Author Archives: Markie Deleavey

September 2020 Roundup – St Margaret Mary’s Secondary School Library

Access to the School Library is still limited, however we’ve been ensuring pupils can access books through eBook inductions delivered in classrooms and by giving classrooms sets of book boxes.

Check out October’s newsletter, featuring new books in the Library, highlighted books from Libby, author spotlight on Alex Wheatle aka the Brixton Bard, and Black History Month and a Novels in Verse reading list. September’s newsletter is still available on Teams if you’ve missed it.

For Higher and Advanced Higher pupils, remmeber to utilise ProQuest , CORE and  GALE Literature Resource Centre for your assignments.

September 2020 Roundup – Shawlands Academy School Library

Access to the School Library is still limited, however we’ve been ensuring pupils can access books through eBook inductions delivered in classrooms and by giving classrooms sets of book boxes.

Check out October’s newsletter, featuring new books in the Library, highlighted books from Libby, author spotlight on Alex Wheatle aka the Brixton Bard, and Black History Month and a Novels in Verse reading list. September’s newsletter is still available on Teams if you’ve missed it.

Some S1+2 History classes have taken our GLAM workshop. Pupils were shown some of the fantastic resources available on gallery, library, archive, and museum websites that are useful for assignments and for fun!  You can access a list of recommended GLAM website links.

View the  Twitter Book List September 2020 to see our recommendations on Twitter over the month. Don’t miss our Middle Grade Monday books for S1-2 pupils, Senior Tuesdays, What’s Next Wednesdays to find your next read, Nonfiction Thursdays, YA Fridays for S3+, Comic Book Saturday, and Scots Book Sunday featuring titles set in or written by authors living in Scotland. We also run an Author of the Week every Monday and themed rading lists to coincide with cultural/literacy days.

For Higher and Advanced Higher pupils, remmeber to utilise ProQuest , CORE and  GALE Literature Resource Centre for your assignments.

August 2020 Roundup – St Margaret Mary’s Secondary School Library

Welcome back pupils and staff! As we adjust to evolving social distancing guidance, access to the Library is currently limited. It will regularly be reviewed in line with the official guidance.  In the meantime, the Library has been reaching out to pupils in alternative ways to ensure access access to resources to support their learning.

The school library newsletter is back, now more  compact featuring new books, eBooks and eAudiobooks from Libby and BorrowBox, and free music available through Freegal, along with author spotlight, reading lists, reading challenges, and book reviews. The newsletter will be circulated monthly in addition to the new Glasgow School Libraries eMagazine, Swatch, which will be circulated quarterly. Keep a look out for the first issue due shortly.

View the reading list of books featured on Twitter. Don’t miss our Middle Grade Monday books for S1-2 pupils, Senior Tuesdays, What’s Next Wednesdays to find your next read, Nonfiction Thursdays, YA Fridays for S3+, Comic Book Saturday, and Scots Book Sunday featuring titles set in or written by authors living in Scotland. We also run an Author of the Week every Monday and themed rading lists to coincide with cultural/literacy days.

August 2020 Roundup – Shawlands Academy School Library

Welcome back pupils and staff! As we adjust to evolving social distancing guidance, access to the Library is currently limited. It will regularly be reviewed in line with the official guidance.  In the meantime, the Library has been reaching out to pupils in alternative ways to ensure access access to resources to support their learning.

The school library newsletter is back, now more  compact featuring new books, eBooks and eAudiobooks from Libby and BorrowBox, and free music available through Freegal, along with author spotlight, reading lists, reading challenges, and book reviews. The newsletter will be circulated monthly in addition to the new Glasgow School Libraries eMagazine, Swatch, which will be circulated quarterly. Keep a look out for the first issue due shortly.

View the reading list of books featured on Twitter. Don’t miss our Middle Grade Monday books for S1-2 pupils, Senior Tuesdays, What’s Next Wednesdays to find your next read, Nonfiction Thursdays, YA Fridays for S3+, Comic Book Saturday, and Scots Book Sunday featuring titles set in or written by authors living in Scotland. We also run an Author of the Week every Monday and themed rading lists to coincide with cultural/literacy days.

This month, the Library has targeted S6 pupils, introducing them to online databases ProQuest, Core, and Gale Literature Resource Centre that will prove invaluable to their independent research topics this year and for university/college work.

ProQuest is an online database service that holds scholarly journals, dissertations/theses, articles, trade journals, multimedia files and much more. Pupils studying Higher and Advanced Higher subjects will benefit from the resources available from ProQuest as they prepare for academic study. The workshop introduced them to different functions of the website, including search and browse functions, navigational and refinement tools and how to use the citation generator. ProQuest is only accessible with their school or community library cards.

