Sources: Successfully Serving the College Bound

Successfully Serving the College Bound. Africa S. Hands. Chicago: ALA Editions, 2015. 168 p. Paper $50 (ISBN: 978-0-8389-1272-0).

As the old saying goes, “forewarned is forearmed.” No truer words have been spoken about high school students preparing to enter college. Traditionally, parents, teachers and guidance counselors have prepared college-bound students with advice and programs to help them find and reach acceptance to their choice of college. But librarians, as information and research specialists, and usually known in secondary education as media specialists, can also successfully prepare high school students for college entrance. Africa S. Hands, with her book Successfully Serving the College Bound, provides a useful and resourceful handbook on how media specialists can successfully serve the college-bound student.

The author begins her book by identifying the characteristics of a successful college-bound student, and then proceeds to include, with clear and readable writing, how to create a relevant and useful library collection to prepare students to enter college (and to succeed after starting college), to assist students with financial aid and other college-bound procedures, to successfully identify needs assessments for college-bound students, and to create partnerships with other school administrators and organizations to successfully assist college-bound students. Unique features of this book include a chapter on media center marketing to the college-bound students, as well as a comprehensive list of online resources and forms dealing with college-bound planning and organization for a wide variety of college-bound programs.

With her well-written and timely guide, Africa S. Hands has written a necessary and important resource that will allow media specialists to effectively assist college-bound students at their schools. Highly recommended.—Lawrence Cooperman, Adjunct Librarian, University of Central Florida Libraries, Orlando, Florida