Northside Libraries are the heart of each school community, creating meaningful and diverse learning opportunities, nurturing in our students a love for reading and learning, and developing in them the skills necessary to fully participate in society.
Our libraries purchase and maintain a current, relevant, and diverse collection of over two million print and digital materials for both study and pleasure.
#NISDLibraries
83 Elementary School Libraries
21 Middle School Libraries
13 High School Libraries
1 Professional Library
Northside ISD has a total of 116 campus libraries and 1 professional library located at NAC.
All NISD libraries are staffed by professional, certified librarians. High school libraries also have a paraprofessional library assistant.
Studies consistently find positive relationships between having access to full-time, qualified school librarians and student performance.
Welcome to the NISD Library catalog! Our catalog boasts an extensive collection of books, e-books, audiobooks, periodicals, and multimedia resources that cater to all reading levels and interests. With a focus on promoting lifelong learning and fostering a love for reading, our carefully curated collection includes the latest in children's and young adult literature, essential reference materials, and a wide range of digital resources.
Recently, all Northside libraries enjoyed a range of improvements: from major renovations to redecorating. This ensures every student an updated, enjoyable and flexible learning space.
Please visit our photo gallery for more images of our newly renovated libraries
Northside ISD Libraries
2025-2026 Yearly Report
#NISDLibraries serve as hubs for our schools: gathering places for students, staff and families. They are a safe space for everyone on campus, offering a variety of lessons, activities, and opportunities. Students can use the library to read, study, create, explore, and more! This number represents individual visits by students, teachers, parents, and other patrons.
NISD Librarians are certified teachers who hold masters degrees and a K-12 library certificate. NISD librarians taught over 65,000 lessons this school year, including literacy lessons, read alouds, collaborative lessons, makerspace and STEM lessons, research lessons, and so much more. All library lessons support the curriculum as well as student learning and engagement. Academic achievement increases when students receive instruction from school librarians, both with classroom teachers and independently.
NISD Librarians strive to build collaborative partnerships with teachers across the campus. Collaboration can be pulling materials to support the curriculum, teaching lessons that connect to what's being taught in the classroom, planning lessons or units of study with teachers, and even the librarian and teacher co-teaching lessons together. Librarians are an important part of the instructional team on NISD campuses!
Northside librarians keep students engaged and reading through creative programming during the school year. Reading challenges, Book Fairs, clubs, interactive displays, story walks, makerspaces, Toddler Times, STEM projects, and so much more were offered this year. Robust library programming increases family engagement at school, and time spent reading.
Author visits increase student interest in reading and writing. Seeing performers and speakers connects students to the arts and the work world. Authors often speak about the writing and research process, as well as the determination it takes to write a book. NISD Libraries hosted over 600 authors, speakers, or performers this school year, either in-person or virtually!
Access to both print and digital books is a critical part of learner growth and helps close the poverty gap. A professional librarian curates the collection to meet the needs of the school community, and helps students choose the right books and other materials for academic and pleasure reading. Students who read more, including just for fun, consistently do better in school and life.
Valley Hi librarian Jennifer Grimes won Leaders Readers Network Literacy Champion Award in the Lifetime Achievement category. The Northside ISD Library Services Department won the Texas Library Association's 2026 Branding Iron Award for social media advocacy.
- Eight NISD Librarians received NEF grants this year for a total of $18,867. These grants helped librarians with programs such as SEL books and storytelling kits, construction tools for young engineers, library signage for better accessibility, Documents of Democracy historical pop-up exhibits, world religion artifact boxes, empowering inquiry with nonfiction text stations, and more.
- Five grants from the Texas Commission on the Arts were received, which helped provide author visits to over 30 schools.
- Scobee ES librarian Andrea Colwell received a Credit Union grant to purchase large print books for dyslexic students, and Taft librarian Rebeca Fox won a grant to fund her attendance at the Texas Library Association's TALL Texans leadership institute.
Librarians are teachers and they serve as an important part of instruction on campus. This year, 3 NISD librarians were named Educator of the Year for their campus:
- Driggers ES Librarian, Alyssa Burnett
- Myers ES Librarian, Norma Cantu
- Cody ES Librarian, Monica Alaniz
- 117 Libraries staffed by certified librarians
- 1 Professional Library
- 13 Library Assistants
Northside ISD has a total of 117 campus libraries and a professional library located at NAC that circulates professional material to teachers all over the district. All NISD libraries are staffed by professional, certified librarians. High school libraries also have a paraprofessional library assistant. Studies consistently find positive relationships between having access to full-time, qualified school librarians and student performance.
The Northside Library Services office includes 2 Library Support Specialists, 2 catalogers, and 1 secretary/bookkeeper. This office works to support all Northside librarians by providing professional development opportunities, visiting campuses, helping with large collection development projects, maintaining the circulation/catalog system and district ebook collection, coaching librarians, opening new school libraries, making sure each library is fully staffed, collaborating with other departments, and much more.
Visiting campuses is an important part of the work of Library Services. Seeing the amazing lessons and programs that Northside librarians are teaching every day helps us advocate for the hard work of our librarians. It also helps us to provide support at the moment of need.
The Library Services office loads tens of thousands of records each year, and processes thousands of books for Northside libraries. Centralizing this work means that librarians can focus on teaching and learning, rather than cataloging!
Library Services works to provide professional learning opportunities for Northside librarians by organizing them or helping to send librarians to conferences. PD is offered during the summer, as well as on the November and February NISD professional learning days. Library Services was able to send some librarians to the Texas Computer Educators Association conference, the Texas Library Associate Conference, the Region 20 Learning in Libraries conference, and the TCEA Summer Librarian Conference. Many of our librarians also present at these conferences!
