Collection Management

Centenary Library 2008

In 2008 the TL was responsible for all facets of library management, and the ICT budget. He organised the move to the new library and purchased equipment and furniture for managing and accomodating the collections. He shared responsibility for access and circulation with the library aide. Very little resource promotion occured, particularly of teacher reference. These materials were purchased by the HOC and were often given to the teachers who had requested them without being catalogued and accessioned.

New Library 2011 

In 2011, the TL and I shared responsibility for library management, including the ICT and library budgets. To facilitate this we placed budget spreadsheets in a shared library directory on the school network so that all library staff could access it and add their orders to the spreadsheet. The library aide and I shared responsibility for collection development, accomodation and circulation. The HOC continued to purchase curriculum and teacher reference materials.

Management of the library's collection reflects the whole-of-school emphasis on the development of literacy skills. The main goal of the library program is to support the school's literacy program through the Accelerated Reader (AR)program. Management priorities relate to selection, acquisition, cataloguing and circulation of the AR collection. Currently, AR is used in Year 4 to 7.

There are plans to begin Year 3 students on AR in Term 4 each year. Teachers believe that this will make the transition to Year 4 smoother.  

The school priorities remained the same, with the library primarily supporting the implementation of Accelerated Reader and expanding the use of the program to Year 3. In addition the Learning Support Committee put in place a procedure for Year 2 teachers to request advanced Year 2 readers be allowed to use the program.

the Year 3 teachers felt that their students would benefit from beginning AR earlier in the year. The introduction of Prep has caused a shortage of homework reading materials particularly in the higher levels as many of the children are reading higher levels earlier. The library staff supported the introduction of AR just before Easter.

The teacher-librarians and the chair of the Literacy Commitee were not in favour of this initiative. But the initiative was implemented in response to requests from parents/carers of 'gifted' children who wanted their children extended. My experience this year has been that the Year 2 children doing Accelerated Reader were not well supported by their classroom teachers. This mibht have been because they did not complete the AR professional development session at the beginning of the year, and so did not understand the level of commitment necessary from teachers.

Management of the library's collection reflects the whole-of-school emphasis on the development of literacy skills. The main goal of the library program is to support the school's literacy program through the Accelerated Reader Program. Management priorities relate to selection, acquisition, cataloguing and circulation of the Accelerated Reader (AR) collection.

The TL, library aide and student volunteers maintain efficient circulations. Volunteers assist by processing loans and returns and shelving books before school, during lunch breaks and after school. 

This year I have collaborated with the teacher aide to make accommodation changes to the main collection to improve access.

Teachers
While access to the sections of the collection that are housed in the library is well facilitated by our day-to-day processes, access to teacher reference, guided reading materials and big books is quite poor. Many of the school's resources have never been catalogued so it is difficult to know whether we have particular resources and almost impossible to know where they might be. To improve teacher access to these materials I have negotiated extra aide time to accession resources and set up reading resource rooms for the upper and lower school. The resource rooms will be equipped with a computer and scanner so that teachers can scan out their own loans. Training will be provided on the pupil free days.

The little people
To raise the young children's awareness of how picture books are organised in the library, I asked the library aide to add an alphabet stickers to the front cover of each picture book (first letter of the author's last name). Now when classes bring back their returns, the children help place the picture books in the correct Easyboxes. 

With the introduction of Prep, more Years 1 and 2 students are reading chapter books. Access to these books has been improved by placing short chapter books suitable for younger readers on lower shelves that are easier and safer for them to reach. The books have been organised in series to help the children find the books they like. To help monitors return these books to the correct section, each has an orange dot sticker on the back, and the shelves are labelled with the series name.

White and Yellow AR sections
The books in the white and yellow AR sections are a mix of picture books and short chapter books. The books were overcrowded and difficult for the children to look through when trying to select a book. The white books, used by many Year 3 students were high on the shelf.

We trialled a number of options for improving access to the white and yellow levels. When we got out Term 4 budget, I bought a white Easybox for the white level. The box is more suitable for the mix of picture books and chapter books and easier for children to reach. Now there is more space on the bookshelf to spread out the yellow level.

