It is inarguable that digital collections are vital in a 21st century library collection. The question is not “Should library collections include digital resources?” but, rather, “How can library collections manage the inclusion of digital resources?” Digital collections are essential to bring the content of a school library collection to the user. No longer must students physically enter the school library to be able to benefit from the resources it includes in its library collection. Current students or “digital children” as they are referred to in the Newsum journal article are adaptable, technologically capable and demand information in a fast-paced and efficient manner. The inclusion of digital resources in a school’s library collection can meet those needs. However, the management of digital resources in the current library collection can pose many challenges.

Firstly, many digital materials are accessed rather than owned. This poses difficulty in both the selection and acquisition of these resources but also in how they can be used and promoted. Teacher librarians need to be careful when leasing or subscribing to these types of materials as often the vendor will offer a bundle of resources that may not be suitable to school needs. Subscription fees need to be managed and factored into the overall budget and this can be problematic if costs go up or the resource is no longer readily available. Teacher librarians also need to be aware of accessibility restrictions when leasing, subscribing or purchasing digital resources. Considerations of how students will access digital materials (whether the school has the hardware/software to support this resource) as well as how many people can make use of this resource at any given time and under what conditions is also a point of consideration.

Promoting digital resources can also be one of the challenges that the inclusion of digital resources poses for teacher librarians. Unlike physical resources, digital materials do not exist on a tangible level so a teacher librarian needs to ensure that these resources are discoverable in the same library catalogue as physical resources and also think creatively about how these digital resources can be displayed and promoted.

The inclusion of digital resources in school library collections can be problematic on a practical level as well. In one of the slides in Pru Mitchell’s presentation, a column graph representing the number of trained library staff in both primary and secondary libraries in 2016 indicates that 40% of staff in primary school libraries and approximately 28% of staff working in secondary school libraries do not hold qualifications in teacher librarianship. This poses an additional challenge for the inclusion of digital resources in library collections as these resources require professional expertise to be able to manage them and to demonstrate the use of these resources to library patrons. It is essential that all staff working in school libraries are trained in the access and use of digital materials.

Digital resources are becoming far more prevalent as sources of information and knowledge. In a school library context they are particularly pertinent to meet the needs of 21st century teachers and learners. Despite the challenges that they pose, digital resources have an important place in all library collections.

Collection evaluation in a school setting is never easy, however, it is a must to maintain the relevancy of the collection to users. It is essential to semi-regularly evaluate both the print and electronic collection to identify strengths and weaknesses in the collection and to also assess how well the collection meets the curriculum requirements as well as the goals and priorities of the school. It can be a slow and cumbersome process though and when to schedule a collection evaluation can be tricky. Collection management requires staff to shift focus and potentially redirect their attention away from their daily tasks and towards evaluation. It also places restrictions on the functioning of the library whilst this process is being carried out. Library loans may have to be halted and access to library services may be temporarily unavailable whilst library staff are evaluating a collection.

As K. Grigg’s chapter “Assessment and evaluation of e-book collections” points out, no one methodology for collection evaluation is perfect. Usage statistics have a role in evaluation but, in a school setting, it is impossible to know whether library titles that are borrowed or accessed are even being used or whether this type of statistical measurement offers insight into the usefulness of a resource. Using qualitative measures such as surveying and focus groups may provide a better evaluation of existing resources and their use, however, school students can often be apathetic and disengaged and therefore these methods may either appeal only to certain types of students or provide skewed results that can’t be relied upon for collection evaluation. Perhaps a better methodology in the school context is to use the benchmark method of evaluation. This may be preferable as schools can compare their collection and its usage to similar types and size schools within their local area (provided comparison data is freely available or TLs have developed strong networks with other school TLs).

Current priority areas for evaluation in my school would be the non-fiction reference materials. My school does not hold a lot of these resources in a physical format due to space restrictions. The school holds an abundance of fiction resources and picture books to meet the needs of the junior library users. My school does subscribe to a number of online databases and electronic resources to be used for reference and research purposes but the glaring absence of these types of resources in a physical format is a weakness of the school library where I work.

The inclusion of eBooks in public, academic and school libraries is an area of rapid growth. The article “eBooks and elending issues paper” states that 43% of Australians had downloaded digital content in the last quarter of 2011 and the first quarter of 2012. Given that this paper was published in 2013 we can presume that the rates of digital content downloading has significantly increased since this paper’s publication ten years ago.

My current library provides access to eBooks via a portal on the LibPaths homepage. The eBook collection does not appear to be fully integrated in the cataloguing system but rather is offered via a separate search engine. Students and teachers have access to all materials by using their student/staff login and downloading the ePlatform app on their device. Loans are available for a two week period. My school library appears to use a specialist school library supplier (Wheeler’s) to supply all their eBooks and audiobooks and there are far more fiction books than non-fiction books available on this platform. My school also provides eTextbooks via the platform “Box of Books” and this is accessible to teachers and students via our learning platform “Canvas” rather than through the school library portal.

The inclusion of eBooks in library collections poses many challenges with regard to content. In many instances the publication of a physical resource and the access to an eBook is not always simultaneous. Often there is a lag time of some months. This poses a problem with access to information which is a fundamental role of the teacher librarian. Some publishers will also restrict the access to content for patrons or make the purchase of eBooks far more expensive than their hardcopy counterparts which impacts on the ability of the library to provide these resources and the patrons’ ability to access digital resources.