Pupils were also introduced to a similar online service called CORE. CORE is the world’s largest collection of open access research papers, meaning the information is accessible to anyone with a device and internet access.

The Advanced Higher English class benefited from learning how to use GALE Literature Resource Centre.   GALE is a Literature specific data base of scholarly articles, literary criticism, primary source, and multimedia which will be useful for their dissertations.

Access FREE online resources with your school library card

Access a range of free eBooks, eAudiobooks, and eMagazines from Glasgow Libraries by downloading the Libby Overdrive, Borrow Box, and RB Digital apps from your app store onto your personal mobile, tablet, or PC device.

You will need either your school library card or Glasgow Libraries card number and four-digit pin number to access the service. If you don’t have one or if you have lost your card, contact Ms DeLeavey on Glow.

Follow the links to access Libby Overdrive, Borrow Box and RB Digital as well as user guides to help you access each service.

Libby Overdrive:

  • eBooks and eAudiobooks available
  • 8 titles at a time for up to 21 days
  • Books return automatically so no fines

Borrow Box

  • eBooks and eAudiobooks available
  • 24 titles at a time for up to 21 days
  • Book return automatically so no fines

RB Digital

  • eMagazines, eAudiobooks, and eBooks available

Use your library card number to access Research and Reference materials that might be useful for your homework:

Access to Research:   academic papers from leading publishers. Subjects include art, architecture, business, engineering, history, languages, politics, philosophy, mathematics and the sciences.

ProQuest: contains trade, government/official publications, reports, magazine articles as well as academic journals and reports to facilitate your research. Subjects include business, health and medical, social sciences & humanities, education, science and technology.

GALE Literature Resource Centre: a comprehensive online resource for research on literary topics, authors and their works. Content includes; literary criticism, biographies, topic and work overviews, primary sources, interviews and reviews.

February 2020 Roundup – St Margaret Mary’s Secondary School

Participatory Spend Books: Throughout October, the Library worked with six S3+4 classes to collect pupil book suggestions that would be used to inform purchasing new stock. This year the Library is prioritising books for reluctant, struggling, and learning readers. This means resourcing titles that will appeal to a broad readership and tastes. The Librarian narrowed the choice of books between two publishers: Barrington Stoke and Badger Learning. Classes were instructed to select the books that they found interesting from both websites. The suggestions were then collated and checked against the Library’s catalogue to ensure books already stocked in the Library were not purchased and therefore making the best use of the allocated budget. The Librarian then bought the most popular books from our supplier.

The books are now available in the Library and a display will be set up for World Book Day in March.

Click Barrington Stoke and Badger Learning Participatory Spend Titles Book List for more information about the books. 

  1. Ward 13 by Tommy Donbavand (13)
  2. Knife Edge by Robert Swindells (13)
  3. Runaway by Ann Evans (11)
  4. The Front Room by Michelle Magorian (11)
  5. Jon for Short by Malorie Blackman (10)
  6. Good Boy by Mal Peet (8)
  7. Ghosting by Keith Gray (7)
  8. White Eagles by Elizabeth Wein (7)
  9. Nightmare by Ann Evans (7)
  10. United by Emma Norry (6)
  11. The Lane by Iain McLaughlin (6)
  12. 2 Die 4 by Nigel Hinton (6)
  13. Letting Go by Cat Clarke (6)
  14. The Number 7 Shirt by Alan Gibbons (5)
  15. Have a Go by Jon Mayhew (5)
  16. Copy Cat by Tommy Donbavand (5)
  17. Ghost Stadium by Tom Palmer (5)
  18. Shadow Girl by Sally Nicholls (4)
  19. The Last Days of Archie Maxwell by Annabel Pitcher (4)
  20. Final Girl by Tim Collins (4)
  21. Wasted by Karen Moncrieffe (3)
  22. Tilly’s Promise by Linda Newbery (3)
  23. The Tiger on his Back by Bernard Ashley (3)
  24. Plague by Echo Freer (3)
  25. Kidnap by Tommy Donbavand (3)
  26. ME2 by Catherine Bruton (3)
  27. Keeper by Ann Evans (2)
  28. Home by Tommy Donbavand (2)
  29. The Wishing Doll by Beverly Sandford (2)
  30. Sitting Target by John Townsend (2)
  31. Change by Chitra Soundar (2)
  32. Stop by Jenny Spangler (2)
  33. Stalker by Tony Lee (2)
  34. The Corridor by Mark Wright (2)
  35. Johnny Delgado by Kevin Brooks (2)
  36. The Night Raid by Caroline Lawrence (2)
  37. Second Best Friend by Non Pratt (2)
  38. The Family Tree by Non Pratt (2)

Book Group: The Library launched a book group for S2+ pupils who are developing their English skills. We meet weekly in the English Base and read one or two chapters of the book. The title we are reading is Eagle Warrior by Gill Lewis. Set in the Scottish Highlands, this story follows a young girl and her grandmother who are determined to solve the mystery of an illegal poaching trade taking place in the area. Eagle Warrior was chosen because it introduces the pupils to Scottish landscape, language, and wildlife as well as prompting discussion of topics ranging from Scottish law, cuisine, and history.

