HomeNova High School Media Center
Welcome to the Nova High School Media Center! This website is your fast track ticket to all of the tools and resources you will need to help you succeed. Here you will find everything you need to know about the Media Center and how it works as well as a wealth of information and resources for conducting great research.
Meet Your Media Specialist
John Bua - Nova High School Media Specialist
JBua@BrowardSchools.com
Hours:
Monday- Friday
8:30-4:15
General Information:
- Students MUST have an ID to check out books
- Reference material may be checked out over night
- Magazines are to be used in the media center. Please do not remove.
- Three books may be checked out for up to two weeks and renewed for another two weeks.
- The computers in the media center have internet access.
- Printing- $.10/page (black and white), $.40/page (color)
- Students may use interlibrary loan to request a book from another school library if it is not in the Nova High School collection.
Please see The Media Specialist or one of our wonderful student assistants with any questions, comments or concerns!
Rules:
- A signed agenda or pass is required to enter the media center.
- Students may visit the media center before school and during their assigned lunch period without a signed pass.
- Enter and work quietly. Cell phone use is NOT permitted. iPods may be used but not heard by anyone other than the user.
- Respect others and all media center property.
- NO food or drinks.
Consequences:
1. Warning
2. Call to parent
3. Expulsion from the media center
Students are expected to act responsibly while in the media center. This includes following the Acceptable Usage Policy regarding appropriate websites. Standard rules that apply in the classroom also apply in the media center. Computers are reserved for students who need to complete an assignment.
Online Resources
The following list of resources is provided to you by the Broward County School System. These resources are your ticket to quality research. When you use these online databases, you can be sure that the information that you find is objective, reliable and authoritative. This cannot be said for much of the information you find elsewhere on the internet. The following databases are maintained by people whose job it is to review, compile and provide the kind of information and material you need to be certain that the work and research you are doing is the best it can be!
When accessing the following resources from the Nova campus, you will have immediate and automatic access with no need for a password and can find them all bookmarked on any computer. When accessing them from anywhere else (home, the public library, etc.) you will need to use the appropriate passwords. These can be obtained simply by stopping by the media center and picking up the list of passwords.
Helpful Hint: One you have obtained the list of passwords from the media center, send yourself an email listing the databases and their corresponding passwords and keep it in your inbox. This way, you can access the passwords anytime you need them.
DESTINY- http://destiny.browardschools.com
This is the public access catalog for all books and materials in Broward County Schools. Once on the website, choose Nova High School and then click the login button on the upper right hand corner of the page. Your student login will be your 10 digit student number and your password will be your date of birth (example: 03/07/1992 including the zeros and slashes). On the main Destiny search screen, you simply enter your search terms. For a more advanced search, you can “Exit Destiny Quest” (upper right hand corner) and click Library Search (on the left of the screen).
Grolier Encyclopedia Online- http://go.grolier.com/passport
This database provides users with access to magazines, news articles, websites and multimedia materials. Site includes the following: Encyclopedia Americana, Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, The New Book of Knowledge, Lands and People and New Book of Popular Science.
World Book- http://worldbookonline.com
Here you will find articles from newspapers and magazines, special reports, multimedia, a Spanish encyclopedia and much more.
Gale/Cengage Learning- http://infotrac.galegroup.com/itweb/fort53276
Our Nova High School account has many e-books accessible here. You will also find access to magazines, newspapers, reference books and information on authors and their works, Opposing Viewpoints, Internet links, a Spanish encyclopedia and much, much more!
SIRS Knowledge Source (Researcher)- http://sks.sirs.com
This is a general reference database with full-text articles exploring social, scientific, health, historic, economic, business, political and global issues.
Citations
When doing research, anytime you make use of information you have found (in a book, website, article, blog, podcast… anywhere) you must GIVE CREDIT TO THE SOURCE. Here at Nova we use MLA style guidelines to do this.
Acknowledging your source happens in TWO ways.
1. Parenthetical documentation or in-text citations provide acknowledgement alongside quotations or paraphrased portions within the body of your paper or report.
2. At the end of your paper, you must include a list of the sources that you have used. This may be referred to as bibliography, works cited or references. These terms all refer to the list that you include that matches the references you made in the body of your paper. This list should begin on its own separate page and should be in alphabetical order by author’s last name or by the title if there is no author listed.
Below you will find some helpful examples of MLA style and some tools to help you generate proper citations.
