 | A separate library is housed on each Friends’ Central campus, making books, videos, periodicals, e-books and DVDs available for student research and pleasure. Computers with Internet access are on hand for student and faculty use, as well.
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The Lower School Library serves as the information center of the Lower School, supporting all educational programs and providing teachers and students with needed resources quickly and efficiently. Our goal is to inspire a lifelong love of reading and to promote information literacy by teaching research and library skills necessary to become independent learners.
The library offers a wide array of materials including over 14,000 books, videos, DVDs, CDs, reference materials, magazines and online resources. Research skills are taught within the context of classroom curricula and in collaboration with classroom teachers. All classes visit the library weekly. In addition, there is flexible scheduling for classes to use the library for research projects. Children are encouraged to visit the library, with permission of the classroom teacher, whenever they need to return or choose a new book.
The library is equipped with 12 computers with internet access and an online catalog. Additional laptops are available when needed. Our library blog includes links to kid-friendly search engines and research sites. We subscribe to World Book Online, Encyclopedia Britannica Online and AccessPA Power Library, all of which can be accessed from home. Lower School faculty and students have instant access to Blackburn’s Middle and Upper School library online catalog and resources. |
Middle and Upper School students have the opportunity to investigate and gather information in the Blackburn Library on the City Avenue campus. The library's 19,000 books, videos, DVDs, e-books, and periodicals provide ample resources for students as they explore topics of interest. The library's 21 desktop computers instantly connect students with the Internet and MyFCS and can be used for word processing as well as for research.
Blackburn Library's subscriptions to online databases provide access to a vast array of historical periodicals, including the New York Times and London Times Digital Archive, as well as the full text of the Philadelphia Inquirer from 1983 to the present. Through the library, students also have online access to ProQuest, JSTOR, eLibrary, and AccessPA Power Library, which together allow retrieval of thousands of full-text articles, books, maps, images, audio clips and videos. By making a request via a librarian, students may borrow materials from the Pennsylvania inter-library loan program that includes more than 3000 libraries and over 75 million holdings. |
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