Siana Einfeld – Siana’s Teacher Librarian Musings

Assessment 6: Professional Portfolio

Part A:

An effective Teacher Librarian possesses an ever-growing suite of skills and dispositions to share with her school community. As a student-centric educator, she creates an inviting Library and has a deep and authentic drive to provide the best possible service. She advocates relentlessly for the Library’s services and resources, continuously devising creative ways to engage student voice and involvement. She inspires students and teachers to attain more reading mileage and equips students with the knowledge and strategies to research ethically and think critically. Being a warm and affable professional, she collaborates with every faculty in the school to ensure each department is comfortable accessing the Library’s resources and services.

Part B:

Collection Development

Undertaking the subject ETL 503 Resourcing the Curriculum opened my eyes to many aspects of collection development, including how using Patron-Driven Acquisition can bring student voice into the collection and boost the reading culture. Creating a report that highlights how acquisitions have augmented student outcomes may help the library budget to be less susceptible to budget cuts (Tarulli, 2012).

One of the biggest take-aways from undertaking this subject, was learning how essential it is to weed the collection effectively. To effectively weed, we need to build a criterion for weeding. A large part of our role as TLs is to get the best most appealing resources into the hands of our students and teachers to match their research and recreational needs. If our shelves are stuffed with dusty, raggedy old books, our students might avoid the Library. It is already difficult to get students to read, so a part of building the reading culture of the school is to give tender loving care to the shelves to make them inviting. It is better to have a smaller selection of high-quality books than a tonne of books that hold little interest for our students.

Regarding the nonfiction collection, Baumbach and Miller (2006) outlined how to weed according to category, as the publication date that we use to guide our weeding practice will vary according to the subject area. Some subjects (such as computers, science and technology) require much more frequent weeding than other areas (art, history and philosophy). When I am weeding the non-fiction collection, I now print off these pages and use them as a guide. Weeded books can be repurposed for book folding art and also for bookmarks.

Further, a collection evaluation is essential for accountability, transparency and to ensure that the library is serving the teaching and learning needs of the school. It must be carried out thoroughly, using various means, to ensure that the data obtained is useful to evaluate goals set and devise new goals. Usage data statistics are very useful for determining the books and types of books that are circulated. This quantitative data, however, must be combined with qualitative data as there is essential information missing from user statistics, such as whether the title the user has accessed was relevant or useful for their research or recreational purposes.

Collaborating with teachers to assess the collection would be helpful in developing stronger relationships between the library and teaching staff. TL’s must access subject assessments to ensure that the collection is truly meeting the needs of the students and supporting the teaching and learning programs, including curriculum developments.

Evaluating this task against my own practice, I know that I must ask 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 might then consider upgrading these collections, with input from teachers, so that we have augmented library use.

References

Debowski, S. (2001). Collection program funding management. In K. Dillon, J. Henri & J.McGregor (Eds.). Providing more with less: collection management for school libraries (2nd ed.) (pp. 299-326). Wagga Wagga, NSW : Centre for Information Studies, Charles Sturt University. (e-reserve)

Grigg, K. (2012). Assessment and evaluation of e-book collections. In R. Kaplan (Ed.), Building and managing e-book collections (pp. 127-137). American Library Association.

Kimmel, S. C. (2014). Developing collections to empower learners. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/lib/csuau/detail.action?docID=1687658, Posted onJanuary 7, 2023

Tarulli, L. (2012). The library catalogue as social space : promoting patron driven collections, online communities, and enhanced reference and readers’ services. Libraries Unlimited, an imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC. https://doi.org/10.5040/9798400679032

Image of Teacher Librarian weeding books, created using Gemini.

Information Literacy and Inquiry Models

After undertaking the subject Introduction to Teacher Librarianship: ETL401 I became highly motivated to introduce the Guided Inquiry Design Framework (GIDF) into my secondary school. I have created educational tools around introducing this framework but am still yet to advocate for the ubiquitous implementation of the GIDF. The GIDF provides students with the necessary scaffolding to navigate the information environment and use higher-order thinking skills to achieve optimum outcomes.

I regularly see teachers give students research tasks with the expectation that they complete the assignment on their own, “although teachers have good intentions, they don’t realise that their traditional research approach is actually not supporting student learning” (Maniotes & Kuhlthau, 2014). This gap between research and the scaffolds to support the students is where I must now turn my focus. I hope to create teacher “buy-in” by communicating that I will save them time planning, whilst simultaneously augmenting student outcomes by providing an extra teacher in the room to guide students to become more effective researchers through use of the framework.

