Lakeland Regional High School’s Library Media Center has many features that are widely underappreciated! There is so much more that students can utilize and find helpful throughout their high school career, as the theme for National Library Week 2023, “There’s More to the Story,” suggests.

LRHS’ library is also referred to as the Library Media Center by almost all of the LRHS staff and students. It’s a widely used space for its hangout areas, a wide selection of books, reliable WIFI signal, access to computers, the recent addition of a coffee bar, and a place to host LRHS’ Coffee Houses and art shows. However, some may not know that many of the necessary educational components of LRHS’ Media Center can be accessed virtually via the LRHS website. Under the “Academics” section in the Menu bar, you will find the Media Center and be able to access all its virtual features.

Ms. Linda Owens, LRHS’ library media specialist who helps students and staff navigate the library both virtually and in-person, has the goal of LRHS’ Media Center listed on the website: “…[it will] assist students to become effective users of information and… encourage and prepare students to be life-long learners. Through collection development, teacher collaboration, and student instruction, the library staff works to support the curriculum, teach information literacy skills, and foster literature appreciation.”

Have you ever wondered what books or money you may have owed LRHS? Well, if you log in with your school email to Destiny OPAC, accessible under the drop-down menu at the top right corner of LRHS Virtual Media Center, and click on “My Stuff” next to “Home,” you can see what you have checked out and when they are due to be returned. Moreover, Destiny OPAC, according to the LRHS Virtual Media Center’s “Policies and Procedures” tab, allows students to find books the Media Center has before they decide to search for them on the shelves of the library.

LRHS’ Virtual Media Center also has the “eBooks & Audiobooks” tab, which, if you click on it, shows that you can use Destiny OPAC to search for eBooks. However, in addition to that resource, LRHS gives access to Overdrive on “Sora” via your school account, which is helpful if you are one of those people that prefers reading or listening to books electronically.

The “Online Resources” tab under LRHS’ Virtual Media Center has a wide selection of resources to use, many of which are platforms with academic sources. Why is that important? Well, when you eventually hit your senior year of high school, are preparing to reach college-level expectations, or just generally looking to find academic sources for other uses, you will have to utilize these resources. For databases like “JSTOR,” it is necessary to use keywords and phrases and other methods such as “AND” or “NOT” to hone down on your searches and find the sources most suited for your topic. It is not like looking something up on Google but having this insight now will be useful later in life.

National Library Week, which was from April 23-29, 2023, marked the 65th anniversary of the first event, which was sponsored in 1958 with the theme “Wake Up and Read!” by the American Library Association (ALA). Their goal was to inspire more Americans to read more often. For this year’s celebration, on the ALA website, they stated that Monday, April 24, was “Right to Read Day,” Tuesday, April 25, was “National Library Workers Day,” Wednesday, April 26, was “National Library Outreach Day,” and Thursday, April 27, was “Take Action for Libraries Day.”

LRHS’ LIbrary Media Center, among other libraries across the country, should be appreciated for what they have to offer in terms of providing students and staff access to several valuable resources as well as being a reliable source of accessing information, in addition to providing ease of mind to those in need of and wanting to use the resources libraries offer.