According to advice from Lamb and Johnson’s (2012) article on budget management, a TL (they refer primarily to a library media specialist, but I’m sticking with TL here) should wear three hats in planning and managing a budget: collaborator, steward, and thinker. These roles overlap as a TL works to establish a budget and use that budget to meet the various needs of the school community. As someone who has worked in both a modest but adequately funded library and a library whose yearly funds exceded the physical space it occupied, I will say that these roles certainly exist across the budget spectrum but with different emphasis.
Collaboration never stops being central to the role of TL, particularly in budget management. Lamb and Johnson emphasise relationships and understanding needs as vital to securing and allocating funds. Even where funds seem to be plentiful, understanding where and how to direct spending and collection development and management is essential. Regular meetings with stage coordinators, directors of teaching and learning, learning support, all specialist areas, parents and friends association, and early learning yield varying degrees of information. From year to year, or even from term to term, these various groups will have varying degrees of need and input. And the greater a TL understands these groups and needs the better steward they will be.
As a steward, TLs take the input and make decisions, track their decisions, assess their decisions and react to them. Lamb and Johnson imply that a TL does not simply try to make all resource dreams come true, but prioritises and even get creative about decisions. TLs can generate various reports from library management systems (LMS) which help shape decision making and also can be shared with appropriate share holders. Having up to date information in even rudimentary areas like usage can make conversations more productive. Knowing the borrowing rates from an eBook provider (specific to year groups and material borrowed and length of borrowing) can help pose more clear questions and challenges for the library, students, teachers and others. Stewardship is about understanding and responding.
Lamb and Johnson are not so clear on the role of Thinker in their article, but they do point out there are various sources of library funding beyond what is allocated by the school. There are various ways to meet the needs of the community and supplement a budget, such as hosting book fairs. A book fair hosted by the library in partnership with a specialised and independent book seller can be a good source for additional resources. Plus, a specialised children’s book seller will often be providing a selection of books based on their own expertise and knowledge of what is good and available from publishers. Their reputation depends on it. It seems that Lamb and Johnson’s Thinker is a TL who understands the library budgetary needs and demands sit in a big picture of school needs and demands, and understands that being connected, aware of external possibilities, and willing to try something different is essential for success.
Lamb, A. & Johnson, H.L. (2012). Program administration: Budget management. The School Library Media Specialist. http://eduscapes.com/sms/administration/budget.html.