Information literacy skills are skills we must constantly and consciously augment in order to be effective lifelong learners and successful participants of our advanced civilisation (Fraillon, 2022). Since undertaking this subject in 2022, the world has changed in ways that I could not have imagined. I see the ramifications of the lack of discernment of online content causing democracy to unravel. While there are many benefits of having information at our fingertips, we have a duty to instruct our students on how to evaluate sources. One idea is to deliver a series of bite-sized presentations for year level assemblies, where the skills can then be practiced and reinforced in library classes. I am even more determined than before that our students must be explicitly taught what is at stake if we do not value and acquire these skills, and what is at stake is the future of our democracy.

Sometimes I feel educators take for granted that “information literacy provides the central scaffold to participation and learning in all areas of work, education and everyday life” (Talja & Lloyd, 2010). Our students are so comfortable with technology that educators often overlook their ability to critically evaluate information. Information literacy (IL) skills are not acquired through osmosis, they must be taught, practiced, assessed and report upon (Singh, 2023).

Students’ willingness to access, utilise and analyse “gold-standard” digital resources is evidenced during research classes. While students are shown how to access quality resources and well-regarded databases, anecdotal evidence shows us that many students are opting to use basic Google search functions and low-quality sources for investigations and inquiry tasks. This use of low-level sources for research inevitably leads to low-level assessments produced by the students. By providing explicit instruction on how to use evidenced-based inquiry models, our school library can make a measurable improvement by augmenting academic outcomes across the entire curriculum frame (Bogiannidis, Southcott, & Gindidis, 2023). Improved educational outcomes will be evident through NAPLAN scores, results assessed by teachers and VCE study scores.

References:

Bogiannidis, N., Southcott, J., & Gindidis, M. (2023). An exploration of the possible educational opportunities and the challenges at the intersection of the physical and digital worlds occupied by 10–14 year-old students. Smart Learning Environments, 10(1), Article 26. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40561-023-00246-w

Fraillon, Julian. (August 2019). Digital literacy: Myths and realities. In K. Cockle (Ed.), Research Conference 2019: Preparing students for life in the 21st century: Identifying, developing and assessing what matters: Proceedings and Program: 4–5 August 2019, Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. (pp.68-72). Melbourne: Australian Council for Educational Research. https://research.acer.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1357&context=research_conference

Maniotes, L. K., & Kuhlthau, C. C. (2014). Making the Shift: From Traditional Research Assignments to Guiding Inquiry Learning. Knowledge Quest, 43(2), 8-17. https://ezproxy.csu.edu.au/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/making-shift-traditional-research-assignments/docview/1667947095/se-2

Singh, A. (2023). Globalisation [Image]. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/globalization-abhishek-singh/UNESCO. (2024). Q&A: Why digital global citizenship education is essential. https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/qa-why-digital-global-citizenship-education-essential#:~:text=It%20has%20the%20power%20to,in%20particular%20social%20media%20platforms

Talja, S., & Lloyd, A. (2010). Integrating theories of learning, literacies and information practices. In A. Lloyd & S. Talja (Eds.), Practising Information Literacy (pp. ix-xviii). Chandos Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-1-876938-79-6.50019-4

Digital Citizenship

One aspect of digital citizenship that I am still deficient in and must fast become an expert in is Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI). The critical need for Information Professionals to be leading and paving the way in GenAI was also emphasised during our Study Visit to the LaTrobe University Library. Students must learn how to use it as a tool, not to completely offload all cognitive work onto GenAI .

GenAI can help “gather writing information, improve sentences/grammar, and enhance vocabulary in their writing” (Wu & Zhang, 2025) however some experts predict “would result in the demise of writing” (Chiu, 2023). A part of our role as TLs is to be forming the academic policies and frameworks regarding fair and ethical use of GenAI for assessments, where students still garner the skills required to thrive in the 21^st century, including analysis and accurate use of language (Dobrin, 2023).

Digital Citizenship education must evolve rapidly to keep pace with the everyday digital spaces. A crucial aspect of this includes money management, as interacting with the digital economy. Ecommerce is key to becoming a responsible and knowledgeable digital citizen (Wahjusaputri & Nastiti, 2022). Through undertaking the subject Digital Citizenship in Schools: ETL523, I understood that a part of our role as TLs is teaching our personal responsibilities as ecommerce providers and consumers. It was fantastic to create an animation using PowToon to teach ethical and practical ecommerce lessons and I intend to augment my learning and impact by creating a series of these PowToon lessons, replete with quizzes, as part of Digital Citizenship education at my school.