Older readers
In the fiction section books were loosely shelved according to the first letter in the author's last name. However it was very difficult to find books. So now we have trained some of our student volunteers to do shelf checks and rearrange books so that books by the same author are kept together.
We have also started to keep popular series such as Horrible Histories, Disgusting Science, Our Australian Girl and My Story in an upper school series section.

Weeding
The teacher librarian consults with the Head of Curriculum and other staff members to 'weed' the collections. He uses the following criteria to select resources for culling:

Copyright
Teacher librarians have a professional responsibility to adhere to legal copying practices and raise staff awareness about copyright restrictions. All Right to Copy?  provides online Information about copyright in Australia.

The increase in the use of ditigal resources raises additional copyright issues.  

Stocktaking
This year the TL and I worked together to stocktake the main collection housed in the library. We divided the other sections between us. e to complicated arrangements for accommodating sections of the collection the stocktake is still incomplete. However, I have negotiated a set of strategies for rationalising the locations and improving teacher access to resources.

 Weeding
In the past few weeks I have noticed that the shelves are looking untidier. Closer inspection revealed that the shelves are well maintained, but many of the books are in poor condition. At the end of the year when all resources are back in the library and the stocktake is complete, I plan to weed the collection. In future years, I will use the method employed by Council libraries so that weeding is an ongoing process that keeps the collection looking more attractive.

Copyright
Records related to photocopying copyright are kept by the teacher aides who work in the photocopying room. Teachers are made aware of the copyright restrictions at the beginning of the school year. Now that most classrooms use interactive whiteboards or data projectors and screens, less photocopying is required. Teachers reinforce awareness of copyright and intellectual property with the students. This year they have placed a greater emphasis on students referencing their work. 

The Resource Centre Guide outlines the duties of the teacher librarian and the library aide. The school has a responsibility to provide ongoing professional development for library staff. Teacher librarians can access relevant professional development through membership of professional associations. Examples of training opportunities can be found on the State Library of Queensland and the NSWnet websites. Online professional publications include, for example, the School Library Journal and the Informed Librarian Online (Subscription required). Teacher librarians can also access a wealth of professional information through national, state and local networks, such as the such as OZTL_NET Listserv and the Teacher Librarians in Brisbane North and Central West listserv. 

This year I have share responsibility for managing the school library with the TL. We have a full-time library aide who also runs the instrumental music program and the Early Literacy Foundation (ELF) support program.

Sharing the role of TL has had it's challenges. We shared the teaching workload equally. We take joint responsibility for ICTs. In consultation with each other, I spent the library budget and he spent the ICT budget. We maintained budget spreadsheets that provided running totals.

To facilitate communications we worked a common hour in the middle of the day on Wednesday, stayed in regular email contact and kept a shared diary as a communications book. To ensure that teacher's requests are dealt with as soon as possible, teachers email both TLs and the library aide and the first available person deals with the request.

As the workload increased this year, extra teacher aide hours were negotiated so that we could use some of the projects resulting from the stocktake to train an aide to replace the full-time library aide who will leave at the end of 2012.

To ensure that use of library collections is maximised, it is important to promote library services and resources through a range of media and activities. These might include contests, author visits, book fairs, book circles, displays, reading challenges and online activities such as blogs and reading raps.

Education Queensland offers a range of online activities through The Learning Place. The NSW School Libraries and Information Literacy Unit, for example, offers reading raps on its website.  Brisbane City Council libraries are keen to help schools organise author visits.

Because of the success of the AR program little has been done to promote the library's resources in creative, fun ways. There is ample scope for involving staff members in providing new and exciting promotional activities. 

This year we have done very little promotion of resources. We use spinners and a shelf in the library to display new books. In addition we presented the books that were shortlisted for the CBCA book of the year awards and some of the series purchased this year.

Next year I plan to feature new resources at staff meetings and place alerts on the staff and student notices section of the intranet.