The mission of Wheeler County Schools is to prepare self-disciplined students with the knowledge and understanding necessary to become positive, contributing members of society. The mission of the Wheeler County Middle/High School Media Center is to prepare information-literate students who can identify, evaluate, and analyze information and who understand that these skills will prepare them to become life-long learners within our ever-changing society. We will achieve this mission by providing appropriate instruction and state-of-the-art technology within a welcoming and nurturing environment.
The school library media program supports and strengthens the curriculum, bridges the digital divide, and puts state standards into action. The school library media specialist encourages reading for learning, reading for pleasure, and reading for life. The school library media specialist is a teacher, an instructional partner, an informational specialist, and a school library media program administrator. School library media specialists directly affect student achievement by collaborating and planning with teachers, teaching information literacy, designing assessment procedures, and providing supplemental curriculum material.
Statement of Philosophy: The staff of the Wheeler County Middle/High School Media Center believes
The media center should be an integral part of the school, providing resources to supplement and enrich the curriculum of the school.
The media specialist and her staff should provide multiple, authentic opportunities to teach and advance information literacy skills.
These objectives can best be met in an open, welcoming environment that encourages authentic learning activities.
The needs of students and staff are best met through a flexible schedule that encourages use of the media center "just in time: for the most meaningful opportunities.
Students' rights to access, read, listen to, view, and evaluate information are protected by the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment, and all media center personnel will respect the students' right to Intellectual Freedom.
ALA's Library Bill of Rights
The American Library Association affirms that all libraries are forums for information and ideas, and that the following basic policies should guide their services.
I. Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation.
II. Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.
III. Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.
IV. Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas.
V. A person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.
VI. Libraries which make exhibit spaces and meeting rooms available to the public they serve should make such facilities available on an equitable basis, regardless of the beliefs or affiliations of individuals or groups requesting their use.
Adopted June 19, 1939, by the ALA Council; amended October 14, 1944; June 18, 1948; February 2, 1961; June 27, 1967; January 23, 1980; inclusion of “age” reaffirmed January 23, 1996.
Although the Articles of the Library Bill of Rights are unambiguous statements of basic principles that should govern the service of all libraries, questions do arise concerning application of these principles to specific library practices. See the documents designated by the Intellectual Freedom Committee as Interpretations of the Library Bill of Rights.