Digital citizenship encompasses many lessons and values students will have been taught already for face-to-face interactions, however there are additional concerns when interacting online such as safety concerns, privacy, legal and copyright (Harris, et al., 2022). There is much work to be done to upskill our students in these areas, and also to equip teachers to be reinforcing ethical and safe online behaviour.

Rereading my notes from ETL523, I am reminded that in order to augment my school’s Digital Citizenship education, there are a number of actions we could take. This would include creating and sharing:

– a digital learner profile and learning continuum (Casa-Todd, 2018).

– policies and procedures to support the shared understanding of what it means to learn and interact in the school’s digital learning environment.

– a strategic document outlining how technology will be integrated across curricula to enhance learning, including plans for training teachers in new technologies and pedagogies.

– education around behaviour that constitutes cyberbullying, replete with reporting mechanisms (Polizzi & Harrison 2022).

I recognise that teachers do not have the time or resources with which to teach essential digital citizenship behaviours, dispositions and skills. This is a place where the Library can add much value. My immediate goal is to create online learning modules to equip learners with the skills and knowledge to conduct effective research.

Part of creating these learning modules will be to deliver Professional Development to augment teacher knowledge and confidence in our expectations around digital citizenship at our school.

Watch my Powtoon: Digital commerce quiz

References

Casa-Todd, J. (2018). Reflections on digital citizenship. Teacher Librarian, 45(3), 15–18.

Chiu, T. K. (2023). The impact of Generative AI (GenAI) on practices, policies and research direc-tion in education: a case of ChatGPT and Midjourney.Interactive Learning Environments,1–17.https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2023.2253861.

Dobrin, S. I. (2023).Talking about generative AI: A guide for educators. Broadview Press.https://sites.broadviewpress.com/ai/talking/.

Furze, L. (2023) AI Ethics. https://leonfurze.com/2023/01/26/teaching-ai-ethics/

Harris, A., Walton, J., Johns, A., & Caluya, G. (2022). Toward global digital citizenship: “Everyday” practices of young Australians in a connected world. In P. K. Kubow, N. Webster, K. Strong, & D. Miranda (Eds.), Contestations of citizenship, education and democracy in an era of global change (pp. 133–155). Routledge.

Klein, A. (2024, January 22). National ed-tech plan outlines how schools can tackle 3 big digital inequities. Education Week. https://www.edweek.org/technology/national-ed-tech-plan-outlines-how-schools-can-tackle-3-big-digital-inequities/2024/01

Polizzi, G., & Harrison, T. (2022). Wisdom in the digital age: A conceptual and practical framework for understanding and cultivating cyber-wisdom. Ethics and Information Technology.[KG3] , 24(1). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-022-09640-3

Toony Ali Al-kardousi, A., & Abd El- Hameed Zaghloul, B. (2024). Digital citizenship: an introduction to developing e-commerce competencies among students of commercial technical education. International Journal of Advanced Humanities Research, 4(1), 52–71. https://doi.org/10.21608/ijahr.2023.211050.1013

Wahjusaputri, S., & Nastiti, T. I. (2022). Implementation of e-Commerce in Improving the Competitiveness of Vocational Secondary Education Student Entrepreneurship Products. Journal of Education and Learning (EduLearn), 16(3), 384-391.

Wu, D., & Zhang, J. (2025). Generative artificial intelligence in secondary education: Applications and effects on students’ innovation skills and digital literacy. PloS One, 20(5), e0323349. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0323349

Part C

As a devoted and committed lifelong learner, I know that despite all the skills, knowledge and experience I have garnered through undertaking this Masters, I have infinitely more to learn. Specifically, I wish to build my knowledge and experience in Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), to be at the forefront and leading the School in developing policies around the use of ensuring academic integrity while using this technology as a tool.

Throughout the entire Masters, a recurring theme across all subjects has been the crucial importance of collaboration. I have applied this understanding in consciously developing positive rapport and will continue to build on established and new relationships across all faculties. Through working closely with educators, I am better placed to align library resources with curriculum goals, so that each student can receive targeted support tailored to their individual learning needs. Also, through readings across all the subjects in this course, it is clear that garnering support from the School’s leadership can be instrumental to then garner teacher “buy-in” for initiatives.

