My learning Journey through the Master of Education, Teacher Librarianship
Part A: Statement of Personal Philosophy
An effective teacher librarian (TL) needs to lead from the middle and demonstrate how they can support teaching and learning in a school. A TL needs to be an information specialist who ensures the library is a dynamic learning environment that is not confined to the walls of a library. They need to inspire, develop and foster a passion for reading and develop in students, and teachers, the information and digital literacy skills for lifelong learning and global citizenship. A TL needs to ensure that students will graduate as ethical, critical users of print and digital media who are able navigate the changing information landscape.
Part B: Three Learning Themes
Theme 1 : The Teacher Librarian as a Leader
The ALIA and ASLA standards for professional excellence for TLs (2004) highlight the importance of demonstrating leadership within school and professional communities.I started my Master of Teacher Librarianship a few weeks before I moved from a teaching role to be a TL. ETL401 was an insightful introduction to the multifaceted role of a TL and the potential to be a leader. I write about this in an early blog post, The Role of the Teacher Librarian in Schools (Mounsey, 2016a). As I progressed through this degree, undertook additional professional learning, and learned ‘on the job’, I have been inspired to work as a TL who is also a leader. On reflecting on my learning, some key themes emerged of how TLs can be leaders.
Leading from the middle
When I earned the role of head of year 1 and 2 at a school in London, I was encouraged to enrol in a course, Leading from the Middle, which was a useful step on my learning journey. Years down the track I started the subject ETL504, Teacher Librarian as Leader, which was possibly the most useful subject in my degree. I wrote a number of reflections which included important topics including leadership styles, advocacy and dealing with conflict (Mounsey, 2019b, 2019d, 2019c). Most importantly this subject helped me to advocate for the need for our school to have a Director of Libraries. My two TL colleagues and I had mentioned this to leadership previously, but it had not been met with interest. Studying ETL504 inspired me to create a mind map to show all the contributions the TLs were making in our school (figure 1). I used this to demonstrate much of the ‘invisible’ work the TLs do and to advocate for this role. The school leadership team then agreed to create a new role. I applied for it and to my delight, was offered this position.
Figure 1
For the past two years I have been the Director of Libraries for Dulwich College, Singapore. I am now part of the Educational Leadership Team in a school that has 2800 students and three libraries. I collaborate with 2 other TLs, 8 library assistants and parent and student volunteers.Without the learning from this degree, I would not have had the skills or knowledge for this role. The qualification has ensured I develop the library and school curriculum with regards to recent research, information literacy, literature learning and technology.
Lifelong learning
Professional learning in addition to the CSU course has also been of great benefit, as have connections in TL communities. In my reflection post for ETL504 (Mounsey, 2019e), I mention that The AITSL standards for teacher library practice include “to engage with professional teaching networks and broader communities” (Australian School Library Association, 2014). In Singapore I have been an active member of The International School Library Network (ISLN) and I have attended and presented at international conferences. Additionally, the library staff from the nine Dulwich College International (DCI) network of schools regularly connect, and in Singapore we hosted a conference for all Dulwich library staff.
I value the importance of reading research which is related to current pedagogy and literacy. Although I have taken time to complete this degree, it has allowed me to delve deeply into the readings and I often share relevant literature with colleagues. I found the subject INF447, Research in Practice, the most challenging of all subjects. At the time I did not appreciate the importance of understanding research paradigms, methods, and methodologies so deeply. However, I am so pleased I completed this subject because earlier this year I was asked by a professor at a Singapore University to collaborate on mixed methods research into the reading preferences and habits of our students. I have blogged about this in the post, What books are ‘hot’ (Mounsey, 2021a) and we are currently finishing the report to deliver to the school (figure 2) and submitting a research paper to be published in an academic journal.
Figure 2
I spoke about this research when I was asked to present for the National Library Board of Singapore (2021) in their Education in the City series.
An Advocate
The report ‘Future learning in school libraries’ discusses how a TL needs to be an instructional leader who leads the library into the future by planning and thinking strategically and using advocacy and marketing (ASLA, 2013). One of the biggest takeaways from this degree has been about the importance of NON STOP advocacy. A TL can easily be an invisible role in a school and advocacy can be done in many ways. Some of the ideas that I have learnt that have been effective are:
Promoting the print and digital resources through social media channels, staff meetings and school newsletters.
Creating library annual reports including infographics which are displayed around the school and included in newsletters (figures 3, 4 and 5).
Figures 3, 4 and 5.
Delivering parent workshops and staff training. The video below is one example we created because parents have not been allowed on site during the pandemic (Dulwich College Singapore, 2021).
Collaboration
TLs have the capacity to work with all school staff, students, and parents, and together they can generate change (Herring, 2007). They are in a unique position to see the big picture across a school and can work as a leader to manage a library and support teachers to plan and deliver a curriculum that is future focused. In the blog post Leaders Who Lead(Mounsey, 2019b), I share the learning about different leadership styles and assert that instructional leadership is the style that I aim to use (Ferguson and Hamm, 2013; McKewan, 2003). Other important collaborations have included working with:
the IT team to introduce new resources and technologies;
the marketing team to promote the library and resources;
ETL504 was a crucial step in my learning about the importance of maintaining policies, procedures and strategic planning for libraries. It also helped me to reflect on the importance of library vision and mission statements and how they should be closely aligned with the school vision, culture and values. After this subject ended, I put much of this new learning into practice. I collaborated with the other TLs in the school to create a 5-year libraries strategic plan and updated our policy documents.
