Sandy Rogers has been maintaining the Vertical File at the Harwich High School Library for many years. During that time she has amassed a wonderful rich resource for our students and staff. The vertical file provides unique resources to our students. This fall, as our students prepare their bibliographies for their respective research papers, it is often the vertical file that produces some of the most relevant and timely material available to them.

The Vertical File consists of newspaper clippings, pamphlets, and documents that are published in a wide variety of formats. The files are arranged by subject category. Subject headings reflect those used by the Library of Congress and our decimal classification system. It is ever so satisfying to put materials in a patron’s hand that is exactly what they need and want. Thanks to Sandy’s efforts this happens frequently. 

A student may come upon a collection of materials in our files culled from the various current local sources and have exactly what is important in their field of endeavor. The resource is rich in content and extremely relevant and unavailable anywhere else. Our files have been built over the years so, for example, when a student this year wishes to do her paper on shipwrecks of Cape Cod, not only do we supply her with wonderful books, but also we offer her a huge file of clippings.  The chronological arrangement of Sandy’s files allows for a tremendous perspective for our young patrons.

Our vertical files appear on our on line public access catalog.  Thanks to Mrs. Tyldeley, our library assistant, an icon of a file appears when a student does a catalog search and comes upon vertical file materials.  The vertical file is a superb resource, and in this data driven universe it is a pleasure to offer to our students such a rich and carefully maintained collection.

Speaking of Mrs. Tyldesley, it is impossible for us to discuss the Harwich High School Library Media Center without acknowledging her absolute perfection. She is the computer maven of the library, and we all depend on her generosity of spirit. She manages to acquire from the Internet a range of materials on every subject of interest.  She is adept at searching for requested information, and she allows our students to fulfill both their assignments and their curiosity. So often a child comes into the library and is stymied by the obscurity of their subject search. If the subject is not a traditional high school academic item it will be difficult to satisfy that request in the facility. With Mrs. Tyldesley’s expertise we can provide that patron with relevant materials and current information from the web.

Mrs. Tyldesley also performs the machine-readable cataloging for the entire library. She keeps our data bases hooked up to the state-run library consortia so our students and staff have access to thousands of periodicals.

We work with a lot of great people. Fantastic teachers perform daily miracles before our eyes. Students so bright and good it is a pleasure to know them. Able support staff from maintenance to administration keep the plant operating and efficient. But this is a library newsletter, and there are no better library people anywhere than Mrs. Sandy Rogers and Mrs. Weedie Tyldesley. I salute them.

January 2002

The big news from the Harwich High School Library this new year is our extended afternoon hours.

Our new librarian, Ms. Carol McCarthy will be keeping the library open until 4 pm Monday through Thursday. We are proud to welcome Ms. McCarthy and happy to be able to provide additional service to our patrons.

Recently we attended the Antiquarian Book and Print Fair at the Hynes Convention center in Boston. This display of rare and scarce books was an interesting insight into the history of books and printing. The prints and maps on display were enthralling. You can imagine our pleasure to finally have an opportunity to attend such a wonderful event. The implications for our work here at Harwich High School Library are manifold. The historical maps are a huge piece of the puzzle having to do with so much of what we study here at the secondary level. Exploration and discovery are reflected as well as science and technology. Some of the newer titles we have acquired for this library show the publishing in this area. MAPPING BOSTON, and THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND, The Geographic Evolution of the United States, are large format editions specific to the field of this popular area of historical interest.

Please note our additional databases. From the Harwich Home Page, Library Resources, you can now obtain wonderful academic support for your research needs. We have explored several areas of our own web site and realized it is excellent. We have tested the various components and the links are superb. So please tune into your local web address (Harwich. edu) and just go wild with excitement. You can access periodicals, newspapers, book catalogs, encyclopedias, new book lists, and so much more with a simple click of your mouse. ( I love talking this way.) Special thanks again to Mrs. Tyldesley for her fabulous computer support, web construction, and general excellence, and to Mrs. Rogers for her extensive vertical files which are so well used.

Please be sure to check our "New Books" list for an update on recently acquired titles.
 
 

November 2001
 

Harwich High School library continues to excel in automation and service to patrons.Our present holdings include 10,097 volumes, 8,816 titles. We presently have strong collections in local history, maritime history, and American and European history. Our mission, to support the curriculum, allows for growth in areas such as science, art and photography and music, and

American literature and poetry. We are presently in receipt of a new book order just shipped from our distributor. Those titles will be listed on our web site. We subscribe to approximately 75 periodicals. Back files are maintained to allow for hard copy use with our electronic indexes. Our electronic indexes are powerful and provide great depth and are available to us as a member of the Southeast Massachusetts Library System.

We are the proud owners of over 600 academic video tapes on all subjects relating to our course of study.

Our extensive collection of books-on-tape (over 150) and our wonderful vertical file (lovingly maintained by Mrs. Rogers) support our students efforts successfully.

We must mention again our 16 high speed internet connected work stations. We exceed the just published STANDARDS FOR MASSACHUSETTS HIGH SCHOOL MEDIA CENTERS by having twice as many of these work stations as recommended by that report. Thank you again Infinium and Scott Tyldesley.

Harwich High School Library continues to progress. We are more than happy and proud to serve our school and community
 

computer workstations donated by the Infinium Software Company of Hyannis through the contact of Scott Tyldesley, (son of Mrs. Elizabeth Tyldesley) .

Scott is a Harwich High School graduate, class of  '85, who has been Director of Information Technology
for this company for several years. He lives in Harwich with his wife and son.

It is very exciting to have such wonderful high-speed workstations fully connected to the internet
in our library available to students, teachers and their classes. We are now sporting sixteen such computers
so whole classes may come in and accomplish so much.

The library is a beautiful workspace and we are welcoming and orienting the new freshmen students
to its capabilities. We are stressing critical evaluation of information sources so as to preclude mis-information and dubious web sites. This information-rich time and society is a challenge to us all.