Part of advocating for the Library’s services is highlighting how we bring a different set of skills to subject teachers’ classrooms, where they can concentrate on delivering the curriculum content, while TLs guide students to navigating the tsunami information available to them, and the instruction on how to critically evaluate sources. For example, I went to the English faculty meeting seeking authentic feedback regarding the Wide Reading Program. One teacher expressed that she would like a class focused on navigating the school’s audiobook collection; we responded immediately to this suggestion and all students met the success criteria for these classes.

One fundamental aspect of being a TL is to constantly be advocating for the school library, we must always be seeking innovative and engaging ways to champion our resources and services. After undertaking Research in Practice: ETL567, I was inspired to pursue research to both inform library programs and to provide evidence regarding how they are (or are not) achieving their aims. It was a revelation to be able to read peer-reviewed literature and understand the structure behind the study design, methodology and gain further strategies to how to analyse and interpret the data. Currently we use user-data to support our programs, however this data must combined with other methods, for example surveys and focus groups (both teacher and student) to ensure we are meeting the curriculum and recreational needs of the school community.

One area where I must build my skills, which will soon become very relevant is strategically plan and budget for improvement in library and information services and programs. I would need guidance and support with this area, as although it is essential, my focus has always been on providing top-level service to our school community and devising creative and engaging programs to support the school’s strategic goals relating to study skills and literacy. I have identified two ways I could build my budgeting competencies; the first (and most cost-effective) way would be to reach out to the ASLA networks, who have managed school budgets before and gain understanding of the methods they use to succeed. The second way would be to undertake a short course in business budgeting.

Image of teacher librarian struggling with organising the budget, created with Gemini.

Assessment 2: Part B: Reflection on Subject Digital Citizenship in Schools

Acronyms:

GIDF: Guided Inquiry Design Framework

DLE: Digital Learning Environment

TL: Teacher Librarian

GAI: Generative Artificial Intelligence

This subject has opened my mind to important aspects of digital citizenship I had not thought previously to be within the purview of the School Library.

Working as a TL in a well-resourced school library, I have noticed how ineffective it is when teachers simply give students a research task and tell students to go and research using the internet, with little or no guidance on how to navigate the tsunami of information they encounter on any given topic. Therefore, I decided to focus on the GIDF as I wish to embed this framework into the DLE to optimise opportunities for deep learning (Al Mamun, Lawrie & Wright, 2022). Without guidance and scaffolding from teachers through the phases of the inquiry process, I regularly see students implement shallow learning approaches. Teachers can feel inundated by the volume of content they must cover, so TLs must make the implementation of GIDF easy through using the DLE as a platform to create learning artifacts for instruction, research and communicating new understandings.

Oddone , Garrison & Gagen-Spriggs explore the challenges of academic integrity in a DLE that uses GAI. Their article describes how it has already proven difficult to identify student work, so we must work with the technology. An aspect that must be explored in class when students are constructing texts, is that it is crucial that students check the “accuracy, reliability and quality of information generated” (2023) by GAI. Anecdotally, we have seen that students do not know that these are essential elements to check through. The TL with the backing of school leadership must ensure that students are given the tools to be able to evaluate generated texts, as this has not been addressed in our school. Attempting to ban GAI use is simply “impractical and short-sighted” (ditto).

I also agree that there is a “need for more expansive, holistic and responsive global citizenship” (2022) education, as social media content and algorithms are shaping our society, and there are possibly sinister agendas behind the biases that are being perpetuated. The digital citizenship education must evolve rapidly to keep pace with the everyday digital spaces in which students interact. It is clear that social media content is contributing to the tearing at the fabric of our society through disseminating misinformation and polarising public debate around hot-topic issues. There are many online highly regarded resources and platforms that can assist teachers and school leadership implement digital citizenship education, it only involves a time commitment. A list of these resources were provided through this subject and I have kept this list to add to over time. Teaching digital citizenship of course is intertwined with the teaching of embodying the school values including compassion and integrity, so that students are not, for example falling prey to—or perpetuating—online abuse, joining extremist groups, or disseminating misinformation that undermines our democracy (Pollizzi & Harrison, 2022).

TLs must be digital leaders in their schools, as a major part of the role is to curate digital resources. We must ensure that digital citizenship is front and centre of learning across all subjects, which involves upskilling teachers. TLs must be creative and savvy to reach time-poor teachers, such as creating engaging bite-sized digital artifacts to keep educators abreast of relevant changes in the digital landscape. Being a digital leader means that TLs must be constantly upskilling to be able to demonstrate skills to protect personal safety, privacy, copyright and understanding the legal ramifications of our behaviour (Wine, 2016).