Theme 2: Information Literacy
Until I started this degree I did not know what a significant role a TL should play in ensuring information literacy (IL) skills are embedded into the curriculum. ETL401 was my first introduction to this, and I blogged about my steep learning curve in the post, A Shift in Thinking (Mounsey, 2016b) . Then during assignment two of ETL504, I discussed how “information seeking is a primary activity of life” (Kuhlthau, 2004, pp. 13-27), and how it is essential that schools support students to develop IL skills. The American Association of School Libraries (2014) reports that finding information online for academic purposes is overwhelming to most students and that digital technology makes it harder for them to find a range of credible sources.
Effective teaching and learning should move away from heavy curriculum instruction and involve deep learning which involves personalised learning and opportunities for students to develop problem solving skills and the four Cs, collaboration, communication, creativity and critical thinking (Martinez and McGrath, 2014;William, 2018; Wolf, Jones and Gilbert, 2014). This new knowledge has helped guide me to deliver IL learning in different ways and I wrote an article about this in the Alleynian review (Mounsey, 2020).
Figure 6: Resources on Library pages
The ASLA document Future Learning and School Libraries (2013) refers to the challenge of dealing with information overload and how students must be taught to be more sceptical when approaching content. In my blog Beyond the tip of the digital iceberg (Mounsey, 2019i) I wrote about this and how this learning has influenced my thinking and teaching. I dedicate lessons to directing students to reliable websites on our school portal and we have these all on our library pages(figure 6).
Figure 7 (Schrock, 2009)
Despite many lessons on this, the teachers and I observe that most students will still go to Google first when they research. For this reason, we ensure we plan lessons where students are taught to use website evaluation tools. In ETL501, The Dynamic Information Environment, I was introduced to Kathy Shrock’s5Ws of website evaluation (figure 7). I also enjoy sharing the book ‘But I read it on the Internet’ (Buzzeo, 2013) as a provocation to these lessons.
I blogged about this in more detail in the post, To Wiki or to not Wiki? (Mounsey, 2019h) and referenced Harris who states, “Educators need to understand that students will go to Google and will use Wikipedia outside of school if not inside, no matter what alternatives we provide” (2011, p.31). In this blog I also discussed how my perception of how to use Wikipedia had changed. I used to tell my students not to use Wikipedia when researching because it could include a lot of inappropriate and incorrect content. I now tell my students that it can be a possible place to start research as it will not only provide lots of information, but it can provide links to lots of credible, reliable and useful websites on a given topic. They know they must fact check it and they know that it is not a source I would expect to see in a reference list.
The importance of teaching and valuing academic integrity is a huge part of the TL role. In my first year as a TL, I collaborated with teachers to plan lessons with the year 3-6 students to understand academic integrity and referencing sources. I would not have known to do this without the learning from ETL401. One of my favourite lessons is when I trick the year 3s into putting their name on someone else’s drawing and then giving the wrong child credit for it. The students are outraged and it is always a lesson the students remember and then learn that they should not take the credit for someone else’s content.
With the year 5s, I do a lesson where they learn about the copyright case between Vanilla Ice and a Queen and David Bowie collaboration. We listen to their two songs and the students debate if they are the same or different and the ethical dilemma of using someone else’s content without permission and without giving credit. These lessons then lead into lessons on creating bibliographies, from very simple ones in year 3 and developing each year until they use the SLA online reference generator which was been seen in figure 6. I think I introduced this so well that teachers were over-focussed on telling me and showing me the bibliographies the students had made, but not focussing on the other important research skills, such as skim and scanning, note taking and using web evaluation tools. Oddone (2020), addresses this and discusses the importance of not only delivering all these lessons but of linking them together into an information search process to ensure that the students think about all of the skills that are required for research. The staff I collaborate with have also recognised this and this has helped me to introduce an IL framework. In collaboration with staff across the school we agreed on The Big 6 and Super 3 (Eisenburg and Berkowitz, 2003), which has been embedded and is being increasingly used by students and staff.
With all of this new knowledge and information I have managed to make many changes in our school. The final change with regards to IL has included the creation of a whole school information and digital literacy framework tracking the skills development from early years to year 13. This has been a huge project and I am in the final stages of completing this. The next step will be to ensure these skills are embedded and edit and adjust the framework so it remains a working document.
Theme 3: Dynamic library collections and spaces
I now understand how important it is that the library is seen as the physical and virtual learning hub of the entire school. In reflecting on my five year journey, there are so many ways I have learned how to improve both the physical and virtual library space. This has included learning about curation and collection development of print and digital resources.
Arguably, more important than the physical space is the collection that is included in that space. I learned about this in ETL503, Resourcing the Curriculum. When developing a collection, TLs need to ensure that they are not relying solely on intuition or opinion, but using their experience and knowledge of selection aids and selection criteria to ensure that the collection is developed to meet the needs of the school (Hughes-Hassell and Mancall , 2005). I work hard to develop a library collection that supports reading for pleasure, changes in the curriculum and reflects diversity, equality and inclusion.
