When looking at different aspects of the management of school libraries, I often look to the National Library of New Zealand. It provides a ‘services to schools’ section and includes a simple Collection Development definition:
“School libraries aim to provide a balanced, inclusive, relevant and targeted range of resources in a variety of formats that support the teaching and learning needs of everyone in the school community”. (NLNZ n.d.)
I work in a large, Independent P-12 school and I am one of approximately 6 Teacher Librarians. I work in a Primary library, and we have an overarching Collection Development Policy, as well as individual policies for each of our 5 libraries.
The overarching Collection Development Policy of my school includes all of these aspects as highlighted in the NLNZ defnition, and clearly sets out clear responsibilities and management strategies for the Collections.
Some of the key elements within my school’s policy:
Policy rationale – identifies the resources available throughout the school libraries and library website. It also states that the provision of resources supports school curriculum as well as enabling students to expand their recreational reading, become independent learners and positive contributors to the school community. It briefly discusses the high-quality variety of materials in different formats that the policy covers.
Purpose – mentions that Collection Development is an ongoing process and indicates criteria for the selection and removal of library materials.
Responsibility – whose role it is to make decisions related to the Collection Development policy.
Criteria for selection – supporting educational goals and policies of the school and there is also a statement on ‘quality’ of materials including cost.
Selection tools – including curriculum documents, planning, recommendations by curriculum and children’s literature experts.
Acknowledges donations, weeding (not called deselection, or de-acquisition as stated in other documents viewed during this module).
It is a very thorough document, and the area of Selection tools will be quite useful when looking at Assessment 1 as it sets out a number of places where a search for relevant material can begin.
The selection process will be enhanced by the use of:
- ….. curriculum documents and subject and year level outlines
- State and National curriculum documents and study designs
- Reviews in professional curriculum and library journals. Specific school library journals subscribed to by the school are: Access, FYI, The Literature Base, Magpies, Reading Time, SCAN, Synergy and Viewpoints
- Recommendations by curriculum and children’s literature experts
- Published and online bibliographies
- The SCIS database of bibliographic records
- Online publisher, bookseller and reader catalogues and listings
- Recommendations from staff, students or other stakeholders.
REFERENCE LIST
Department of Education and Training. (2012). Collection development and management. Queensland Government. http://education.qld.gov.au/library/support/collection-dev.html
National Library of New Zealand. (n.d.) Collections and collection management