References:

Al Mamun, M. A., Lawrie, G., & Wright, T. (2022). Exploration of learner-content interactions and learning approaches: The role of guided inquiry in the self-directed online environments. Computers and Education, 178, 104398-. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2021.104398

Harris, A., Walton, J., Johns, A., & Caluya, G. (2022). Toward global digital citizenship: “Everyday” practices of young Australians in a connected world. In P. K. Kubow, N. Webster, K. Strong, & D. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003197881-9/toward-global-digital-citizenship-anita-harris-jessica-walton-amelia-johns-gilbert-caluya

Oddone, K., Garrison, K., & Gagen-Spriggs, K. (2023) Navigating Generative AI: The teacher librarian’s role in cultivating ethical and critical practices. Journal of the Australian Library and Information Association, https://doi-org/10.1080/24750158.2023.2289093

Polizzi, G., & Harrison, T. (2022). Wisdom in the digital age: A conceptual and practical framework for understanding and cultivating cyber-wisdom. Ethics and Information Technology., 24(1). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-022-09640-3

Wine, L. D. (2016). School Librarians as Technology Leaders: An Evolution in Practice. Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, 57(2), 207–220. https://primo.csu.edu.au/permalink/61CSU_INST/15aovd3/cdi_proquest_journals_1796677328

Reflective Practice

The CDP is an essential document that guides TLs to curate a collection that will best serve the curriculum and recreational needs of the school. Every decision about the collection should stem from the principles and policies outlined in the CDP, and because of this, the document must be collaboratively created with teachers (across departments) and ratified by the Senior Leadership Team (SLT). Following are some of the key issues.

Patron Driven Acquisition (PDA)

It is vital that students are given the opportunity to contribute to selecting resources for the collection. I plan to take my keen readers on an excursion to a children’s bookshop to select books (Einfeld, 2022, November 2022). The TL must assess the selections against the criteria outlined in the CDP before purchase to ensure the titles contribute to the goals of the library. Jorm (2022) describes how implementing PDA at Melba Copland Secondary School has amplified the reading culture at the school. Building a culture of reading is core business for a school library, so this method of acquisition must be written into our CDP.

Censorship

The library profession is underpinned by the value of intellectual freedom and access to information (ALIA, 2018). These principles must be written into the CDP to future proof the collection from being skewed by personal biases and censorship. The Hoffman and Wood (2007) reading reminded me that some students cannot get to a public library, nor have internet access. Therefore, we must ensure that all our students feel represented in our collection (Einfeld, December 4, 2022) and promote resources with controversial ideas (Dawkins, 2018). Simultaneously, TLs must balance our duty-of-care with the right to read (Einfeld, January 14, 2023).

Annual Report, Budgets and Collection Mapping

I have learned that creating an annual school library report is an essential task. This report is also an advocacy document, showcasing how the library supports and develops the reading culture, academic honesty and information literacy goals of the school (Einfeld, January 1, 2023). Further, the annual report makes the management of the library budget transparent. In the report, TLs must connect the dots and show how the acquisitions have augmented student outcomes (McKenzie, 2009). This might make the library budget less susceptible to budget cuts (Einfeld, January 5, 2023).

Mapping the collection according to curriculum areas and year levels is an excellent way to review and document areas for focus (Einfeld, January 8, 2023). This transparent analysis promotes accountability and demonstrates to stakeholders that the TL has a sound understanding of the school’s resource needs (Einfeld, January 7, 2023). A collection evaluation is essential to ensure the collection is evolving to meet the changing needs of our school (Grigg, 2012). The evaluation must be carried out using a combination of research methods: qualitative and quantitative data must be garnered to identify strengths and weaknesses (Hart, 2003).

Weeding the Collection

As TLs, we must get the best and most appealing resources into the hands of our students and teachers to match their research and recreational needs. Shelves that have been given attention and care are inviting, therefore the task of weeding must be regularly prioritised (Larson, 2012, pp15-22). Previously I was a reluctant weeder, however now I know that we do damage to our students’ learning journeys if we undermine their research by hoarding irrelevant and outdated resources (Einfeld, January 10, 2023). Baumbach and Miller (2006) and Vnuk (2015) both explain how to weed according to subject area, and I will use these guides when weeding nonfiction. E-resources also must be evaluated for deselection: holding onto resources with misleading information in any format damages our library’s reputation and is potentially harmful to the democratic process (Einfeld, January 10, 2023).

These issues demonstrate why a CDP is an essential document, as decisions can be made and justified now and, in the future, according to the values and policies outlined within. With the CDP in hand, the TL knows that the collection should be safe from bias, irrelevance, censorship and budget cuts.

