December 15, 2011

To Whom It May Concern:

I have worked professionally with Elizabeth Kangas for the last 2 years, from 2010-2012, at Casablanca American School in Casablanca, Morocco. Elizabeth has been employed as the Lower School Librarian and I as the Upper School Librarian. As the school librarians, Elizabeth and I collaborated on a variety of projects including compiling a procedural manual, aligning library policies, planning and implementing Literacy Week, participating on the Information Technology Committee, and a variety of other library related issues. I have found Elizabeth cooperative to work with and very competent in the field of librarianship. As an experienced Destiny (our online library catalog) user, Elizabeth has willingly assisted me in learning the ins and outs of this program. She has always been willing to share her expertise and experience. Elizabeth provided advice and experience when I was researching online databases for our students. She is technologically savvy and interested in using technology to enhance her library program. Together we planned and implemented a Battle of the Books program for grades 4-6. Elizabeth is very knowlegible about children and young adult literature and we have had frequent conversions about what literature is most appropriate and appealing for our staff and students. We have also worked collaboratively to weed and order materials that have increased the currency of our joint collections by 5 years. Since we share a library catalog database, it has been essential that we are in agreement and collaborate on a continual basis about cataloging, check-out, overdue procedures, etc. It has been a pleasure working with Elizabeth these last two years and I’m confident she will be an asset to any library program she is involved with in the future.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any further questions.

Jerri FryarUpper School LibrarianCasablanca American SchoolCasablanca, Moroccojfryar@cas.ac.majjfryar@hotmail.com (after June 10, 2012)

December 15, 2009

To Whom It May Concern:

In my capacity as a high school English teacher at Colegio Americano de Torreón, I have known Ms. Elizabeth Kangas for the last year and a half as the Librarian of the high school library on the CAT campus. During this time I have witnessed the library go from being perceived as a mysterious place full of books no one could find, or would want to read, to a busy, studious place where students even browse the shelves to find pleasure reading.

In the years before Beth came to work at CAT, many teachers, including myself, had resorted to teaching almost pure Internet research to students for a number of reasons. The librarian was the only person with access to the card catalog, and about half the time when the librarian could determine that we had a book, it was not shelved correctly, had been lost for many years or was lying in some dark corner where not even the librarians went. In self-defense, I studied the shelves and the books on them to the point where I knew better than the librarian where useful books could be found. Further, students felt such disdain for the library that it was a place where students came to eat, gossip, or play games. As such, I was driven to abandon the habit I had acquired during my own university studies of studying or working in the library. Our library was not a refuge for thought, reflection, study and self-directed learning -- it was a social club.

Beth’s role in the conversion of the CAT library from a jumble of good books lost on the shelves, to a useful, growing component of student education cannot be understated. In addition to what may appear to be simple cosmetic changes, Beth has also implemented impressive substantive changes as well. Floor plan changes, the addition of carpeting and furniture have made the library not only a more inviting place for students and faculty, but have also helped reduce the sound problem in the library drastically. Further, our library collection has grown in significant areas: pleasure reading, professional development reading, and periodical sections have all benefited from better weeding, better choices to reach the campus population, and better ways of making library inventory visible to students and faculty alike. I have been pleased to see students looking for books to read for fun, using the library to study, and using all the different parts of the library, not just for playing on the computer, but also for advancing their education. None of these things would have been possible without Beth’s particular view of the function of a school library.

For all these reasons, I recommend Beth Kangas to your staff as a highly qualified and conscientious librarian.

Sincerely,

Ms. Lora D. HeadEnglish Department Chair