In the post Developing a Library Collection (Mounsey, 2017a) I discuss this in more detail and how The NSW Handbook for School Libraries (2015) mentions the importance of collaboration. Collection decisions should not be the sole decision of a TL, but occur in collaboration with teachers, students, parents and school management. I recently attended an ASLA webinar about successful student-led collection development and we are now adapting this into collection development.
In addition to following collection development policies and guidelines, I use a lot of data to inform decisions. I analyse in detail what the students are borrowing. In addition to this quantitative data, I use qualitative data in the form of surveys, incidental conversations and focus group interviews. Figures 8 and 9 demonstrate some examples of the kinds of analysis I do.
Figure 8
Figure 9
The post What should I read next?(Mounsey, 2021c) shares data from a survey question ‘what was your favourite book this year?’ I then created recommended reading lists that include these titles.
A strong ‘reading for pleasure’ culture will take place in schools where the library collections reflect the reading taste of the students. I work hard to advocate the importance of reading for pleasure with students and the importance of parents and teachers not judging children’s reading choices. I was asked to speak about this with regards to graphic novels in an episode of the How we Read podcast (Loh, 2021) about the importance of comics as a valid reading choice. I also shared some key findings in an article I had published titled, Reading in the Digital Age: what is our role as parents and educators? (Mounsey, 2021a). All of this learning has been as a result of this degree.
When talking about collection development it is essential to discuss deselection or weeding. I first learnt about this term in the subject ETL503, Resourcing the Curriculum and I wrote the blog post, Getting my weeding gloves dirty(Mounsey, 2017b).Farmer (2014, p.70) talks about the reference section life cycle which includes acquisition, processing, organisation, circulation, maintenance and deselection. This refers to both physical and digital formats and I wrote about this in the post, Physical and Digital Formats for reference material (Mounsey, 2019g).
For a library to be dynamic, the physical space is also very important. The subject, ETL501, was an opportunity for me to learn, plan and reflect on how to improve the library spaces in my school. In the post Dynamic Library Spaces (Mounsey, 2019f) I shared many improvements I have made to the physical library space including new furniture, signage and flexible layouts (Images 1, 2 and 3).
Image 1: More front facing books
Image 2: Dual language signs hanging from the ceiling
Image 3: New shelf markers
I also wrote about my learning about genrefication from ETL505, Describing and Analysing Education Resources. In the post ,To genrify or not? (Mounsey, 2019a), I discussed in detail the pros and cons behind using Dewey and generifying. As a result of this learning, I decided not to generify our fiction collections but have added genre stickers to the entire collection. We asked students to get involved in this process and it has led to students discovering titles they may not have otherwise.
Part C: Reflection on professional development
A lifelong learner should be reflective and one tool I have used for this is the DCI Librarian Standards. These were created by a group of TLs across the Dulwich network of schools (Appendix A). This evidence demonstrates my development and growth as I have improved my practice. With my planned move to Australia in December, I am thinking seriously about what new learning I need to undertake to fill in any gaps in my knowledge. In the next section, I have evaluated my learning over the course of the Master of Education in Teacher Librarianship in the context of ALIA and ASLA’s standards of professional excellence for teacher librarians (2004). I can see a huge amount of growth and learning and I have identified areas for development.
This reflection has highlighted many areas where I have developed professional knowledge in understanding principles of teaching and learning and how I have a specialist knowledge of information, resources, technology and library management. I have identified two key areas to develop to ensure I could be seen as an excellent TL in Australia. They are both from the professional knowledge part of the standards:
“1.3 to have a rich understanding of the school community and curriculum.
1.4 to have a specialist knowledge of library and information management.”
In particular, I will need to deepen my knowledge of Australian literature. Although I follow Australian literature awards, blogs and podcasts, I have not widely read Australian literature. This is an area I will enjoy developing because one of my strengths as a TL is how widely I read and promote books to all patrons. I will also need to ensure I have a deeper understanding of the Australian curriculum and in particular content relating to the three cross- curriculum priorities (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, 2010) to ensure that I am aware of resources to support the curriculum.
I believe I have an excellent understanding of how professionally managed and resourced school libraries are crucial to the achievements of the school community. However, the areas for my development include understanding the Australian context more deeply. Two particular areas of growth will need to be:
have a rich professional knowledge of national standards for library and information management
have a comprehensive understanding of national standards for information retrieval
Next year I will be completing the last part of this subject when I do my workplace placement. I will ensure that these are both targets during this placement.
Using the standards for self-reflection I had many strengths in the professional practice and professional commitments sections, but am aware that these standards will be a useful tool to constantly refer back to. I also believe 3.1, excellent teacher librarians model and promote lifelong learning (ASLA, 2004) could be my philosophy as I continue this never-ending journey of learning. If I keep this as part of my practice, I hope that I can continue to be an effective TL who inspires, educates and supports others to be lifelong learners.
Harris, F. J. (2011). The School Librarian as Information Specialist: A Vibrant Species. Knowledge Quest, 39(5), 28–32.