References:

Australian Library and Information Association. (2018), ALIA core values policy statement, https://read.alia.org.au/alia-core-values-policy-statement

Baumbach, D.J., & Miller, L.L. (2006). Weeding criteria by topic and Dewey number. In Less is more: A practical guide to weeding school library collections, (pp. 24-167).

Dawkins, A.M. (2018). The decision by school librarians to self-censor: The impact of perceived administrative discomfort. Teacher Librarian, 45(3), 8-12.

Grigg, K. (2012). Assessment and evaluation of e-book collections. In R. Kaplan (Ed.), Building and managing e-book collections (pp. 127-137). American Library Association.

Hoffman, F.W., & Wood, R.J. (2007). Intellectual freedom. In Library collection development policies: school libraries and learning resource centres, (pp.63-80). Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press.

Jorm, M. (2022) Photo Story: Student-led library collection development. Teacher Magazine, https://www.teachermagazine.com/au_en/articles/photo-story-student-led-library-collection-development

Larson, J. (2012). CREWing children’s materials. In CREW: a weeding manual for modern libraries, (pp. 33-36), Austin, TX: Texas State Library and Archives Commission.

McKenzie, D. (2013, November 2). Weeding inspired creativity. http://librarygrits.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/weeding-inspired-creativity.html

McKenzie, D. (2009). Importance of creating an annual report. [blog]. Library Grits. http://librarygrits.blogspot.com.au/2009/06/importance-of-creating-annual-report.html.

Vnuk, R. (2015). The weeding handbook: A shelf-by-shelf guide. Chicago: ALA Editions.

Approach to Collection development Procedures and Policies

School library collections are an ever-growing organism; the collection must be consistently and continuously evaluated to cater to the teaching and learning needs of the school. New and relevant materials must be selected, while out-of-date and irrelevant materials must be deselected on an ongoing basis. Policies and procedures for developing the collection must be created and shared with stakeholders to ensure the collection is managed in a way that is well-thought-out and consistent between library staff.

With digital resources making up a substantial part of the library’s collection, policies and procedures must cater to these resources. The collection must also cater not only for students but also for teachers – providing resources on topics such as best practice and education research.

The collection management policy should be ratified by the senior leadership team, but in my context, it would be the TL or Head of Library (HoL) who creates the original document. To create the document the HoL must consult the curriculum and the particular needs of the school – in my current context a faith-based school that has a special collection devoted to Judaica. The Collection Development Policy (CDP) must be created with certain elements embedded within, including the mission of the school library, statements about library values including freedom of information and the collection goals.

The policy should outline that collection development involves collaboration with teachers so that all feel that they have agency and voice in the collection, and will therefore be more likely to interact and engage with the collection. In regards to the principles of intellectual freedom and freedom of information, the policy should outline the method for ensuring these library (and democratic) values are guaranteed within the collection management process.

The procedures should be included as an appendix so that all future staff, no matter their experience, will have a method to follow when selecting and deselecting materials. Providing a standards for processing and organising resources is a must, as I have definitely seen huge variation in the standards of workpersonship!

The procedures must include guidance on how to create balanced collection to ensure that into the future, whoever the HoL is, the collection will include culturally and linguistically diverse resources. There must also be clear guidelines for contested materials.

I really like the idea of using a rubric to evaluate the collection according to standardised measures. The rubric provided would need some work as it is already eight years old, however once engaging with a team of teachers and leaders to evaluate the collection according to the rubric, the results would provide the perfect point from which to identify areas that need strengthening. This can be built into the collection development plan.

The CDP must be revised every two years to ensure that it is a tool that best serves the school community. Also by recognising areas that are strong and recognising progress, the connections between staff and the library would be strengthened.

Oberg, D., & Schultz-Jones, B. (eds.). (2015). 4.3.1 Collection management policies and procedures. In IFLA School Library Guidelines, (2nd ed.), (pp. 33-34). IFLA.

Mitchell, P. (2018). How does your collection measure up?: Using the school collection rubric. Journal for the School Information Professional, Autumn 2018, Vol.22(2), pp.18-19,2.

Newsum, J. M. (2016). School collection development and resource management in digitally rich environments: An Initial Literature Review. School Libraries Worldwide, 22(1), 97–109.

