Mills Pond Librarian Louise Prescott Named Media Specialist of the Year

Mills Pond Elementary School Librarian Louise Prescott was recently named the 2010 School Library Media Specialist of the Year by the Western Suffolk BOCES School Library System for her integration of new technology into the curriculum.

Prescott discussed her decision to become a librarian, her day-to-day responsibilities and how technology is changing the field in a recent interview.

Why did you become a librarian?

This is actually a second career for me. I started out as a speech pathologist. I worked out in Providence, worked down here and when I had my own children worked at a private organization. Then I wanted a change, so about 13 years ago I decided to go into library science because I always loved children's books. So I got my master's in that program and then started here. I worked in the public library while doing my degree and worked at Accompsett first, then when this building opened I came here. I love it. I love what I do.

What are your day-to-day responsibilities?

The library is a prep just like physical education, music and art so we are a special area. I have a schedule and I see all the classes in the building every week except fifth grade, which I see every other week. My days are different depending, but I teach library skills, research skill lessons and they take books out every time. The rest is instruction. Then I have other responsibilities like bus duty.

How do you think library science is changing?

Everything has changed a lot even since I've started. I went into this because I love children's books and wanted to read aloud to the kids- which I still do- but the focus now is so much towards technology skills and keeping up with the world. Now there is a whole technology curriculum that not just myself but also the teachers have. We have goals we must meet every year and research skills are much more involved with internet sources and not print sources. It is continual. I am in the process of developing a new webpage from Moodle to Frontpage. The district is very good keeping us up with the technology through things like Smart Board workshops.

How was the Mills Pond Library expanded this summer?

The way it was set up before, the library was set up in three sections, which made it very difficult to manage the class and there was no wall space for a Smart Board. They opened it all up, it is so nice now. We have our Smart Board now. It is so much more inviting, more manageable for class instruction and keeping an eye on things. It is so nice.

Why do you think you were nominated for the BOCES award?

It was a total surprise to me. I found out I was nominated by two of my colleagues.  A few in our department are newer than me and I guess I have acted as a mentor to them. I am always willing to share ideas. They have seen the lessons that I do and I try to make sure my lessons are creative. Last year I won a grant for integrating technology as a unit. For the third grade level, culture is part of the social studies curriculum so I did a unit with Microsoft PhotoStory. It makes a movie and allows students to add music and add voices to it. They had to gather all these images from a particular country and then do research and add a few sentences to each slide. The grant was for $1000 so I brought flip video cameras for them to make book and movie trailers and brought a document camera.