Please visit the media center anytime during our extended hours.

Monday – Thursday: 7:45am to 7pm

Friday: 7:45am to 3pm

On Special Schedule days, the library will be open one hour after dismissal, unless there is a faculty meeting requiring Ms. Swedo’s presence, then it will be closed after school.

Tutors are now available after school in the JSerra Library on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 3pm to 4:30pm. Here is the weekly schedule according to subject area:

Tuesdays: Religion & Foreign Language

Wednesdays: English & History

Thursdays: Math & Science

This is a drop-in service, so come by when you need extra help with homework or projects. Four tutors will be available each day.

I am looking into establishing partnerships with academic librarians at Saddleback College and UC Irvine to assist our seniors with transitioning to college-level research and the LC library system. I will also be visiting librarians at the K-8 schools that send students to JSerra to share information on curriculum and programming in order to assist 8th graders who enter JSerra as freshmen. I am developing a new opportunity to have our seniors take a class online in order to prepare them for college and its widespread use of WebCT and Blackboard Course Management Software systems. This class will be tied into English curriculum.

I am currently adding to the library collection, but our LMC can always use your help in growing this excellent print resource for our students. Consider buying a magazine subscription for the library, or perhaps donating a reference book, non-fiction materials, or literature that support JSerra curriculum. If you would like ideas, please contact Ms. Swedo anytime. The library can always use more friends.

Your librarian has been invited to present a paper on Instructional Technology at a professional conference this year. The NCEA conference will be held in Anaheim in April 2009. At that conference, Ms. Swedo will partner with Mr. Chris Plaia, our illustrious (albeit just recently former) English Department Chair, and Dr. David V. Loertscher, SJSU SLIS professor and much-published reknown scholar and guru to the school media field, to present a discussion about Millennials, information literacy, and transitions to college for our high school students. It is an honor to be asked to speak, and we hope all in attendance come away with new information. For information about this conference see this link: NCEA.

Ms. Swedo has been appointed to a two-year term on the ALA committee Transitions to College under the Library & Instruction Roundtable. In this role, Ms. Swedo will work with academic librarians and other school librarians to foster partnerships amongst various types of libraries, including JSerra’s, to support and encourage the information literacy skills of seniors when they leave high school and move onto higher education. For more info on LIRT, see this link: LIRT.

Do you think libraries and librarians will be come obsolete? Do you really know what a librarian does? It’s not about reading. When people ask me the last thing I read I tell them a journal on an airplane or a blog or a LISTSERV. Did you know you need a Masters degree to be a professional librarian? Did you know that soon there will be a shortage of librarians across the U.S.? Librarianship is about technology and the power and comprehension of and access to information. It is an excellent and rewarding career path. See the link called “Libraries & Librarianship” under “News Articles” on the right side-bar and do some exploration into librarianship.

The mission of the JSerra Library Media Center ("LMC") is to create an environment in which students and faculty are empowered to be effective users of information and technology in a learning community, according to the standards and practices established by the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) and written up in a publication called Information Power: Building Partnerships for Learning. The goal of the LMC is to ensure that all JSerra students gain information literacy, which is central to becoming lifelong learners. 

In support of the LMC’s mission to provide a proactive instructional partnership between the classroom and the media center, students receive library instruction throughout each term to teach them to develop information literacy and critical thinking skills, and train them to be effective researchers.  Library classes will include library orientation, use of the Dewey decimal system, online library catalogs (OPACs), leased research databases, Big 6 and I-search research work, skills to avoid plagiarism, Internet navigation, website evaluation, critical thinking, MLA 6th edition citation, and much more.

The librarian collaborates with faculty to develop online webquests, based on specific subject areas and tasks.  These webquests enable the students to use their laptops in the classroom.  They are also accessible through the Internet at home.  All webquests are on this library page under the right side-bar under the link called "Webquests".

The LMC is directed by Ms. Jeanne Swedo, who has been JSerra’s information facilitator since January 2004. Ms. Swedo has a Masters degree in Library & Information Science specializing in school librarianship. She is a Certified Blackboard Instructor (2008). Blackboard is a course management software system used by higher education to deliver courses online to students. Ms. Swedo is an active member of the following professional associations: (national) ALA: LIRT, AASL, LITA, and ACRL; NCEA and CLA (for Catholic educators & librarians); (state/local) CSLA, CARL-SCIL, Diocese of Orange Librarian’s Assn., and LILi (Lifelong Informaton Literacy). Here is a link to LILi’s webpage at UCLA: LILi.

JSerra is a wireless laptop campus eliminating the need for a computer lab in the library. We do have 3 Internet-ready desktop computers which students can use to browse the library catalog, check Aeries, or do a quick research or Word processing project on the Student Network. The LMC provides access to information in both digital and print formats. The digital collection includes multiple online research databases by Facts on File and Proquest/SIRS. The databases can be found on this page under the right side-bar under “Links”. The print collection is dynamic and grows each year with its emphasis on free-reading fiction and curriculum-based fiction, non-fiction, and reference materials. We subscribe to several periodicals, including the daily L.A. Times and the Orange County Register, which we receive MWF for free under the RIE (Register In Education program). The library also has a xerox machine that can be used by students.

JSerra Catholic High School Library

26351 Junipero Serra Road

San Juan Capistrano, CA 92675

Lost textbooks that are found on campus are sent to the library, where Ms. Swedo keeps them locked up. If the student’s name is in the book, an email is sent to the teacher of that subject for the student to come and retrieve his or her textbook. Please be sure to write the student name in each textbook!