Herring, J. (2007). Teacher librarians and the school library. In S.Ferguson (Ed.), Libraries in the twenty-first century : Charting new directions in information (pp. 27-42): Centre for Information Studies, Charles Sturt University.
Kuhlthau, C. C. (2004). Learning as a process. In Seeking Meaning: A Process Approach toLibrary and Information Services 2nd ed.). Libraries Unlimited.
Martinez, M. R., & McGrath, D. (2014). Deeper learning How eight innovative public schools are transforming education in the twenty-first century. The New Press.
McKewan, E.K. (2003). 7 Steps to effective Instructional Leadership. Corwin Press, Inc.
“What should I read next?” I am often asked this question by students and I frequently have parents and friends emailing me to ask for book suggestions for children. At my school I have used Follet Destiny to create a recommended fiction collection for each year group from year 3 to 6. The students enjoy using these to create a wish list for their next reads. It is a good way to browse by first judging the books by their covers (I say there is nothing wrong with that!), and then reading the blurbs. All of the Wordle’s below were made by the fantastic Professor Chin Ee Loh. Each Wordle has the top 20 student responses from each year group to the question “What is the best book you read this year?”
Click on the Wordle for the Year 3 (Age 7-8) Recommended Reading List
Click on the Wordle for the Year 4 (Age 8-9) Recommended Reading List
Click on the Wordle for the Year 5 (Age 9-10) Recommended Reading List
Click on the Wordle for the Year 6 (Age 10-12) Recommended Reading List
Click the tabs below for two lists of recommended recent non fiction for 7-12 year olds.
In the four fiction collections above it may be appropriate for children to browse the age categories above and below their age depending on their reading proficiency and interests. I have also been involved in shortlisting the Books for Red Dot Book awards for a number of years and recommend looking at these titles. I also send people to use these four websites, which provide a lot of great recommendations.
I am going to finish this blog post with some posters that one of my library assistants helped me to make with our year 6 students. It is always great to have student voice involved in these tasks and my student library ambassadors were happy spending many a lunch time creating these posters and deliberating with me on what titles should be included.
As a teacher librarian I am constantly making informal observations about students’ reading habits and choices. At the end of every school year I also run extensive data to see what my students are reading and borrowing. I use some of this data to create infographics (see below) which serve as part of a library report and I use a lot of this information to drive collection development.
A few months ago I was approached by Professor Chin Ee Loh from the National Institute of Education (NIE) in Singapore to work on a research project. We have worked together with one one of her PhD students, Suijia Gan, to analyse the reading habits and practices of the students in my Junior School Library. This project has allowed me to delve deeper than I ever have into students’ reading habits and a lot of the results have confirmed what I know but it is useful to have hard data to back up this knowledge. But there have also been some surprises. Our project has involved a mixed methods research study that has involved a digital survey which was completed by 761 students (84% of the junior school), focus group interviews and analysing data using Follet Destiny, our library management system. We are working on finalising the report now and we are hoping to get some articles published with some of the results. For now though, I wanted to blog some of the findings to show what has been ‘hot’ in my library this year.
There are lists below that could be useful lists for library staff to use to develop their library collections. However, I think it is important to understand the context of the library and students. My school is an International School in Singapore with British Independent school values. The students represent up to 50 different nationalities with the largest representation from the UK, Australia, Japan, China and Korea. A different school in a different country or the same country with a different socio economic group or ethnic diversity would have some different preferences. However these lists do seem to have many titles that can transcend cultural and economic barriers. In the survey, the students were asked the name of the best book or series they read this year and the table below has the top titles. There are approximately 220 students in each year group so these tiles were all very popular.
My favourite book this year was …
Number
Year 3
Year 4
Year 5
Year 6
1.
Harry Potter
Harry Potter
Alex Rider
Rooftoppers
2.
Dog Man
Amulet
Keeper of the Lost Cities
Wonder
3.
Diary of a Wimpy Kid
Diary of a Wimpy Kid
Wonder
HarryPotter
4.
Mr Wolfs Class
AlexRider
The Explorer
The Explorer
5.
Minecraft
Percy Jackson
Harry Potter
Keeperof the Lost Cities
6.
The Babysitters Club
Daisy series
Code Name Bananas
The Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus
7.
The Bad Guys
Bunny Vs Monkey
Nevermoor
Alex Rider
8.
Weird But True
DogMan
Percy Jackson
Nevermoor
9.
Tom Gates
Keeper of the Lost Cities
Skulduggery Pleasant
Rain Reign
10.
Beatrice Zinker
Narwhal and Jelly
Tom Gates
The Heroes of Olympus
11.
Mr Penguin
Smile
Treehouse
A Series Of Unfortunate Events
12.
Narwhal and Jelly
The Babysitters Club
A Tale of Magic
Divergent
13.
Captain Underpants
13 Storey Treehouse Series
Diary of a Wimpy Kid
Front Desk
14.
Cat Kid Comic Club
Weird But True
Dog Man
Percy Jackson
15.
Dragon Realm
A Series Of Unfortunate Events
Kensy and Max
Save me a Seat
16.
Hilo
Diary of a Minecraft Zombie
The Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus
Skulduggery Pleasant
17.
Kensy And Max
Drama
The Babysitters Club
13 Storey Treehouse Series
18.