Occasionally, a librarian needs to rearrange, relabel, inventory, and/or weed the collection. When these projects are too large for one person, Library Services is here to help! This way, our district-wide collection of over a million items remains current, relevant, and in good condition for our students, staff, and families
NISD librarians organize several district-wide events each year that are open to all. The goal of these programs is to promote literacy, connect students with authors, increase access to books, and promote the joy of reading.
LibraryPalooza
LibraryPalooza is Northside's premier YA author fest and allows secondary students to interact with some of their favorite authors. This event has taken place annually since 2012, although 2021 was a much smaller virtual event. This year, the featured authors were Nick Brooks, L.M.Elliott, Huda Fahmy, Chloe Gong, E. Lockhart, Scott Reintgen, and Samantha Van Leer. LibraryPalooza 2027 will take place on February 27 next year at Brandeis HS!
Learn more about LibraryPalooza at: librarypaloozasa.org
Story Fest
Storyfest is an author fest geared toward elementary students and is a great family event each spring. This year, the keynote author was Jerry Pallotta. Students and parents and teachers loved getting to meet the author of the very popular Who Would Win series! Storyfest also features breakout rooms where students can see various speakers and performers, as well as a tabletop games and activities. This year, Storyfest featured Austin Reptiles, Miss Anastasia, Lucas Miller the Singing Zoologist, Mother Goose, reading with SA Humane Society dogs, a Book Walk, and much more! It was great fun and we can't wait for next year's Storyfest! https://nisdstoryfest.weebly.com/
Great Book Giveaway
Spearheaded by Brennan librarian Harry Ostlund, the Great Book Giveaway allows families to get bags of free books at 2 separate NISD locations. NISD librarians gather and sort books all year for the event. This event was borne of a desire to get books in kids' hands during COVID and has been going strong ever since. This year, over 15,000 books were given to students of all levels, as well as teachers for use in their classrooms!
Middle School Battle of the Books
This was the 2nd annual Middle School Battle of the Books! Garcia MS came in 1st place, Luna MS in 2nd, and Zachry MS in 3rd. Students report that this helped them read books they might not have otherwise picked up. They loved delving deep into the literature, and bonding as a team.
Fiesta of Words
Fiesta of Words is an event of creative writing organized by Northside ISD high school librarians that invites students to showcase their creative talents through an original poetry contest. Students are also invited to shine on an open mic sharing their inspiring poetry, and participate in enriching writing workshops. This year's Fiesta of Words featured keynote speaker RL Toalson.
Battle of the Bluebonnets
Elementary librarians from around Northside worked together to create a district and then city-wide book trivia competition centered around the Texas Bluebonnet Award list. Participating schools hosted a competition on their campus, then sent 3 teams to the district competition. From there, several NISD schools competed in a city-wide competition. Franklin ES came out on top after all of that to win the city-wide competition for the 2nd year in a row! Students loved reading the Bluebonnet books, studying and practicing the trivia, and working together!
1 City-Wide Event: The Great SA Reading Challenge
After the success of Read to the Final Four last year, NISD Trustee Bobby Blount wanted to keep the momentum going. He partnered with Library Services to design and implement a new city-wide reading challenge for 3rd grade students: The Great SA Reading Challenge! Students log minutes all school year and compete in a bracket-style contest to see who comes out on top. This year, the winning school wasn't a Northside school, but we had two schools make the Final 4: Chumbley ES and Burke ES!
We're librarians. Of course, we've cited our sources. ;)
- Access to Books. (n.d.). Family and Community Engagement Research Compendium,49-67. Retrieved June 20, 2019, from http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/face/pdf/research-compendium/access-to-books.pdf
- Benefits of Author Visits. (n.d.). Retrieved June 20, 2019, from https://www.jandersoncoats.com/author-visits/benefits-of-author-visits/
- Horn, A., & Lingham, B. (n.d.). How libraries and librarians can support student engagement[This AUSSE Enhancement Guide makes suggestions about the role libraries and librarians have in enhancing student engagement]. Https://www.acer.org/files/AUSSE_EG_Librarians.pdf.
- Miller, D. (2015, February 09). I've Got Research. Yes, I Do. I've Got Research. How About You? Retrieved June 20, 2019, from https://bookwhisperer.com/2015/02/08/ive-got-research-yes-i-do-ive-got-research-how-about-you/
- School Libraries Are the Only Thing that Matters. Every Library. Retrieved June 17, 2021, from https://medium.com/everylibrary/school-libraries-are-the-only-thing-that-matters-bbef39f73727
- School Libraries Make the Difference. (n.d.). Retrieved June 20, 2019, from http://www.ilovelibraries.org/school-libraries
- School Libraries Work![A Compendium of Research Supporting the Effectiveness of the School Libraries]. (n.d.). http://www.scholastic.com/slw2016/
- Sparks, S. D., & Harwin, A. (2019, February 20). Schools See Steep Drop in Librarians, New Analysis Finds. Retrieved June 20, 2019, from https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2018/05/16/schools-see-steep-drop-in-librarians-new.html
- Torii, K. (2019, June 06). Why school kids need more exposure to the world of work. Retrieved June 20, 2019, from http://theconversation.com/why-school-kids-need-more-exposure-to-the-world-of-work-100590
- Why school librarians matter: What years of research tell us. (2019, June 13). Retrieved June 20, 2019, from https://www.kappanonline.org/lance-kachel-school-librarians-matter-years-research/
Contact Us
Call NISD Library Services office: (210) 397-8190
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FONL's (Friends of Northside Libraries) mission is to promote and support the vital role of the school library in the educational experience.
