the big house library

Since our local libraries in Petaluma don't have access to every book on every topic,
we really love Google Books! :)
 

 
With Google Books, you can find ebooks (magazines and journals, too) on almost any topic and read them online immediately.

To learn how to use this awesome resource, check out our Google Books page or go to books.google.com/intl/en/googlebooks/about.html.
 

the big house library was the proud recipient of a generous PEF grant this year! :)

ms. vanessa hauswald (casa's awesome senior english teacher and senior project coordiator) and ms. erin fender (casa's former assistant principal and small learning communities coordinator) and i co-authored the application to bring more better newer reference books into the library especially for senior projects and SLCs.

the petaluma educational foundation found ours to be a worthy cause and gave us some serious cash to buy books with! :)
 

 
we decided to go with salem press because we already had their series magill's medical guide and weapons and warfare, and seniors were using the heck out of them on HCP and STE senior research papers, both in print and in the accompanying ebook that came free with it (available on the stuff casa pays for page of this website). so i thought, why not get more of the same?

because salem press (and our fabulous rep marvin) quoted us such great prices, we were able to get a lot of bang for our grant's buck. here's we purchased:

* the encyclopedia of american immigration
* the encyclopedia of global warming
* the historical encyclopedia of american business
* salem health: cancer
* salem health genetics

while that probably doesn't sound like a lot, trust me, it is! these books are thousands of pages long each! and, again, we also got the ebooks, which you can search on the stuff casa pays for page. and we'll be getting more books by salem press later this summer.

so, thanks again, to our friends at PEF and salem press for supporting casa's students and their library. have we told you lately that we love you? :)

[click here to see these photos on flickr]
  

hey teens!

get a free book for teen tech week from awesome author cory doctorow! :) he's the same writer who put his ebook on book glutton for free. he's pretty remarkable; check out his blog craphound.com. (sorry, i know i could have hyperlinked that differently; i just felt like typing "craphound" in my own blog!) :)

anyway, it looks to be a page-turner about gamer teens from all over the world who use multiplayer online games to network and fight their abusive, oppressive bosses.

i've already requested a copy for casa, but if you'd like a free copy of your own, click here and read the fine print. :)

p.s. if any librarians are looking for a review of this book, here's one by phronko.