Lunch Lady
Emily Windsnap
The Land of Stories
A Tale of Magic
19.
Malory Towers
Fake News, True or False Quiz book
The Terrible Two
Code Name Bananas
20.
Smile
Goth Girl
Demon Slayer
Murder Most Unladylike
From this data, I discovered some interesting findings that can be seen in the two tables below. It is worth pointing out that these findings are from the top 20 favourite books.
Humour was a genre that appealed to more younger students and as they matured this decreased and their preferences were for adventure, mystery and realistic fiction.
It was interesting to view the data on realistic fiction and also hear what some of the older students commented on in the focus group interviews. Many commented about how their reading preferences changed as they matured. We often have requests from year 6s for ‘more sad books’ or ‘books about someone who is struggling with an issue’.
This table shows how in year 6 the top favourite books are all junior fiction and in year three the most popular format was graphic novels. It is worth noting that graphic novels are still very popular with our year 6 students so this is not an indication of borrowing data, just preferences for the book that was their favourite.
Genres of favourite books
Formats of favourite books
Graphic novels (or comics) were an area of huge interest to me because their popularity has grown enormously in my library. This is a widespread trend that publishers, book sellers and librarians are observing. It is also an interesting topic that Chin Ee Loh asked me and a number of others to speak about in her How We Read podcast. The table below shows how despite continuing to grow this part of my library collection, the demand is enormous. I have put in a massive order of graphic novels to arrive for our new school year.
Graphic Novels in the Junior School Library
Another piece of data I ran from Destiny was the top 50 borrowed books.
The Top 10 Books Borrowed from the Junior School Library 2020-2021
No.
Circulations
Title
Author(s)
Format
Genre
Series
1.
244
Mr. Wolf’s Class Book 1
Steinke, Aron Nels
graphic novel
animals
yes
2.
230
Guts
Telgemeier, Raina
graphic novel
realistic
yes
3.
190
Kensy and Max 1 : Breaking News
Harvey, Jacqueline
junior fiction
mystery
yes
4.
182
The Baby-sitters club 7, Boy-crazy Stacey
Galligan, Gale
graphic novel
realistic
yes
5.
169
Mr Penguin and The Lost Treasure 1
Smith, Alex T
early fiction
adventure/animals
yes
6.
167
The Baby-sitters club 1, Kristy’s great idea
Telgemeier, Raina
graphic novel
realistic
yes
7.
166
George and the Great Bum Stampede
Wilson, Cal
early fiction
humour
yes
8.
166
White bird : a wonder story
Palacio, R. J.
graphic novel
historical fiction
no – companion book
9.
158
Ni De Qin Qi Hao Qi Guai : Your Relatives Are Weird!
Woo Yen Yen & Colin Goh
picture book/graphic novel
humour
yes
10.
153
Narwhal : Unicorn Of The Sea
Clanton, Ben
graphic novel
humour/animals
yes
The table above shows just the top 10 but this data from the top 50 had some interesting findings that help to reassure me that all the work we do to help students discover new titles is working.
Students enjoy books in a series! 84% of the books were part of a series. Most that were not in a series are written by an author who has written other popular titles.
Recent releases are popular! 94% of titles were published 2015 or later and all are from 2010.
Comics are King! 68% of the books in this list are graphic novels/comics (this includes the Little Dim Sum Warriors series which are bilingual comics in a picture book format), 16% are junior fiction (middle grade chapter books) and non fiction and early fiction (emerging chapter books) make up 8% each.
Students love humour! Genres: 46% were humorous, 30% are realistic fiction(including historical fiction which can be considered a form of realistic fiction), 14% were adventure of mystery and 10% were animal fiction.
Book awards and events raise awareness for new and different titles! At our school we have events related to The Red Dot Book Award and Dulwich Information Book Award. The library buys up to 10 copies of these tiles and students are encouraged to read at least one red dot book a year. The school hosts a red dot book competition, which involves students working in teams to answer questions about the books. In the top 50 most borrowed books there were 18 Red Dot Books. It is also worth noting we buy multiple copies of these titles so it is easier for students to get access to them.
Author talks build the reading culture! Colin Goh did an author and Illustrator talk and after this his Little Dim Sum Warrior books flew off the shelves. They were also a fun option for students to borrow in mandarin library lesson time. Also in the top 50 list were 3 other authors who have done author talks in the last 2 years: Jaqueline Harvey, Dusti Bowling and Andy Griffiths.
Book promotion works! All titles in this list are either graphic novels (which have needed no promotion) or been promoted in some other way. The rest have been promoted through author talks or book awards.
The feedback from the focus group interviews is also very interesting to analyse but that will be for another post. Hopefully this post has given readers some suggestions on ‘what’s hot’ to help develop library collections for this age group.
Censorship is something every librarian has to be aware of when developing their collection and I wrote about this and about our challenged materials policy in my post Developing a Library Collection. The Online Dictionary of Library and Information Science (as cited in Givens, 2009, p. 22) defines censorship as the “prohibition of the productions, distribution, circulation, or display of a work by a governing authority on grounds that it contains objectionable or dangerous material.” There are a wide spectrum of beliefs and practices regarding censorship in libraries but there are also many policies in place to prevent censorship in libraries. Often censorship comes from the position of wanting to protect children but intellectual freedom should always be considered.
