The extraordinary resources our students can now access in the Wando Library Media Center (LMC) are in sharp contrast to the resources available at the old Wando in 2004.  When we moved to our new campus in June 2004, we literally reviewed every book in our inventory as we packed our library.

Once we weeded (purged) these out-of-date materials, our library lacked the resources to begin to meet our students’ diverse information needs.

“Where can I find and article on nanotechnology?” “I have to find an article for my Child Development Class on parenting.”

These actual statements were recently uttered by some of our almost 3300 students and reflect the diversity of the information needs here.  Therefore, students are looking for increasingly diverse resources as they take on the challenges of our high school curriculum that offers courses in our four Schools of Study, including horticulture, sports medicine, aerospace engineering, 3-D design, and digital multimedia, just to name a few.  Students also take Advanced Placement courses, as well as receive college credit for dual credit courses in English, economics, American Government, probability and statistics, and anatomy and physiology taught on our campus by Trident Tech professors.

Over the past five years, the Wando community through PTSO fund-raising has contributed thousands of dollars to the effort of upgrading our library media collection.  In addition to several thousand books that were purchased, the PTSO funds have supported technology improvements. The staff of the LMC has been committed to using these monies to acquire resources that meet students’ learning needs.

As Charleston County School District (CCSD) concentrates intensely on literacy this year, the LMC has become an even more integral part of instruction at Wando.

As we tackle this literacy initiative, Wando students have once again greatly benefited from a strong community commitment to providing necessary resources. CCSD, through tax and bond monies, provided the funds for Wando to purchase over 3,000 new books which address curriculum standards and students’ reading interests. Also, CCSD bought access rights to two powerful research databases, Gale Virtual Reference Library and Gale PowerSearch, which rival what most US college students utilize.  These databases include articles and book entries that address the varied reading abilities of students and can be accessed from off-campus, allowing our LMC to provide resources 24 hours a day, seven days a week to all of our patrons.

Once again, the generous support of the greater Wando community is paying dividends for our students and staff.  

Contributors to article: Media Specialists: Laura Judson, Donna Whitlock, Emilie Woody and Media Assistant: Lucye Magill.