Another consideration when including eBooks in library collections is licensing considerations. Some publishing houses and aggregators will allow libraries to purchase single copies of items whilst others insist on providing a subscription package. Whilst this may be a more economical method to build a collection it does interfere with the librarians selection process.

Procurement of digital resources can also pose serious challenges. Procurement needs to be flexible enough for libraries to have a number of different options to meet patrons’ needs. Libraries need to be able to purchase single titles, subscribe to packages of eBooks, pay per use of eBooks or offer patron-driven acquisition to ensure that the collection meets the needs of the community. Often this is challenged by the providers as they have a monopoly over certain titles, can delete certain items and prevent material from being able to be accessed after a certain time period.

How eBooks are incorporated into the existing library collection is yet another area that can be problematic. eBooks should include high-quality metadata but often the publishing houses provide poor quality metadata and it is difficult for the library to use this data to correctly catalogue these items. Digital resources need to be effectively integrated into library cataloguing systems in order to make them easily discoverable to patrons. Greater standardisation and interoperability is needed so that these resources are able to be accessed across a range of devices to ensure that librarians meet their responsibilities in providing access to information for all and to bridge the digital divide.

Poor interoperability not only affects the patrons’ ability to access information but licensing agreements can also impact the free access to information. Publishers are understandably worried that breaches of copyright, piracy and other examples of misuse is easier with regards to digital content. Digital rights management policies have been put in place to place limits on the number of times an eBook can be accessed before the library is required to repurchase, place limits on the number of patrons who can download an eBook at any one time and also restrict the time that patrons can access eBook content.

These issues will all need to be taken into account in my future role as a teacher librarian. eBooks are already becoming the new norm in library collections and I foresee a time when these resources will potentially replace hardcopy versions.

Firstly, I must start by stating that I am not yet working in the library environment so my understanding of how censorship affects the selection, acquisition and categorisation in my school library is extremely limited.

After reading Moody’s paper on covert censorship in libraries it really did resonate with me just how difficult it is, even for the most well-intentioned librarian, to completely eradicate censorship and to develop a school library collection that truly reflects the rights of all to freedom of information. Firstly, it is my understanding that resources are often selected from the promotions and publications of major publishing houses. I think that this is partly due to the fact that most resources acquired in this way is to serve the recreational needs of the school community as opposed to the educational needs or to resource the curriculum. My school library is only a small space so much of the shelving is devoted to fiction books and many educational resources are either purchased in electronic forms or purchased for teachers and stored in their respective faculty offices for use in their classroom.

Another factor that impacts how resources are selected is the limited time given to the teacher librarian to source materials. As we only have two librarians (one who is primary-based and one who is secondary-based), I feel that they do not have the time to peruse alternative book publishing companies to source materials that offer alternative viewpoints on an issue. As stated in Moody’s discussion paper, “you don’t know what you don’t know” so I would question if our teacher librarians are even aware of some of the less mainstream resources available for purchase.

A big consideration in my school that would affect the censorship of books and other resources is the considerations of the School Board and the parent body. My school is a conservative private school and the students and their parents are very much seen as “clients”. Therefore, I think that the purchase of books considered “controversial” would very much be influenced by the ethos and agenda of the Board of Governors and particularly by the fee-paying parents.

I found the section in the Moody article about the inclusion of resources that perhaps include violence or opposing viewpoints on controversial topics such as the Holocaust an interesting one. This section of the paper was disappointingly brief and perhaps raised more questions than answers but did lead me to consider the debate over whether to include these kinds of resources in a school library where students are young, impressionable and perhaps emotionally too immature to fully understand or process the content in some of these types of books and resources.

Censorship in school libraries (and in any other library) is not something that I had ever considered until studying for my masters in teacher librarianship and now that I am aware of it I see examples and debates around this issue frequently. I found the Jenkinson article very thought-provoking and it forced me to assess where I sit on this issue now and how I will deal with it when I am eventually responsible for the selection and inclusion of materials in a school library.

The article was set in a Canadian school context but I definitely think that Australian schools are facing the same challenges. I was recently made aware of a case in which a primary-aged child had borrowed a book entitled “The Fall” and the teacher librarian who had loaned the book to him had faced a book challenge from the parent of this boy. It turns out that this boy’s father had had a catastrophic fall a couple of years ago that had led to his death and the mother was upset that the boy’s history had not come into consideration when the book was loaned to him. I was shocked to hear that such a benign book could result in a book challenge. However, when I asked why the boy himself would want to borrow such a book the teacher librarian explained to me that often children gravitate to books that contain subjects that are familiar to them.

This leads me to consider how important it is to include books on a range of previously seen as “controversial” topics. Young children and young adults do need to read about characters and situations that reflect what they are currently going through and to be able to seek possible comfort or solutions to their worries and anxieties. I am not sure yet how I would go about including such materials though. Should I just have them generally included in the collection or would I have the spines labelled according to their category or even in a special section? The future teacher librarian in me suggests that they should be included in the mainstream collection but the mother in me suggests that these books still need to be loaned out to students with care.

I feel that preventing censorship in libraries is very important in an age when we have recently debated and, in some cases, called for the removal of some Roald Dahl’s books that are now considered racist and inappropriate for school-aged students by today’s standards. It is imperative that the censorship that prevails now in the 21st century and some people’s attempts to re-write our history to suit their own narrative is not transferred into the selection process for school libraries. Students need to have access to books about all kinds of topics and be able to debate the content of these books freely in order to receive a well-rounded and balanced education.