Tag Archives: collection development

Virtually Visiting Information Agencies

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creative depiction of video conferencing on 3 computers
creative depiction of video conferencing on 3 computers

Alexandra_Koch / Pixabay

Virtual study visits to a variety of information agencies were held as part of ETL507 – Professional experience and portfolio subject. The variety of information agencies attended in these virtual visits covered everything from school libraries, public libraries, TAFE, university, specialist libraries, and museums. The visits showcased the diversity that can be found within the information agencies and the important dynamic role that a professional information specialist plays in today’s society.

Virtually visiting Mt Alvernia highlighted the effect a passionate school librarian can have within the school community through promotion, curation, and management of their collection to their stakeholders. Listening to Sally Turbit discuss the power of MakerSpace programs to build resilience and connections within and between patrons was enlightening and inspiring. Anna Griffith from Albury Wodonga Health showcased the importance of maintaining a specialist collection through weeding to improve the functionality of the physical space and the authoritative nature of the collection itself. Paul Kloppenborg’s interviews with the library staff that work at the Learning and Information Services at the William Angliss Institute reiterate the importance of developing a team and successfully managing it to deliver better outcomes for the breadth of stakeholders. Massey University Library highlighted the importance of collaboration and building relationship with all stakeholders, while maintaining and celebrating the culture that is indigenous to the land to which the library serves. Lauren Gobbet with her role as archivist for the Royal Agricultural & Horticultural Society of SA Inc., demonstrates the ability of prioritisation of tasks that an information professional must exhibit in the face of an ever-increasing workload.

These virtual study visits are a perfect culmination of the learning that is gained through completion of the Master of Education (Teacher Librarianship) course providing real life examples of why each individual subject within it are important. Through embedding themselves within the community they serve and resourcing this community by identifying their users’ needs, an information professional ensures that the important role that information agencies play within their communities is fulfilled.

 

 

The practical task of evaluating the collection

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The word assess spelled out in scrable tiles on top of blank scrabble tiles.
The word assess spelled out in scrable tiles on top of blank scrabble tiles.

Wokandapix / Pixabay

In today’s climate of evidence-based practice, fiscal accountability and strategic planning, evaluation of the school library is crucial.  If we as teacher librarians are to ensure that our libraries are valued within the school context, we need to ensure our collections are meeting the needs of our users, even before they know what those needs are, building towards our visions of where our library will be.  Consistent collection assessment and evaluation helps us keep on track of our mission towards our vision, by showing us the changes that need to be made (Hernon, Dugan, & Matthews, 2014). Matthews (2014) upholds that evaluation methods fall within two broad categories: Library Centric or Customer Centric (p. 110).  These same two categories are reflected by Johnson (2014) in her use of the terms ‘Collection-based’ and ‘Use- and User-based’, however, she breaks them down further into ‘quantitative’ (counting/statistical) and ‘qualitative’ (opinion based) (p. 302).  Of the many methods of evaluation that fall under these two broad categories there are only a few that I feel are suitable and practical for the often understaffed school library team to conduct, that I myself would use.

Firstly quantitative evaluation of the collection through measuring the ‘Collection size and growth’, especially in our ‘genrified’ fiction collection is a practical and easy task to do.  In our senior library when we reclassified all fiction into specific genre areas, it was clearly noted that our humour section was lacking, despite the popularity of this genre to our year 7-8 male readers coming through from the junior library.  Using our ‘Circulation statistics’ shows us which genres and authors the boys enjoy and helps us find authors who write in a similar style to recommend to our readers of fiction.

Such quantitative analysis of our non-fiction collection, however does not work, as we have a process of placing lists suitable for assignment topics on trolleys that then are only available on a restricted loan.  This action, although ensuring accessibility to the wider cohort, skews any statistical analysis of our non-fiction circulation statistics.  It is for this reason that we use a ‘Collection mapping’ approach or a ‘Direct collection checking’ to ensure that the lists we create in our Oliver library management system meet the needs of the curriculum that the boys are studying.  Throughout the research process, we check in with the students to use their opinion, in what could be termed ‘Focus groups’, to see if the information provided within our collection is meeting their needs.  In our fiction collection we tend to ‘Survey’ our students looking for guidance in their recommendations.  We publish these results to use as promotions for reluctant readers as many surveys suggest that parent, teacher and peer recommendations are the way 6-17 year pick their books (Scholastic Australia, 2015).

References

Hernon, P., Dugan, R. E., & Matthews, J. R. (2014). Getting started with evaluation. Chicago: American Library Association. Retrieved from Proquest Ebook Central

Johnson, P. (2014). Collection analysis: Evaluation and assessment. In P. Johnson, Fudamentals of collection development and management (pp. 297-343). Chicago: American LibraryAssciation. Retrieved from Proquest Ebook Central

Matthews, J. R. (2014). Research-based planning for public libraries: Increasing relevance in the digital age. Santa-Barbara: Libraries Unlimted. Retrieved from Proquest Ebook Central

Scholastic Australia. (2015). What kids want in books. Retrieved from Australian kids & family reading report: http://www.scholastic.com.au/schools/ReadingLeaders/KFRR/whatkidswant.asp

 

 

Curating with Libguides

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Libguides is a curating platform created by Springshare and used by libraries across the world to share content, curate websites, information and resources with their users.  The possibilities are endless with how you can use this platform and only limited, really, by your imagination.  Scotch College in Perth, Western Australia offers a fantastic example of the possibilities that Libguides offer their users.

When you first go to the Libguide you are greeted with a choice of libraries: Junior; Middle; or Senior.  Working in a senior library myself, I was interested in how they use Libguides for their Senior Library.  What I found was an extremely easy to navigate visual presentation of resources available for the lucky students of Scotch College.  The Libguide offers a central portal to all material that the library has collated. Including: Best Books for Teens, eBooks/audio, Library Catalogue (Oliver), Staff Reading, Research Guides, Databases, Referencing. Databases are password protected, which is to be expected for licensing laws.  Through this guide, there are many links to videos, websites and other curating tools such as Goodreads.  The library management system used by the school, Oliver, is seamlessly integrated into the pages.

Viewing this Libguide has set off a myriad of ideas for how we can better use our own Libguide pages.  Thank you Scotch college for allowing the public to access to your libguide.

Scotch College’s Libguides https://library.scotch.wa.edu.au/researchguides

 

References

Scotch College. (2016). library.SCOTCH. Retrieved from https://library.scotch.wa.edu.au/

Springshare. (2017). LibGuides – Content management and curation platform for libraries. Retrieved from https://www.springshare.com/libguides/

 

Must Read Article – Apps and eResources

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I have just finished reading an amazing article on collecting and cataloguing electronic resources written by Kay Cantwell  (2013) Living appily ever after in the library, and my head is buzzing.

This practical article sets out succinctly how to identify, curate, collect, promote and evaluate apps for your school library.  The evaluation checklist compiled by Kay is a fantastic resource to have on hand for teachers to use before requesting the purchase or use of an app.  Throughout the article there are links to google forms for the purpose of requesting purchase and evaluating apps purchased.  The school I am currently working in uses a similar Microsoft product called Forms.  Reading this article has reminded me of the ease at which we as librarians can get feedback and requests from our students and teachers.  Utilising a library Pinterest page to promote recommended electronic resources is a brilliant yet simple idea.

Cantwell, K. (2013). Living appily ever after in the library. Connections, 86, 6-7. Retrieved from http://www2.curriculum.edu.au/scis/connections/issue_86_2013/articles/living_appily_ever_after_in_the_library.html