According to the Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) of the American Library Association (2002), “in general, there are four basic motivational factors that may lie behind a censor’s actions.” These are family values, religion, political views, and minority rights. In module 3.4 we were asked how our various roles based on age, family, back ground, societal position, religious beliefs influenced our stance in censorship of children’s literature. I think it is fair to say that for most people all of these life experiences play a massive role in our beliefs and how we translate those beliefs into the library collections we manage. However it is important that decisions are not made on personal opinions but on library policy. The Australian School Library Association’s (ASLA) Policy Statement – School Library Bill of Rights (2018) states that “School libraries are concerned with generating understanding of freedom and with the preservation of this freedom through the development of informed and responsible citizens.”
One of my author heroes and someone who has constantly challenged censorship, Judy Blume, said “I’ve always said censorship is caused by fear” (Baker, 2015). I would agree but I would also add that it can come for a place of ignorance and life experience. I have had some interesting experiences in my current school with regards to challenged materials where a parent or staff member has raised an objection. Each time has been a learning experience to all but after the first experience it highlighted to me how prepared I needed to be for opposition. It also taught me the importance of how important it was that I made the leadership teams in school aware of our challenged materials policy and our collection development policy so that they could not make knee jerk reactions to ask for materials to be removed. It has also highlighted to me how the country you live in and their laws and politics can make challenging censorship and welcoming open minded views difficult. In my context the conservative views and Singapore’s laws on homosexuality have certainly been a barrier to this.
Librarians are tasked with the job of of being an advocate of freedom of speech and in module two we looked at diversity in children’s literature and I blogged about that here. Diversity includes lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) literature which can often be considered a sub genre of realistic fiction. There are so many quality titles with LQBTQ themes. I was very pleased to discover the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Round Table (GLBTRT) which is a group in the American Library Association and they have a useful toolkit of resources to help librarians faced with challenges to LGBTQ materials in their libraries
The picture book, And Tango makes three (Parnell & Richardson, 2005) is based on the true story of two male penguins in New York City’s Central Park Zoo who adopted an abandoned penguin egg and raised Tango after he hatched. This story was removed and pulped from the National Libraries of Singapore and has been included on Banned Book Lists and censored in US libraries for years. Magnuson (2011) studied the challenges of this book in Perceptions of the Self and “Other:” An Analysis to the Challenges to And Tango Makes Three. As interesting reflection is that all of the conversations and controversy that surrounded these decisions resulted in a lot of publicity, both positive and negative.
Despite my open minded views, the reading this week made me think how much we do censor to a degree in my library and how some censorship is arguably appropriate. My library is for primary school aged children and we shelve, label and display books for the appropriateness of the population we are working with. We have a restricted borrowing section which includes books on puberty, safe touch and reproduction and also labelling on books that could be scary or confronting for some children. We also have reminders set in our catalogue of books that may not be appropriate for younger children and will talk to them, their teachers or parents before allowing them to borrow.
In a secondary school or adult library there are different implications. Our secondary school library enjoys promoting Banned Book Week, This is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and it spotlights current and historical attempts to censor books in libraries and schools. This is such a perfect way to entice the teenagers who are often more disengaged with reading to be enticed into interesting conversations about this very important topic.
References
American Library Association. (1996-2015). Banned books week. In Banned & challenged books. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/bbooks/
Magnuson, M. (2011). Perceptions of the self and “Other:” An analysis to the challenges to And Tango Makes Three. School Library Research, 14. Retrieved Oct. 2016.
Office for Intellectual Freedom (2002). Intellectual freedom manual (6th ed.). Chicago: American Library Association.
One of the things I enjoy most about being a teacher librarian is reading widely and being recommended great reads. I particularly enjoy being involved in the selection of the books for the Red Dot Award which is organised by The International Schools Library Network Singapore. Singapore is often referred to as the little red dot because we are a tiny dot on the world map, yet here in this island country, there is remarkable cultural diversity.
There are four categories for the award:
Early Years (ages 3–7)
Younger Readers (ages 7–10)
Older Readers (ages 10-14)
Mature Readers (ages 14-adult)
Shortlisted titles from recent children’s literature are chosen by a committee of teacher-librarians with the goal of offering a range of books from around the world. We look for diversity in:
genres selected
formats – we try to include one graphic novel and one non-fiction book in each category
cultures/countries represented by the characters and of the authors, illustrators AND publishers
the genders of the protagonist
Why is this important?
Hwang & Hindman (2014, p. 46) propose that “Multicultural literature teaches children about their heritage and the pride of their past. The illustrations, gender roles, and the language of the group should be accurate to represent the culture appropriately.” For their self esteem and sense of identity, all children need to see themselves, their family and their friends reflected in some of the books they read. My previous blog post on Why reading is important I wrote about Rudine Sims Bishop’s brilliant windows and mirrors metaphor. I also shared an amazing TED Talk where Chimamanda Adichie talks about the danger of a single storywhere she warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding. One of my favourite organisations is Room to Read who support school libraries and girls education in the developing world. They also understand the importance of readers looking in mirrors and identifying themselves in the books they read. They produce books that are written and illustrated by local talent in the countries where they work.
