Part B: Reflective practice (Word Count: 924)

The role and nature of school library collections

ETL503 has distilled my definition of the role of school library collections to be: to provide the school community with access to ideas and information (Kimmell, 2014). I love this definition because it is succinct and yet touches upon the key elements of a school library collection.

Firstly, the school library collection is there to service the school community. That includes the students, staff and parents at the school. Placing the school community at the centre of the school library collection’s role helps to ensure that the needs and requirements for the specific school population are being met. Servicing the community may be achieved through analysis of the community profile, identifying needs as well as speaking with teachers about the topics being taught, interests and learning needs of their students and matching resources to align with these needs and requirements, as outlined in Henderson, 2021a (Morrisey, 2008). In this way, the school collection is a constantly developing entity, responding to the changing needs, new teaching approaches and interests of the school community (Australian Curriculum, 2010 to present).

The next element in the definition is access. Access to teaching and learning resources is the role of school library collections, ensuring the promotion of resources takes place and a range of resources to ensure that all students can access learning materials. Providing access to ideas and information as a way to express the role of the school library collection provides an all encompassing phrase to include fiction and non-fiction, across physical and digital formats (Kimmell, 2014). Access to ideas is another elemental feature of school library collection that has come to my attention in this course. I was fascinated by the work of Johnson (2018), which brought up the ethical and moral issues around censorship in libraries in general. Particularly of interest, was the idea that it in not the role of libraries to censor information, but to provide views from different perspectives (Morrisey, 2008). The importance of developing critical thinking in our students really comes into play if we are to maintain access to a variety of viewpoints (Morrisey, 2008). This came up in the second assignment, where the catholic ethos was referred to as a guiding principal of the school collection policy. There is difficulty for schools to uphold their own values whilst offering a range of perspectives on controversial issues (Australian Library and Information Association Schools and Victorian Catholic Teacher Librarians, 2017 and Morrisey, 2008). This is something I’d like to explore further to see how schools manage this well.

The other issue which arises with providing access to information is deciding whether the information is relevant and up to date. As mentioned before, it is the role of the school library collection to ensure that the information provided maintains the ever evolving standards (Australian Library and Information Association Schools and Victorian Catholic Teacher Librarians, 2017). More and more, we are seeing resources produced by or in collaboration with ‘own voices’, which is something I am embracing in our own school collection, exploring the credibility, authority and authenticity which comes through in these resources (Aboriginal Studies Team, Library and Information Literacy Team, Professional Support and Curriculum Directorate, & NSW Aboriginal Education Consultative Group Incorporated, 2003)

The importance of collection development policies and their role future proofing   

The importance of a collection development policy as a strategic document has become apparent during the course of the session (Henderson, 2021b). A collection development policy outlines the goals for the library collection as well as the underlying principals which guide decision making, aligned with the school’s vision and library mission statement (Australian Library and Information Association Schools and Victorian Catholic Teacher Librarians, 2017 and Braxton, 2016). The importance of the collection development policy is partly in the role it plays in maintaining a balanced collection, free from personal favouritism and bias (Braxton, 2016).

A collection development policy for the school library collection assists in future proofing the collection through driving decision making through the lens of the principals based upon goals the school vision, with school community member needs at the centre (Australian Library and Information Association Schools and Victorian Catholic Teacher Librarians, 2017 and Braxton, 2016). The goals section of the policy allows for long term planning to take place (Australian Library and Information Association Schools and Victorian Catholic Teacher Librarians, 2017).

After beginning to put together a collection development policy for my current school, I started to see how a well-crafted policy reduces the onus of decision making on the teacher librarian (Henderson, 2021c). Decisions are easier when viewed through the policy lens in particular, using the selection criteria and selection tools, when it comes down to individual resources selection (Henderson, 2021c). Seeing the bigger picture for the library collection and viewing the library collection as ever changing and evolving is exciting to me. Being a part of continuing this process, through selection and deselection also makes it less overwhelming when thinking about managing an entire school library collection.

I am looking forward to presenting my draft policy to my supervisor and school leaders, as well as creating a library procedures manual and systems of operation. It is my hope that these will all streamline my work and allow for more energy to be focussed upon building relationship with my school community in order to serve them better. I’m also looking forward to building a library collection based around principals and the mission of our library, which is included here (Henderson, 2021c).

References

Aboriginal Studies Team, Library and Information Literacy Team, Professional Support and Curriculum Directorate, & NSW Aboriginal Education Consultative Group Incorporated. (2003). The Aboriginal education K–12 resource guide. NSW Department of Education and Training, Professional Support and Curriculum Directorate.

Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority. (2010 to present-a). Australian curriculum. http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/ 

Australian Library and Information Association Schools and Victorian Catholic Teacher Librarians (2017). A manual for developing policies and procedures in Australian School Library Resource centres. A Manual for Developing Policies and Procedures in Australian School Library Resource Centres – 2nd edition.

Braxton, B. (2016). Sample collection policy. http://500hats.edublogs.org/policies/sample-collection-policy/

Henderson, D. (2021a). Evaluating library collections. https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/growingyoungreaders/2021/05/08/evaluating-library-collections/

Henderson, D. (2021b) Collection development considerations. https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/growingyoungreaders/2021/05/11/collection-development-considerations/ 

Henderson, D. (2021c). Collection development policy. https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/growingyoungreaders/2021/05/11/collection-development-policy-draft/

Morrisey, L. J. (2008). Ethical Issues in collection development. Journal of Library Administration, 47(3-4), 163-171.

Kimmel, S.C. (2014) Developing collections to empower learners. American Association of School Librarians. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/csuau/reader.action?docID=1687658&ppg=51

NSW Department of Education (2020) Library Policy, https://policies.education.nsw.gov.au/policy-library/policies/library-policy-schools