What our Media Center can do for you

RHS offers many services to help it’s students get ahead, but some of the best services may be under-utilized or not utilized at all by some students. The RHS Media Center offers several excellent services to the students including the rental of video cameras and calculators, the use of computers, and much more.


The most obvious service that the Media Center offers is checking out some of their over 9,000 books. Books can be checked out 2 weeks at a time, but renewed indefinitely with a $.10 a day late fee.

Additionally, if the Media Center doesn’t have a book thats wanted to checkout, the student can fill out a form and the book will be bought for the Media Center’s collection, within reason. For instance, anything such as a travel book that will be outdated quickly or something that isn’t school appropriate won’t be purchased. The wonderful librarians will also help students find books outside the RHS library to check out.

“Every week or so, I will go to Barnes & Noble and buy books that students have requested, add them to our circulation and possibly get rid of an older book, many of which have been here since 1985 and just aren’t relevant anymore,” said head-librarian Mrs. Yuknas. “I’m always trying to weed out older books, and add more books that students want to read, especially fiction.”

The Media Center also has 35 computers for use to type, research, look at databases, or print for $.10 a page. The easiest time of day is during the resource hour on Wednesdays, and before or after school. Teachers are often signed up for the computers during many of the other periods in the day, and 2,256 students used computers in August alone, even though they are a great resource, don’t always count on computers to use.

However, perhaps the best and most useful service that you can get in the Media Center is the use of databases for research. RHS spends about $5,000 a year on databases for history, geography, government, and literature, and students can get the passwords to these databases by seeing the Media Center staff. These databases allow students to find good, quality information for papers, and projects such as history day.

The Media Center also offers calculators and video cameras that can be rented. Calculators can be checked out just like books, two weeks at a time but renewed indefinitely. Video cameras can also be rented out with parent permission, but only overnight to due battery restrictions, with a $.50 a day late fee.

To access all the wonderful resources offered in the Media Center, students must always have their I.D. cards, and always sign-in at a logbook to count visitors and keep track of students in case of emergency. It is open from 7:15 to 4:15 on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, closes at 4:00 on Friday and opens as 7:30 on Wednesdays.