Fast Finds come to students’ aid
Jeff Benson
After he founded Mission San Fernando de Velicata in Baja California
in 1769, it took Father Junipero Serra a month and a half to get to
San Diego and establish the first of 21 California missions.
Newport Beach Public Library employees are hoping it won’t take
fourth-graders nearly that long to build their own houses of
Franciscan worship.
Mission projects and others are hitting full stride in some
Newport-Mesa schools, leading many students to flock to the library
for last-minute research materials. But the library staff knows
students don’t want to spend the rest of their winter break searching
for help with class projects.
That’s why they’ve designed Fast Finds -- color-coded bookmarks
that provide third- through sixth-grade students with recommendations
of reference books, nonfiction books and videos for school projects.
The most common projects include California Indians, California
missions, states and ancient civilizations, said children’s librarian
Victoria Campbell, who created the Fast Finds.
“We try to take all the major projects and give kids resources of
where they can find information,” Campbell said. “When we know the
projects are coming, we’ll put a lot of books out in sections.”
The Fast Finds also list websites for a handful of online research
materials and library databases that can help students in case the
books they needed have already been checked out.
Students are also welcome to search through the library’s own
database at https://www.newportbeach
library.org and the library’s kid’s page at
https://www.newportkids.org.
Many local teens are working on biographies and literary criticism
projects, and the library is finding ways to help with those, too.
The library’s ProQuest database allows students to search for free
magazine, journal and newspaper articles as long as they have a
Newport Beach library card, librarian Genesis Hansen said.
“It’s a really excellent resource because they can do it from home
and after hours, when the library’s closed,” Hansen said. “This
database can be used by college students. It’s very comprehensive.”
The library’s Young Adult Advisory Council website at
https://www.yaac.org gives teens help with bibliographies, college
planning and suggested reading.
As much of a resource as the Internet can be, it’s not a cure-all
for students’ school projects, said children’s librarian Amy
Harpster. Most people don’t know about the Fast Finds yet, she said.
“It seems like we’ll ask them a lot of times about getting
material off the Internet,” she said. “Usually their teachers will
tell them to go to the library and get a book.”
The Newport Beach Public Library is at 1000 Avocado Ave., Newport
Beach.
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