Diversity of gender is also so important and I wrote about this further in Children’s Literature, past, present and future. With regards to our process for longlisting and shortlisting the Red Dot books we actually create a table that indicates all of these elements of diversity and we often end up in very heated discussions over which very high quality books we have to omit. Sometimes it is because we have too many female protagonists, sometimes it is because we have too many books from the UK or US and sometimes it is because we have more than one book from that particular genre. I am involved in choosing the older and younger readers category and often realistic fiction seems to have too many good offerings. The process is quite long and lengthy, but it is one that ensures the library staff are looking out for and reading lots of different content that does not always come from mainstream publishers.
I thought I would finish this blog post by sharing some of my absolute favourite Red Dot Books from the four years I have been involved. Just last week we almost finished finalising our shortlists for the 2020-2021 selection. Go to the red dot site above to read more about what we do in our schools to promote these books and also for the new lists which should be coming soon. You may also be interested in these three other book awards created by teacher librarians in International Schools from within Asia, Panda Book Awards, Bangkok Book Awards and the Hong Kong Golden Dragon.
It was hard to just limit to these titles and I am afraid I could not suggest for the mature readers because I am not yet mature enough to read these texts…
Does my library need more physical or digital reference sources? I think that this is an important question that many librarians ponder when managing their reference collections. Alderman (2014, p.1)) states that the reference collection is limited to just the resources that are for in-library use only. We have very few reference materials that are for ‘in-library use only’ because I believe the students should have access to take most titles home. The only exceptions are some very heavy Atlases and the current year of Guinness Book of World Records, because it is so widely used by all of the students and it tends to get damaged quickly when taken home in school bags. My personal experience is from a Primary School library and I do believe the needs are different for secondary and university libraries. In my library, we are intentionally not growing the reference and non-fiction collection for sustainability reasons and to ensure our collection remains current, relevant and accurate. We are spending more time encouraging the use of our online Enclopaedias Brittanica and PebbleGo and using these and other digital resources as tools when researching and teaching information and digital literacy. As Farmer (2014) argues, maintaining these subscriptions do have budget implications because they are expensive, however, after doing a costing analysis, I believe it is the best use of our budget. I am also aware that I am in the fortunate potion of having a good budget and this will not always necessarily be the case.
Farmer (2014, p.70) talks about the reference section life cycle which includes acquisition, processing, organisation, circulation, maintenance and deselection. I related to working through all of these stages and have spent a lot of time both organising and deselecting or ‘weeding’ titles. My library staff and I have undertaken a massive reorganisation of the non-fiction collection. We still use an abridged form of Dewey but have re-catalogued many books with different Dewey numbers to avoid having titles on their own and perhaps where they are less likely to be discovered. For example, a biography about a sportsperson could be placed in the 620 section with sports or it could be in the 920 section with biographies. We always ask the question “where is this most likely to be discovered by a patron?’ when we decided where to place it. We have also been undertaking a fairly significant weed and only replacing those titles that are high interest or those that are linked to curriculum topics. Therefore I agree with Farmers point that all 5 stages of the life cycle are important.
In my blog post, ‘Developing a library collection’, I reflected on how ELT503, Resourcing the Curriculum, has come at just the right point in my journey as a TL. The library budget has been allocated for next year and our curriculum is changing to reflect the new National Curriculum. I have started selecting and evaluating resources to be included in the library collection to incorporate this change. Johnson states that “collection is both an art and a science. It results from a combination of knowledge, experience and intuition” (2009, p.108). There is a danger that TLs can rely solely on intuition or opinion. Having a CDP in place that is regularly used and reviewed will ensure that selection aids and selection criteria are used to ensure that the collection is developed to meet the needs of the school and the curriculum (Hughes-Hassell and Mancall, 2005; NSW Department of Education, 2015).
Currently there is one Dulwich College Library Policy which includes aspects of a Collection Development Policy (CDP) and a Collection Management Policy (CMP), as well as library procedures. With my new armour of knowledge, I am now in a position to create a new CDP and CMP with the other members of our library team. Most collection decisions have been the result of my predecessor and having a thorough knowledge of the existing collection is an ongoing process for me. I was, and still am, delighted to be working in such a well resourced library and at the beginning of the year I was very happy to announce that we had over 9000 books in the collection. In my blog post, ‘Getting my weeding gloves dirty,’ I mention that Baumbach & Miller discuss that quality is more important than quantity and argue that “misleading, inaccurate, out-of-date information is never better than no information” (2006, p.6.). This statement has had a big impact on me and has helped guide how I will move forward with deselection and the acquisition of new resources, including digital resources. This year, I have also worked in collaboration with teachers and students to select new resources. Hughes-Hassel & Mancall (2005) discuss the importance of the community being the driving force behind resource selection. Although I agree that the TL should have the final decision on resources selected, it must be a collaborative process.
This subject has also been crucial in helping me to understand the importance of the library remaining current with constant advances in technology. The Oxford Dictionary (2017) defines ‘future-proofing’ as making something unlikely to become obsolete. Decisions need to be constantly made to ensure that this does not happen with the library space or collection.
