Photo by Steven St. JohnTribune

Tribune

Volcano Vista High School librarian Elise Orell motions to the next student in line to get textbooks during the school's registration night last week. Orell will oversee an "opening day" collection this year as construction of the school is completed. Volcano Vista is the district's first new high school in 21 years.

RELATED STORIES

• Volcano Vista freshman journal: First day is a blur of friends and forms
• Volcano Vista freshman journal: Making the most of what you have
• New Albuquerque High principal finally has the job he's long sought
• Albuquerque Dial-A-Teacher program expands services to Web
• Feeding the students at Albuquerque Public Schools is a major operation
• At Albuquerque's Bataan Military Academy, teens aren't students — they're cadets
• After 30 years at Washington Middle School, Albuquerque teacher says he's there to learn from the kids

More School City

• Suspect beef called back from schools
• Measure requiring high school proficiency test awaits New Mexico governor's signature
• Albuquerque's Lenore Wolf has dedicated her life to kids

MOST RECENT TRIB STORIES

• ABQTrib.com to remain available
  08:48 a.m., February 25, 2008
• Congressman is indicted
  08:37 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Series of attacks target Green Zone
  08:36 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Iran is defying U.N., agency says
  08:35 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Waterboarding approval probed
  08:34 a.m., February 23, 2008

TRIB IN THE BLOGOSPHERE*

• Ty Murray Invitational thrills fans in Albuquerque
• Is Rome Burning?
• Ominous Skies
• The Road to Invalidation
• Albuquerque company participates in “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”

*Note: The Tribune does not create and is not responsible for the blogosphere's headlines and stories. These links to blogs talking about ABQTrib.com are automatically generated. Use them at your own risk.

STORY TOOLS

• E-mail story
• Comments
• iPod friendly
• Printer friendly

SHARE THIS STORY [?]

Volcano Vista High School's library will open in temporary quarters with a fraction of its $1 million book and video collection.

The new $100 million West Side high school opens Wednesday for more than 500 freshmen. The library will start small with a $180,000 "opening day" collection.

The books will be housed in a classroom until next fall when the shelves will be fully stocked in the permanent library now under construction, district officials promised.

Volcano Vista, 8100 Rainbow Drive N.W., is Albuquerque Public Schools' first new high school in 21 years, so creating a collection is a new task. Four Albuquerque Public Schools high school librarians and four library specialists spent 80 hours selecting the books and videos from Follett Library Resources, which has supplied 55,000 schools across the nation.

The local librarians added New Mexico history selections, including Tony Hillerman's "The Great Taos Bank Robbery" and Marc Simmons' "Kit Carson and His Three Wives."

The classics will be there, even "The Catcher in the Rye," the controversial 1951 novel by J.D. Salinger still used today in high school English classes.

The videos purchased for Volcano Vista's library will be strictly instructional.

"We're not showing `Pirates of the Caribbean,' " said Omar Durant, who heads library services for Albuquerque Public Schools.

Volcano Vista's librarian, Elise Orell, was not hired in time to get in on the initial selection process, but she will get to complete the collection after school starts.

Orell is one of six New Mexico school librarians with national certification. She spent the last seven years at Carlos Rey Elementary School and was a classroom teacher in preschool through eighth grade.

"High school is a piece I hadn't done," she said. "I enjoy research and teaching students the process to do it efficiently."

The librarians on the selection team worked from January until March poring over 7,000 titles offered by the publishing company.

"We got the input from department heads last fall and now the teachers are making requests as they develop their interdisciplinary units." One of those units includes New Mexico history and Spanish language, Orell said.

Teachers will get their books six weeks after she places the order, Orell said.

The books were delivered at the end of May to a district storage unit. They were moved to the school earlier this month.

The school's permanent library won't open until August 2008, but until then, students will have the newest and brightest books arranged on temporary shelves, said Barbara Van Dongen, Albuquerque Public Schools library coordinator.

New and bright are must adjectives for the modern-day school library, she said.

"Our libraries today sparkle with color," she said of the shiny books, a contrast to "that dusty-brown" look of old libraries.

At Volcano Vista, the new two-story library with a loft will be "probably better than Borders" with a view of the mountains, soft seating in the corners and lots of light and color, said Durant, manager of library and instructional materials services.

"It will be stunning and lovely," he said.

The library staff will not reinvent the wheel for the new southwest high school, he said.

That high school will open August 2008 with a ninth-grade academy and a similar "opening day" collection.

"We'll be fine-tuning what we did this year," Durant said.