Tenafly High School’s Lalor Library Media Broadcast Center is located in the heart of the building, is perhaps the largest high school library in the country, and continues to set the standard in providing space and services enabling teachers to teach and students to learn. In order to best serve our students and staff, we prefer to remain in a perpetual state of improvement – to be original, striving be an innovative trend setter in the world of school library media centers. Please read on:
The original architects designed our library to be a special place, and we wish to fully honor their intent. It is perhaps the largest library in a high school anywhere – just about large enough to accomodate the Space Shuttle! Building on the foundation of the traditional library, we look far beyond our national borders for inspiration and ideas. Populated with the best resources and equipment – supported by the highest quality staff, we integrate all media in one centrally located complex. Shakespeare, television broadcast, Xeroxing, coffee, Mozart, tissues, Liszt, conferencing, live video production, post, and package video, paper clips, paper towels, streaming, video, maps, BOOKS!, laptops, novels, a grand piano, a workshop, exhibits, displays, egg hatching, encyclopedias, movies, dictionaries, meeting facilities, art displays, tape, rulers, diorama production, and sometimes a model railway and Foucault Pendulum – a “tiger tots library” with a reading rowboat – all under one roof.
Over 1000 students and faculty use our services daily. Electronically, we reach out to many more via this website and a 24/7 television local cable broadcast also receivable with a click on the menu above. Every classroom and home in our community and beyond has electronic access into our facility providing a valuable school / community / world connection. We regularly receive school library media personnel, school administrators and even state officials as they are curious about our facility and want to see it in action. We welcome your visit anytime – tour and experience our unique facility!
Students, our best customers, are encouraged to explore topics related to coursework and discover new interests in spacious and welcoming surroundings. Our library and its contents are designed to encourage students’ knowing and liking the world. State-of-the-art – yet elegantly deployed technology and a wide range of resources make research efficient and allow students to gain new and different impressions concerning subjects of all kinds. We have our foundation in tradition with over 21,000 titles in print, carefully and cost effectively build our services into the future avoiding costly fads that come and go in the world of schools and school libraries. A carefully selected menu of online database resources, laptops, and professional video communication are all available to our students, staff, and occasionally outside parties.
Creative Expression
As students build knowledge concerning various topics, creative expression is encouraged. On our mezzanine level, among our 900s and biography collections, we have created exhibit space with 2,500 square feet of table top display area where students and staff can set up exhibits and invite classes and our school community for in-house field trips. Also included within the library media center complex is a media production lab or “newsroom”, and a fully equipped professional television studio flanked with bookshelves and a courtyard backdrop in the library’s center. The library’s studio regularly broadcasts programs and events locally and internationally on a wide range of topics.
On Behalf of the World
Students are encouraged to make full use of the library media center to further their study, broaden and deepen their minds, share their learning, innovations, and express their creativity with a hope that they will use knowledge on behalf of one world we share.