The 2017 (updated) NSW DoE School Library Policy (https://education.nsw.gov.au/content/dam/main-education/teaching-and-learning/curriculum/media/documents/schoollibrarieshandbook2015.pdf ) mentions all the usual verbs: selecting, acquiring, organising, making available but it does used an interesting adverb – contemporary. It mentions the need for a contemporary collection twice. So does this mean that there is no value in older literature? Does it imply there is no value in print material and that we should be contemporary, ie most recent and most up to date, without evaluating the usefulness. Or does it just mean don’t let your collection age – you should keep purchasing – in which case I will tell my boss this so she hurries up and approves my budget and lets me buy new books!
Efficiency and relevancy are also mentioned a couple of times – relevant to quality teaching and curriculum – all fairly obvious but there is also mention of equity – making sure your collection is in line with the NSW equity policy. I will have to re-read the equity policy but I suspect that this is referring to a library collection where the content is unbiased and inclusive of all cultures and genders. However, does it also refer to financial equity? For example, our school has no online subscriptions because the executive believe that there are not enough students with access to reliable digital devices who could use these resources – how do we fix that inequity.
Finally I like the inclusion of “sharing resources with other schools and institutions”. This is similar to the definition by Doug Johnson 98 on the “stone soup” mentality of library collections. I have heard this idea mentioned by other TLs but haven’t heard of anyone successfully doing it.
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