The readings about collection mapping, and how these can be used to most effectively develop out library collection gave much food for thought. There were many different ideas in the Johnson (2018) reading, including using collection mapping, user observation and user surveys (amongst many others).
I don’t know how often an assessment of the collection is currently conducted in my current context (I have only been in my current context for eight months), it seems to be an intuitive process that is ongoing throughout the year, rather than a focused project. I think there is a great benefit on focusing on the assessment to ensure that the collection is truly meeting the needs of the students and supporting the teaching and learning programs, including curriculum developments. Collaborating with teachers to assess the collection would be helpful in developing stronger relationships between the library and teaching staff.
My plan for when we return to school is to ask the Humanities, Science and Jewish Studies teachers for their assessment tasks for the year and then we can go through the resources we have to support the students to research these topics. I know some of the collections we have to support the tasks I have been personally embarrassed about as so many resources are in poor condition and out-of-date. So we should think about upgrading these collections, with input from classroom teachers, so that we have augmented library use. The library is currently under-utilised, but now I understand that perhaps teachers have been deterred from booking in library sessions due to the state of some of our resources!
Once all the assessment tasks have been collected, the TL team could prioritise specific sections to ensure those tasks will receive the attention they deserve. Teachers could be consulted as to the kinds of resources they would ideally be looking for, and when looking through the current resources – which ones could be weeded. Together with teachers, gaps in the collection could be identified before the TL can research the resources that could fill these gaps.
In terms of assessing fiction, we would need to survey the students to gauge what genres, authors and formats they are most interested in reading to ensure that we have new and exciting titles in those areas. We already tend to weed anything that was published 10 years ago, unless it is a resource on high circulation (such as Hunger Game and Harry Potter). Sometimes we order in a title, read it and realise we could not actually recommend it to anyone, and books like these can do damage to a culture of reading because they can turn students off reading. Especially if they have a fabulous cover!
TLs must be also researchers, to ensure the collections we manage are evolving to meet the changing needs of our school communities. We must meaningfully engage with our communities to ensure we can meet these needs by surveying our communities, forming focus groups, analysing circulation data. We must employ a range of analysis techniques to ensure that we gain an in-depth understanding of the school’s library collection and how it is used. The results of these findings can be evaluated through the lens of the library’s mission statement and collection goals.