Examples of MLA Style
The University of Southern Mississippi Libraries MLA Style Guide
For a better understanding of MLA style
http://www.lib.usm.edu/research/guides/mla.html
MLA Parenthetical Documentation Help
Examples of in-text citations
http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/research/mlaparen.html
The Ohio State University MLA Citation Guide
Guidance
Examples of how to generate your list of references
http://library.osu.edu/sites/guides/mlagd.html
The tools below will help you generate automatic citations.
Noodle Tools
Choose "Noodle Bib Express." Then select "MLA." Fill in the appropriate fields and pay close attention to the prompts.
http://www.noodletools.com
Easy Bib provides an online template to create your Works Cited page.
http://www.easybib.com
Citation Machine - another template that will automatically
generate your bibliography citations.
http://citationmachine.net/
Click HERE to learn more about copyright.
Before You Google
Google, and other search engines like it, can be great online resources for certain tasks like finding a local doctor’s office, getting directions, keeping up with the latest in pop culture or sports, finding song lyrics or figuring out the name of someone famous when all you can remember is a movie they were in.
But when it comes to a research project for school, there are a few factors to consider BERFORE YOU GOOGLE!
Search engines like Google are commercially motivated, meaning their priority is not necessarily going to be providing you, the student, with high quality research material. For example, if you try searching “chemistry” in Google not only will you wind up with an unmanageable number of hits (116,000,000!), the very first two hits will encourage you to seek out your soul mate through a popular internet dating site!
Also, the way that mainstream search engines select the material that they present to you as “hits” uses no filtering or selectivity, meaning that the reason you get so many hits is because a computer program was told to seek out and retrieve EVERYTHING it could that matched your search terms.
Instead, the sites you will find listed below use a staff of real-life, professionally trained, scholarly PEOPLE to review material on the internet, judge it for relevance and authority and only provide you with “hits” that meet certain standards of quality and reliability. The following links will take you to some websites, search engines and directories that are designed with you, the student, in mind. You will find that they will better facilitate your research and help you to find truly useful and even unique sources for your projects. So, for your next assignment, save yourself some time and energy and check these out BEFORE YOU GOOGLE!!
Infomine- This site is a directory, meaning it will use your search terms to link you to highly-selective websites that most mainstream search engines do not have direct access to.
Internet Public Library- Here you will find a wealth of well-organized, high-quality resources and links, judged and selected by professional staff. Perform a general search or search within a subject specialization.
High School Ace – Well organized and easy-to-navigate, this site provides list of sites for students and teachers.
The Virtual Library- Maintained by experts around the world, here you will find a wealth of great international resources.
About- highly-selective lists of sites
Library of Congress – There are many resources available to you from your nation’s library. Check them out!
Today in History- Find out what happened on a particular day in history. This site provides historical insights as well as links for further exploration.
White House- Here you will find a wealth of information about current events, politics and your government at work.
Broward County Library- the Broward County Library system is one of the biggest in the country. If you can’t find a book in the media center, check the public library catalog. They also have many great online resources available to library card holders. So if you don’t have a public library card yet, get one today- it’s FREE!!
Nova Southeastern Library- Did you know that as a Broward County Library Card holder, you have access to much of the collection at Nova Southeastern University? This is just another great reason to get your public library card TODAY!
Sunlink- This site will take you to reliable web resources including tips to help you perform better internet searches, FCAT and SAT preparation tools and other sites designed to help students find what they need for school research projects. It also includes a listing of the holdings of all school libraries across Florida!
Reading Lists
Looking for a great book but don’t know where to start?
Tired of reading the same things and looking to expand your reading tastes?
Not a big reader but hoping to develop a new hobby?
The links below will direct you to lists of book titles, reviews, recommendations and other great resources to help you develop and expand your reading tastes!! Get some new ideas and then check Destiny Quest to see if Nova has a copy.
Also, media center staff welcome your suggestions for new library materials. So if you have a favorite author or title and want to see it added to the Nova collection, talk to The Media Specialist.
Alex Awards- books originally written for adults but that have special appeal to teen readers. Other lists also available within this great link.
Guys Read- books recommended for guys by guys.
Teenreads.com- A variety of recommendations, author interviews, reviews and other cool links.
Reading Rants- “Out of the Ordinary Teen Booklists,” this link features lists of books broken down by different categories.
