The question for reflection is the most appropriate and practical methods for the analysis or evaluation of a school library collection in a particular context . This is at best a third level question. It cannot be answered until the following threshold questions have been addressed. What is actually being measured or evaluated? What is the purpose of the evaluation?
Evaluation cannot occur in a vacuum; “the library’s goals and purpose ……must be stated clearly before any meaningful assessment of a library’s collection can take place” (Johnson, 2018, p.240). The evaluators also need to be clear why they are collecting the data, how the data is going to be used and reported (Johnson, p.241) and how they are going to go about getting the data.
Ideally goals are explicitly stated in a library’s collection development policy and in a school, these will reflect the vision/mission and goals set out in the school’s strategic plan. The purpose of the evaluation process can include: whether the collection is contributing to the achievement of goals, meeting student learning and curriculum needs and adequately supporting teachers with resources; to highlight strengths or gaps in the collection and whether it is well-balanced and inclusive; to reveal old, damaged or inappropriate resources for ‘weeding’, to demonstrate where funding has been spent and is needed; to provide supporting data for funding and staffing requests; and most basically, but essentially, to provide information for the writing and review of a collection development policy and to inform a new TL about the nature of the collection (Johnson, 2018, pp.240-242; National Library of New Zealand, n.d.).
Information from the collection analysis may be used internally to inform library management and procedural decision-making; be included in a formal report to the principal or responsible executive; be used to publicise and encourage use of the collection by students and staff and can form part of marketing materials for existing and prospective parents of the school. The nature and sophistication of the models and methods used will depend on purpose but also on factors such as time available, the support of executive and teaching staff, the capacities of the information management system, and the TL’s training and understanding.
The following school context and scenario is part real and part imagined. A NSW comprehensive public secondary school has a dedicated library currently staffed by a new TL and a library assistant. There is no collection development policy, but the school has recently completed a new strategic plan with the vision of empowering its students to be effective and active 21st century learners and citizens. Specific strategic goals to achieve this vision include improving student literacy and the systematic implementation of inquiry learning across all curriculum areas. In consultation with the school principal and the TL’s direct report, the TL has determined that the key goals of the library are to maximise use of the library collection to support student learning, to encourage reading, and to support the implementation and success of inquiry learning. Principal purposes of data collection and evaluating process will be for the TL to get to know the collection and how it is currently used as quickly as possible; to determine curriculum needs; to obtain data on attitudes, expectations and wants from teachers and students; to compare the collection with benchmarks; and use all that information to identify gaps in the collection, to weed the collection and to develop selection criteria, a collection development policy and a funding submission for new acquisitions.
To manage the process an evaluation plan will be developed with a timeframe and milestone dates. This will help the TL fit the evaluation in with her other responsibilities. Time is the major impediment. However, the following methods are simple, achievable and are necessary if the learning needs of students are to be met. The current priority area for evaluation is non-fiction resources.
A range of methods will be used, some quantitative, but mostly qualitative. The overall collection is not large and is predominantly comprised of printed books, so the initial method will be observation and impressionistic ‘shelf-scanning’ (Johnson, 2018, p.245, p,254). This method finds that the collection is predominantly fiction, and that the non-fiction print collection is much smaller and appears old. There is no digital collection. To support these observations a collection profile and other reports can be printed from Oliver. Reports could be issued to compare the fiction and non-fiction collection by number, expenditure and usage. Usage reports can also provide information on the most popular fiction titles, which may be an indication of student interest, and on how many students, and from what years, borrow books from the library. These statistics can provide a base for comparison in future years, when hopefully usage and the balance and nature of the collection has improved.
A key qualitative method will be collection/curriculum mapping which will show whether resources exist in the library to support each curriculum area including inquiry and assessment tasks and can vitally involve teachers in the review process. Another useful qualitative method are informal ‘focus’ group meetings with faculty teaching groups and learning support units (with some structured and consistent questioning). Again this method involves teaching staff, ‘markets’ the TL and the potential usefulness of the library and provide information about what teachers see as needed books, resources and services.
Student surveys will be considered, but this quantitative method is a time-consuming undertaking if done properly; the questions need to be carefully designed and for the data to be meaningful, they need to be properly completed by a certain number of students in each year group. Until surveys can be prepared and implemented, students can be invited to express their views about the library and any books and resources they would like (and the reasons why) in a suggestion box.
Finally a useful and supportive method for the TL, is benchmarking the schools collection against the collection of a library of a comparable school. This may highlight gaps in resources such as the absence of digital resources (which limits inquiry learning) and e-books, which expand student choice and the range of works available.
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Johnson, P. (2018). Fundamentals of collection development and management. American Library Association.
National Library of New Zealand. (n.d). Assessing your school library collection.
https://natlib.govt.nz/schools/school-libraries/collections-and-resources/assessing-your-school-library-collection