis statements, outline, notes on research, annotated bibliographies/works cited,
rough drafts, MLA formatting (hopefully helping them take their work to the next
level!). It was especially nice to get to know our incoming students that will be here
next year and it was especially useful to see where they struggled during 8th grade (as
a whole) in order to design the instruction that they will receive here.

27. READING AND WRITING STRATEGIES (WITH
TECHNOLOGY)
This year, I was asked to collaborate with Aimee Trieu to present an
in-service on Reading and Writing Strategies using Technology.
Undoubtedly, the most popular resource that we discussed was
Quizlet, which was new to some of our teachers. I supported many
with importing existing flashcards into the teachers collection,
teaching them how they could add their own, and how they could
delete extraneous ones from the ones that they had imported.
There were also many other tools within the training and we were
happy to say that there was at least one new tool introduced to each of
our guests!

28. THE AMERICAN DREAM GOOGLE SITE
After hosting a Twitter Chat on The American Dream during the 2013-2014
school-year (refer to page 26), I wanted to extend that experience. As a result, I
developed a site to serve as a home for The American Dream resources that
we had developed and add more content to it so that teachers could use it as a
teaching tool.
It was moderately active this year and my goal is to develop the resource
further to align it with cultural references, global perspectives, plus more!
Here is the site

29. SUMMER READING PROGRAM
I currently chair our summer reading committee which includes my
facilitation of the selection of books that students are required to read,
ensuring the availability of the titles, development and supervision of
assessments and makeups, and analysis of the program, etc.
Here is our current Summer Reading Program site.
Our committee completed an intensive program analysis this year and
are currently working on determining which changes to the program
we feel are best. Next year we will be planning a One Theme/One
School reading program which will initiate during the summer of
2016.

30. STUDY GROUP
Professionally, my focus on research continued. This year I partnered with Amber
Schlosser and Scott Antoni to continue the work that Carole Lee Deemer, Erin Banas and
Bob Schlegel (see page 32) initiated during the 2013-2014 school year.
Amber, Scott, and I set and met goals
As a group, and individually, we also:
 created Global News Sources
 added feedback/comments to example annotations (annotated bibliography) along with updating
the rubric and the Quick Start Guide. (Erin Banas also collaborated on this)
 developed and shared a self-monitoring research monitoring checklist
 worked on peer-feedback forms and teacher check-in methods during research
 developed methods/parameters for communicating information found during the research process
within the wider learning community
 developed long and short term research guidelines
 tied to 8th grade, added recommendations and needs to our Research Across the Curriculum and
Grade Levels scope and sequence.
 Shared our research successes and strategies with other staff members to introduce the strategies
to a wider amount of students.

31. MY BLOG
I like to share the things that I do throughout the year with other
librarians and educators. One way in which I do this is through my
blog.
This year on my blog, there were:
 5,861 views 4,575 visitors
 7 new posts
The most popular new post was:
 Citation Generators: Comparison of NoodleTools to EasyBib (posted in May) – 273 views
Former posts that remain the most popular/relevant:
 Citing previous work (self-citing) – 1,762 views
 Placing a portion of a YouTube video into PowerPoint – 1,510 views
 Genrefying the Fiction Collection – 1,271 views
 Mrs. Burley’s Infographics Lesson - 710 views

32. MY SLIDESHARE
Another way in which I share is through my SlideShare.
New this year:
 Keyword Searching Global News Sources - 251 views
 Enhancing Research with Statistics - 324 views
 10 Ways to make your Students Better Researchers - 678 views
Remain popular/relevant:
 Citing yourself (self-citing) - 24,567 views
 Reading and Writing Strategies for Scholarly Journals - 6,484 views
 Annotated Bibliographies – 1,696 views
 Annual Report 13-14 - 715 views
 Storify (for using social media during research) - 539 views

33. SCHOLARS’ BOWL
I co-advised our Scholars’ Bowl team with Chris Hardin and the team
thrived this year!
On Saturday, February 7th, Palisades High School Scholars’ Bowl
students competed in the Phillipsburg Academic Competition. Two
teams represented Palisades very well and our JV team brought home a
2nd Place trophy. This was an historic win for Palisades at the
Phillipsburg competition against some extremely strong competition!
We competed later during the year at Salisbury with a smaller group but
were happy to bring home a 4th place trophy.
We were so proud of our students!

34. HSLC BOARD OF DIRECTORS
I serve on the HSLC Board of Directors as Secretary. HSLC supports
the state interlibrary loan system along with the Power Library
Databases.
It has been very interesting to see the connection between libraries
and a non-profit business which supports them.
My school, generously, provides me the time every month to serve in
this role.
My three-year term will end in December of 2015 and I have enjoyed
this process of seeing how a Board of Directors supports an
organization and look forward to seeing HSLC thrive.

35. GOALS FOR THE FUTURE
My goals are to continue to meet the needs of both students and teachers
next year.
I hope to keep striving to provide the best program possible for both by
providing quality resources and communicating how best to access and
interact with them.
I hope to continue to share good ideas with others to inspire them and I
hope to continue to be inspired by others!

36. IMAGES
SLIDE 2: REFLECTION BY ANDERSON MANCINI
SLIDE 3: COLORED PENCILS BY CHEVRE
SLIDE 5: LOCKERS BY TLPARADIS
SLIDE 10: ANSWER = THE BLIND SIDE BY MICHAEL LEWIS
SLIDE 35: DARTS BY STEVEPB

37. THANK YOU FOR TAKING THE TIME TO
READ OUR ANNUAL END OF YEAR
REPORT!
HAVE A WONDERFUL AND RELAXING
SUMMER!