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The Winship Library program is an integral part of the Lower School curriculum. The program helps students in developing skills to locate, analyze, evaluate and communicate information and ideas from multiple formats. The media center seeks to foster an appreciation of literature and a love of reading. Towards this goal, the media center houses a two-story reading cottage, a mural with curriculum based themes and changing thematic book displays.
The collection includes over 21,000 volumes, print and non-print, access to online newspapers, age appropriate periodicals and a variety of digital equipment. A completely automated public access catalog provides author, title, subject, series, and keyword access to the print and non-print resources. These resources include the following collections: easy, fiction, non-fiction, biography, reference and video/DVD. There are thirteen computers available to access the catalog, Accelerated Reading tests, and the Internet when appropriate to the activity for the day.
Students visit the library on a fixed schedule for media classes and a flexible schedule as needed for classroom activities. Stories, thematic studies and library skills instruction are part of the curriculum for each grade. Library skills include literature activities, author visits, bibliographic instruction, research opportunities, as well as reading for enjoyment. Other media center activities include a spring book fair, the Smithsonian Institution Wildlife Animal Collection program, a celebration of Children’s National Book Week, and a variety of reading incentive programs.
The Winship library houses a teacher resource collection and a Parent Library. Several times during the school year, the media center co-hosts with the counseling department a Lunch ‘n’ Learn program for parents. A suggested summer reading list is compiled and published by the media center; the list can be accessed on the website.