It was interesting reading Farmer’s (2014) ideas about print and digital reference material. There were some materials that I haven’t heard of or used, like an almanacs. There seems to be more resources available today than there was growing up. If we wanted information the reference to go to was the encyclopedia and you would have to look through the many books to find the information that you were after.

Other materials that could be appropriate are materials published by other companies. I am thinking in particular about The Royal Australian Mint and they have created resources, including a powerpoint, that aims to teach students about money including facts about the mint and history of coins.

Some factors that may influence the decision on which format to use will depend on what is available currently in the library, the budget that is allocated each year to online subscriptions or the purchase of new books and what is being used by the students. It is important to have a mix of both, as students need to learn the process of looking things up in a physical book, but they also need to learn the appropriate research skills as well.

Farmer, L. S. J. (2014) Introduction to reference and information services in today’s school library. Rowman & Littlefield.