Medical Lake High librarian honored

Nadean Meyer, librarian at Medical Lake High School was named the Library Media Specialist of the Year at the recent Washington Library Media Association conference.

Those who nominated Meyer praised her commitment to student achievement through reading choices, technology-based research and multimedia teaching.

This is Meyer’s ninth year as librarian at Medical Lake High School where she is the adviser for the Booktalker and Multimedia clubs. She also advises the Youth Suicide Prevention Team at the school.

This is the second year of a two-year term in which Medical Lake students have voted in the Youth Advocates Galley Project. In 2003, these students were the first teens nationwide who made their own choices of “best” new books through the Young Adult Library Services Association.

“Publishers send us their galleys before the books are published, and the students read them and send back a one-page review. They’re asked, Is this a cool book? Do you like the cover? They get very excited.

“First of all, we get multiple copies, which has always been hard to pull off. We get five copies of these books that haven’t even been published yet, and the students have been real excited that someone wants to hear their opinion and the publishers are very excited to hear what the teens have to say,” said Meyer.

Meyer, 52, grew up in Bellingham. She’s been a school librarian for more than 20 years and a librarian since 1975. She graduated from Washington State University, received her master’s degree in klibrary science from the University of Oregon and her teaching credentials from Eastern Washington Univesity.

She has worked in community colleges, done projects for companies and taught at EWU.

“I’ve always been connected in some way to books. I even worked for the Children’s Corner Bookshop when my kids were little.” Meyer said.

“We did book fairs at over 50 schools in the area. It was there that I realized that libraries are never going to have enough copies of anything – when you see how many copies you can sell in a couple months and you realize the library has three copies and they’re proud of that,” Meyer said.

Meyer did doctoral work on information science in the early ‘90s. She is the Web master for the Washington Library Media Association’s Web site and has worked on the state task force for the Washington’s new graduation requirement for 2008.