News about Staff and Libraries in the Region

Equal Access for Youth at the Chelmsford Public Library
By Maureen Foley and Roberta Baricelli, Youth Services

Our library programming will have a math focus this year. We're calling the series "What's Math Got to Do With It?" The first activity was inspired by the book All of the Above by Shelley Pearsall about middle school students who try to break a world record by constructing a Sierpinski tetrahedron.

We decided this was a great activity for all ages. Volunteers cut out 4000 tetrahedron shapes on an Ellison machine, and visitors to the library taped them together to create 3 sided pyramids. During February vacation teens took all the individual tetrahedron shapes and glued them together to form large structures.

We got good coverage in the local newspaper, and one of our teens did an excellent job explaining the whole project on YouTube .

Our Flickr account has pictures of all the steps involved. <http://www.flickr.com/photos/chelmsfordpubliclibrary/sets/72157603958295207/>

We've gotten great feedback from the community - especially from teachers (both math and art.)

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Tara Fitzpatrick has been appointed Social Science Reference & Instruction Librarian at Salem State College. She was formerly Head of Adult Services at the Topsfield Town Library.

Jason SooHoo has been appointed Science and Technology Reference & Instruction Librarian at Salem State College. He was formerly Reference Librarian/Young Adult Librarian at Melrose Public Library.