Evaluation of a school library collection is an important step in collection development. It provides Teacher librarians with necessary data to keep in mind when thinking of collection maintenance and ordering new resources. 

Why is it important to evaluate your school library collection?

• To understand the needs of library users and make informed purchase decisions 
• To have a bigger picture of collection usefulness for patrons
• To have an idea of patrons’ engagement with the library 
• To promote the library as a place where everybody can find the resources they need 

Having looked at the six methods of collection evaluation proposed by Grigg (2012), I tried to imagine the applicability of the methods to my school setting and I thought that each method used stand-alone would not give much practical information while using different methods simultaneously would provide Teacher Librarians with important quantitative and qualitative information to analyse their current collection and be informed when initiating new acquisitions. 

Speaking about priority areas for evaluating in my school library collection, I would focus on patrons’ needs especially those of students. I agree that looking at the most popular titles and formats of resources enables TLs to see what kind of resources they could order to support the learner’s interests, but the information about most circulating titles comes from patrons who use the library on a regular basis. I think it is important to reach out to those who are not engaged with the library and find out what is missing that could possibly get them engaged. 

Working mostly with primary students, I can see that each class comes to the library once a week and when it is time to check out books at the end of library lessons, there are a few kids in each class that don’t choose any books to take home. I would like to collect some data about their preferences and reading habits to find out why it happens. I think it would be interesting to conduct interviews with some reluctant students using simple open-ended questions to find out if they normally read at home and what kind of books they have at home. Questions could also focus on comparing different resources to see which are most appealing to struggling readers. Some students don’t want to check out books simply because they are afraid of losing them and being charged money for the loss. 

When the barriers that prevent students from checking out books are understood, the TLs can develop collections that would engage everybody. 

Resources:

Kaplan, R. (2012). Building and Managing e-book collections: A how-to-do-tt manual for librarians. American Library Association.