Advances in technology play a large part in how a CDP and library practice will need to be regularly updated to keep up with current technologies. An Ebook library has been added to our collection this year and in my blog post, ‘Digital and print books for children’, I reflected on the mixed reactions to this and how in my school library many students prefer a print book rather than the electronic version. Rosenwald (2015) and O’Connell, Bales & Mitchell (2015) discuss how digital resources have not ‘taken over’ print resources as had been predicted. To ensure that money is well-spent on digital tools for our primary school library, the library must be promoting Ebooks and many other digital subscriptions, including online encyclopedias, newspapers and search and referencing tools. Once promoted, they are well used, but if not the user statistics have remained low. They must also be carefully selected and evaluated following guidelines in a CDP. Even as early as 2005, Wade discussed how there needs to be two distinct databases in the library: the traditional library catalogue; and a second catalog which consists of carefully selected websites that meets curriculum needs. At present, that does not exist in my library, but I have added it into the action plan for the next academic year. By carefully evaluating the collection, I have identified that the non-fiction collection is underused and will need to be regularly and carefully weeded. Rather than the money spent on new print books, time will need to be spent on creating libguides with carefully selected websites and resources.
As the year draws to a close I am using McKenzie’s (2009) guidelines to create an annual report. I am effectively evaluating our collection and creating a CDP that will ensure that the DCSG library is future proof to ensure we are serving the school community in a relevant and inspiring way.
Hughes-Hassell, S. & Mancall, J. (2005). Collection management for youth: responding to the needs of learners. Retrieved from http://www.ebrary.com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au
Johnson, P. (2009). Fundamentals of collection development and management. Chicago: ALA Editions.
McKenzie, D. (2009). Importance of creating an annual report. [blog]. Library Grits. Retrieved Nov. 2016.
O’Connell, J., Bales, J., & Mitchell, P. (2015). [R]Evolution in reading cultures: 2020 vision for school libraries. The Australian Library Journal, 64(3), 194-208. doi:10.1080/00049670.2015.1048043
Pickett, C., Stephens, J., Kimball, R., Ramirez, D., Thornton, J., & Burford, N. (2011). Revisiting an Abandoned Practice: The Death and Resurrection of Collection Development Policies. Collection Management, 36(3), 165-181. doi:10.1080/01462679.2011.580426
Snow, R. (1996). Wasted words: The written collection development policy and the academic library. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 22(3), 191. Retrieved from
I have only been working in the library for a few months and have been aware of our library policies but many of them I have not had to look at in great depth at this point. There has not been the time to analyse them or think deeply about them as every day has been so busy with teaching, managing the library and constantly learning about everything this new role entails. So it is quite timely that I am looking at our collection management policy in more depth through this subject, ELT503, Resourcing the Curriculum. At this time of year we are creating our library budget and looking at the curriculum for next academic year so it is useful to be referring to these policies when making collection decisions. Johnson states that “collection is both an art and a science. It results from a combination of knowledge, experience and intuition” (2009, p.108). However, teacher librarians (TLs) need to ensure that they are not relying solely on intuition or opinion, but instead using their experience and knowledge of selection aids and selection criteria to ensure that the collection is developed to meet the needs of the school and the curriculum (Hughes-Hassell and Mancall , 2005; NSW Department of Education, 2015 ).
My school, Dulwich College (Singapore), has consulted with all of the other Dulwich College International (DCI) Schools and a working party of Teacher Librarians (TLs), have created TL standards for all of the colleges (Slaats, 2016). To create these standards, the TL’s consulted many standards that are used internationally. These standards are used for TLs as part of the performance review process. There are four standards involved and each one looks at a different aspect of the TL role. Standard two involves Library Collection development to support teaching, learning and reading. Within each standard there are three levels: beginning, developing and mastering.
At a mastering level it is expected that the librarian develops the library collection to enhance, stimulate and promote the diverse curricular, personal, and professional needs of students and teachers. They develop and maintain online guides to enable and promote access when and where needed to the library resources, and information / instructions on library related skills and fluencies. The librarian pro-actively supports teachers to embed EAL and other learner’s needs in their practice. The library collection reflects the cultural diversity in the college and the wider community, and provides students with opportunities to explore their own cultural identity and many native languages in depth.
In addition, there is a Dulwich College (Singapore) Library Policy (2016), which includes a section on Collection Development. The content of each DCI Library Collection is determined by curriculum requirements, student needs and the international nature of its patron body as set by each College. It aims to:
• Provide a wide variety of resources suitable for all student ages and ability levels, learning needs and styles.
• Offer access to relevant internal and external resources (e.g. Intranet, Internet, Inter-Library loans), and to encourage students to use technology effectively and responsibly.
• Place principle above personal opinion and reason above prejudice in the selection of materials, reflecting a broad spectrum of knowledge, cultures and thought.
When reviewing these policies only one area that I think could be added in the Dulwich College documents is the importance of collaboration (NSW Handbook for School Libraries, 2015). These collection decisions should not be the sole decision of a TL, but in collaboration with teachers, students, parents and school management. A collection policy should be constantly evolving and regularly consulted so I will look to make these changes with my TL collegues. (NSW Handbook for School Libraries, 2015)
References
Chandler, P & Taylor, L. (2016) Dulwich College (Singapore) Library Policy. (Working paper).