Ethics and Collection Development

Teacher Librarians (TLs) must have Library Ethics at the forefront of their minds when managing and developing collections. With a clearly developed collection development policy, TLs are equipped with their tools for accountability and transparency when complaints and disgruntles arise. TLs should record decisions made so that their practice method is open for stakeholders to review, and can see how the TL applies the collection development policy to ensure a collection has been carefully curated to serve the teaching and learning needs of the school community.

The saying “the squeaky wheel gets the grease” should not apply to collection development when multiple faculties are involved. Often there are faculty members who send in many requests for purchases, while teachers from other faculties for whatever reason are reticent to do so. TLs must collaborate with all of the teaching faculty when developing the honing the collection for our patrons. This reading was a good reminder that faculty budgets cannot be mixed; this could lead to serious yet completely avoidable issues.

When reading that we must “protect each library user’s right to privacy and confidentiality …” I thought of many beautiful students who have come to the circulation desk, ensuring that none of their peers were present, to borrow a book that they needed for their own personal health or development such as a book about consent, puberty, LGBTQI+ identities etc. Students have the right to maintain confidentiality surrounding their borrowing choices. When a student made a suggestion for a book and we purchased it, a TL placed a special sticker inside the book inscribed with “This book was purchased with the recommendation of [name of student]”. The student was uncomfortable about this and we have since made these stickers anonymous – which is much more appropriate.

Recognising and respecting intellectual property (IP) rights is part of a TL’s raison d’être. This reading was an important reminder that although we are passionate about IP rights, our students and colleagues may not be aware of its intricacies and we must remind students of their academic honesty obligations.

Not advancing private interests at the expense of library users is a guideline I would personally need to be conscious of. I do get excited by some topics, while bored to tears by others, but I must remember all the students and teachers in the school when developing collections.

Distinguishing between personal convictions and professional duties is very important and perhaps one of the hardest guidelines to uphold. Some resources may seem to be promoting dangerous and extremist perspectives but there are several questions we can ask when curating a balanced collection. We must analyse whether the resource is well-researched by an authoritative source, and from by a reputable publisher? These kinds of questions makes sure acquisitions decisions are not based on emotions but rather on our professional duties to provide free access to information.

Reference:

Morrisey, L. J. (2008). Ethical issues in collection development. Journal of Library Administration, 47(3-4), 163-171.

Weeding the Collection

I have to admit that before undertaking these readings, I was a reluctant weeder; whereas now I feel armed with the knowledge and criteria to be an effective weeder. The important thing to remember when weeding is that school libraries are not archival centres, our purpose is to get the best most appealing resources into the hands of our students and teachers to match their research and recreational needs. If our shelves are stuffed with dusty, raggedy old books, our students might just avoid the library altogether. Shelves that have been given some tender loving care are much more inviting, so weeding must be regularly prioritised in the TLs schedule.

If students cannot find resources easily because they are rummaging through crowded shelves stuffed with old and unappealing resources, they could likely be turned off the whole process. We TLs need to stay ahead of the trends and current attitudes to make sure our collection does not contain information that is out-of-date or attitudes that are hurtful, offensive and harmful. We would do great damage to our student’s learning journey if we undermine the value of their research by holding onto irrelevant and outdated resources.

It was validating to read about the excuses many librarians make as to why not to weed as I now know that I am not alone. The Baumbach and Miller (2006) guide to weeding school library collections, outlined why some of my concerns “don’t hold water” (5). Such as my concern around someone requesting an item as soon as I have weeded and disposed it. This, of course, is highly unlikely as if I have weeded it, it is because it has not been borrowed for a number of years and likely contains misleading information. Or it is in poor condition, in which case we will be purchasing a new and improved copy.

Baumbach and Miller (2006) also outlined how to weed according to subject area, as the publication date that we use to guide our weeding practice will vary according to the subject area. Some subjects (such as computers, science and technology) require much more frequent weeding than other areas (art, history and philosophy). So when I am weeding the non-fiction collection, I would actually print off these pages and use them as a guide. I enjoyed the acronyms M.U.S.T.Y., M.U.S.T.I.E. and F.R.E.S.H. which I may stick up somewhere in our office as a reminder of this vital task of weeding in collection management.

I realised just how fresh we need to keep our fiction collection, so that our students are actually drawn to pick up books. Our Fantasy collection, for example, is bursting at the shelves. What student is going to want to even peruse these shelves? Items need to be taken off. Popular interest waxes and wanes, so adding and culling regularly is vital to keep the collection appealing, thereby fulfilling one of our most important missions: building the reading culture of the school.