More about Eagle Warrior: “Bobbie is thrilled that a golden eagle has settled near her family farm. She loves climbing the hills to watch it soar across the sky and stalk its prey. But not everybody shares her feelings for the magnificent bird. When it becomes clear that the eagle is in grave danger, Bobbie is determined to do everything she can to protect it. But she is also facing the threat of being sent away to boarding school, far from everything she knows. Will Bobbie be brave enough to fight for the bird and home that she loves?”

February 2020 Roundup – Shawlands Academy School Library

LGBT History Month: The Library celebrated LGBT History Month by displaying the fiction and non-fiction titles selected by the school’s LGBT group. The titles were chosen as part of the LGBT SLIF-funded project. Pupils used homemade bunting as well as resources from the TIE campaign website.

Purple Friday was celebrated in the school’s Fuel Zone with live music and a bake sale. The Library marked the occasion as well by implementing our new Pride section that features fiction and non-fiction books about LGBT and equalities themes. The school’s LGBT group have decided on the criteria for the section. Double copies are placed within the relevant genre sections throughout the Library in order to cross-promote LGBT stories and authors.

We’ve created an LGBT reading list that includes the titles chosen by the pupils: LGBT+ Book List

Blind Date with a Book: Our amazing pupil Library Assistant, Sharia, created her first Library display. To coincide with Valentine’s Day, her ‘Blind Date with a Book’ display featured books wrapped in paper. She wanted pupils to take a chance on a book they may otherwise not have chosen themselves and participants were told they had to read at least one chapter of the book before returning it. The display was a hit! One hundred books were issued from the display and the students had a lot of fun guessing which book they were matched with. Great job, Sharia!

Senior Participatory Spend Consultation: The Library will be dedicating a portion of our 2020-2021 budget on books for our Senior Section. This will involve engaging with S4 and S5 pupils through discussions and surveys in order to identify the authors, genres, and subjects that interest them the most. So far we’ve visited five S5/6 English classes and received some interesting feedback from the students. Throughout March we will work with S4 PSE pupils. Our findings will be published o the blog in April.

Twitter Avatar Contest – Shawlands Academy School Library

Did you know that Shawlands Academy has a Twitter account? We’re looking for a new Twitter avatar and who better to design it than our extremely creative and talented students!

To enter:

Draw a reading or book themed picture                                                                                             Submit to the Librarian by January 31st                                                                                                                                       Submissions will be displayed throughout February                                                                                Pupils will vote on their favourite design                                                                                           Winner announced March 2nd

December 2019 Roundup – Shawlands Academy School Library

LGBT+ Mitchell Event: Over the past few months, Shawlands Academy Library, Smithycroft Secondary School, and Hillhead Secondary School were part of an LGBT project funded by the Scottish Library and Information Council (SLIC).  The project is aimed to support LGBT+ young people’s wellbeing and digital literacy by creating an online community and safe space, which will develop and encourage digital creativity through sharing experiences and peer support. To do this, each Library created an online community with an equalities/LGBT+ focus across Glasgow Schools that will give pupils an opportunity to share experiences through creative writing and informal communication. Pupils were invited to partake in an LGBT+ book group supported by their School Librarian and share their opinions of the book on the GLOW blog. There were also opportunities for pupil involvement and input throughout the project through participatory purchasing which involves the pupils to select the LGBT+ resources they want in the Library. Authors in Residence were invited to work with students on their creative writing. Authors, Michael Lee Richardson, and Jem Milton, visited our school over October and November to deliver some interesting and thought-provoking workshops as well as create a piece of collaborative poetry to be presented at the Mitchell Celebration event.

December 3rd saw the project’s finale at the Mitchell Library where all three participating schools met to attend workshops and share their work. The event included workshops by Dean Atta, Jem Milton, and Kirsty Logan.

Read more information about the project on the Glasgow Libraries LGBT Blog

LGBT Youth Scotland: Shawlands Academy has been awarded their GOLD charter from LGBT Youth Scotland! It is the first secondary school in Glasgow to have received it and one of a handful in the country to have been awarded it. GOLD Charter is a programme that shows the school champions LGBTQI pupil inclusion and safeguards their rights. Read more about the Charter