Library

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Section 1: Welcome

Welcome to ISA Library! We are here to support all the families in our community, promoting reading for pleasure and supporting our students' developing information literacy skills.


All students, staff and parents in the ISA community are welcome to join the library and borrow items. 


Students and staff can come at any time during the school day; parents are welcome after school, 3-4pm each day (except Tuesdays, when we are closed for staff meetings). 


Please  sign in as normal at reception, and then come through to the library. You are welcome to bring your children in with you, but please note that all elementary and middle school students  must be accompanied by an adult after school, and cannot be left on their own in the library.  


The library is run by teacher-librarians, Josie Crimp and Rosaleen Hay: Rosaleen works on Mondays and Tuesdays and Josie Wednesday-Friday. The best way to contact us is to email the library.

Section 2: Joining the Library and Borrowing Books

All students automatically join the library when they enrol at ISA.  If you are a parent and would like to join the library, please email us . We will then set you up with a username and password so that you can log in to the library catalogue. 


You have 3 options for borrowing books:


Parents can borrow up to 6 items at a time, for 2 weeks.  When you have finished with your books, you can either return them to the library yourself, or give them to your child to return.  We do not charge any fees for overdue books; it's only if a book has been lost that you will need to pay the replacement cost.


You can search our library catalogue to find out what we have available - you can search by author, title, series, or keyword. We have more information for students and staff on our library site (google sign-in required).


Preschool children currently choose their library book each week from a small collection that is delivered to Preschool.  Elementary School Children visit the library once a week to choose their new library books. In this time they will also listen to a story (younger classes) or do a learning activity related to research skills and/or reading.


Middle School students visit the library once every two weeks to choose new library books, and can also visit at lunchtime for quiet study.


High School students can visit the library in their own time, and can also use it for quiet independent study during lunchtime and after school.


Borrowing books over the summer.  Return all your current library books before the end of May.  If you are continuing at ISA next year, any books you check out from the first day of June onwards will be due back at the start of the new year in August.


Leaving ISA.  If you are leaving ISA at the end of the school year, please return your library books by the end of May, and don’t check out any new ones (if you need something for your work, come and talk to us).


If you think you have already returned a book, or if you have lost a book and need to pay for it, please come and speak to us, or email library@isa.aberdeen.sch.uk

Section 3: Our Collection

Check out our collection here.  


The main collection includes: a wide range of fiction and non-fiction for children and adults, from board books for babies to Nobel Prize winning authors; graphic novel collections for all ages; and a professional collection of books on teaching pedagogy


Other resources: film and documentaries on DVD: Posters and artefacts for teachers to use in the classroom


Books in Other Languages. Search the library catalogue for books in the language you are interested in.  Use the search format "Spanish Language Materials" to avoid books about things like Spanish cooking  or email the library for more information. We have:

If you have any children's books in languages other than English that you would be interested in donating, please get in touch! We want to continue to develop our collections in different languages, and it can sometimes be difficult to source quality books in these languages from within the UK.


EBooks. Destiny, our library system, has a growing range of ebooks and audiobooks. Students and staff can access these with their school Google login. Parents can also get a login - email library@isa.aberdeen.sch.uk to get one.  You can look at specific collections by clicking on the following links: Grades 2-3 - Ebooks, Grades 4-5 - Ebooks, Grades 3-5 - Audiobooks, Grades 6-8 - Ebooks, Grades 6-8 - Audiobooks.  You can read or listen online or by downloading the free app, Destiny Read.  


Print Magazines.  You can borrow current and back issues of: Aesthetica - international art and culture magazine; The Economist - focuses on current affairs, international business, politics and technology; First News - weekly newspaper aimed at elementary children; Frame - interior design, architecture, product design and exhibition design; History Today - illustrated history magazine; National Geographic - geography, archaeology, anthropology and exploration; Physics World - the world's leading physics magazine; Puntoycoma - news and culture magazine supporting Spanish language learners; Wired - magazine on emerging technologies


Online Magazines.  Many of these have a searchable archive, making them a great source of further information. All passwords are available on the student Library site, as we have to limit access to staff/students who have an ISA google sign-in. Some of these only allow one login at a time, so please log out as soon as you’ve finished using them.  They include:  The Economist -

Current affairs and politics; History Today - Fantastic in-depth articles. New Internationalist - Particularly good for Global Perspectives: this magazine has articles with an international breadth on political, social, environmental and rights-based issues. Philip Allan Magazine Archive - This archive includes back copies of the following magazines: Biological Sciences Review, Chemistry Review, IB Review, Modern History Review and Physics Review. The search box is unfortunately a bit clunky, but you can still search the archive by keyword.


Online Learning Tools: We have a range of online resources,providing trustworthy information at a range of levels for our students. To access the logins, please visit the Library website (you will require a student or staff google login to access this). For licensing reasons, we can't put our login details on this webpage.


Brainpop and Brainpop Science is for Kindergarten to Grade 8, plus useful as a brief introduction on topics for older students. Click "Log in" and "Sign in with google". Brainpop provides short animated documentaries on all sorts of topics such as inventions, events, people and places (these are the ones with the robot in, if that sounds familiar…)

Science is behind every real-world phenomenon. Brainpop Science helps 6-8th grade students build the skills to explore and gather evidence to explain them with confidence.

You can click to turn on subtitles for each video if you wish.


World Book Online is an online encyclopaedia with information at 3 different levels of complexity: Grades 1-5 : World Book Kids; Grades 4-8 : World Book Student; Grades 7-12 : World Book Advanced. The password available on Student Library site)


EBSCO  Grades 9-12. A massive database of academic journals and other sources, great for researching IB internal assessments and Extended Essays. You can click to have useful articles forwarded to your email address.  It also provides information on how to cite each article.  To login, please click link on Student Library site


Issues Online . A database of articles and ebooks about contemporary issues such as health, the environment, inequalities and society. Particularly good for the subjects of Health and Global Perspectives with Grades 7 to 12 in mind. Password available on Student Library site)


Newsademic. Newsademic is a biweekly online newspaper, aimed at EAL students in Grades 4 to 12, that includes optional activities. Password available on Student Library site