In the past, I have been nervous that the principal will “catch” me weeding, and will be unhappy about this, however now I feel ready to provide a rationale for why weeding is a necessary component of collection management. In my current context, we do not have a collection development policy but once I have created one, I could share this with the principal – which would include the criteria for weeding. This would help the principal understand that weeding ensures that the collection continuously evolves to meet the teaching and learning needs of our school. The weeding policy would outline the purpose of weeding and the professional tools implemented when evaluating the collection.

It was also validating to read that it is common that librarians and TLs do make mistakes in purchasing. I am always wracked with guilt when I make a dud purchase! After these readings, I now feel I have “permission” from removing these mistakes from the collection. It is better to have a smaller selection of high quality books than a tonne of books that hold little interest for our students.

In terms of disposal, there are many ideas with what to do with discarded books. Of course, anything with mould must be chucked straight in the bin. I have donated old books to my school. They were great titles but old so not for the school library, but great for classroom libraries – which tend to be consumables in any case! I run a book club at school that meets weekly. Obviously we can’t read a book each week, more like each month. So in between discussing books, we do literary activities like play Scrabble and create bookmarks. With the weeded nonfiction books, we cut them up and create collages on our bookmarks. This is a really great way to repurpose weeded books.

There are many approaches to weeding, and I would use a combination of them to suit our needs. I would begin with areas of the collection that get heavier use, looking ahead to what is being taught across the curriculum particularly in Humanities, Jewish Studies and Science (the classes that tend to book research sessions in the library the most). Then I would use the shelf-by-shelf criteria outlined in the Baumbach and Miller (2006) guide or the Vnuk, R. (2015). The weeding handbook : A shelf-by-shelf guide. Then I would proceed to areas of current interest before just going through shelf by shelf.

With regards to fiction, I would go through genre by genre until I have weeded the entire collection and then start again a year later. If weeding is scheduled into my timetable, much like shelving, then I could make solid progress throughout the year. I would consult teachers in the process, especially when I am unsure about a resource, that way the teachers involved would feel more connected with the collection and be more likely to interact with it.

When it comes to weeding eResources, some different criteria might need to be applied. Obviously finding shabby, worn and torn books will not be an issue. However ensuring that the content in the collection is current and relevant. Ebooks still take up space, even though it is not physically on a library shelf, it is there sitting on a server and on our catalogue. Having out-of-date books with misleading information damages our library’s reputation.

Currently, we subscribe to the Wheelers’ consortium so we have very little power to weed, except for the titles that we purchase in addition to the consortium. However where we do have the power to weed, we must be evaluating each item according to the criteria to ensure that the digital collection does not contain items that are irrelevant or factually inaccurate.

Remembering what not to weed is also really important. I can imagine myself getting a little ruthless in my mission to create a vibrant collection, but just as I have made mistakes in acquisitions (sigh), it is important to remember not to weed resources containing local history and authors, well known artists, annuals and yearbooks, and books that are out-of-print but still useful.

References:

Baumbach, D.J., & Miller, L.L. (2006). Weeding criteria by topic and Dewey number. In Less is more: A practical guide to weeding school library collections, (pp. 24-167).

LaGarde, J. (2013, October 1). Keeping your library collection smelling F.R.E.S.H! [blog post]. The adventures of Library Girl. https://www.librarygirl.net/post/keeping-your-library-collection-smelling-f-r-e-s-h

Larson, J. (2012). CREWing children’s materials. In CREW: a weeding manual for modern libraries, (pp. 33-36), Austin, TX: Texas State Library and Archives Commission.

Larson, J. (2012) Addendum on ebooks

McKenzie, D. (2013, November 2). Weeding inspired creativity. http://librarygrits.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/weeding-inspired-creativity.html

Vnuk, R. (2015). The weeding handbook : A shelf-by-shelf guide

Methods for Collection Evaluation

A collection evaluation within a school library is essential for accountability, transparency and to ensure that the library is serving the teaching and learning needs of the school. It must be carried out thoroughly, using various means, to ensure that the data obtained is useful to evaluate goals set and devise new goals.

Collection evaluation would ideally involve a combination of methods. Each method has its pitfalls, which is why a combination is necessary, so a balanced and accurate picture of the collection is ascertained. Usage data, for example is probably the method that most librarians and Teacher Librarians (TLs) are most familiar with. These statistics are very useful for determining the books and types of books that are circulated. This quantitative data, however, must be combined with qualitative data as there is definitely essential information missing from user statistics, such as whether the title the user has accessed was relevant or useful for their research or recreational purposes.

I cannot see how the Overlap Analysis would be useful in my context. Perhaps titles are duplicated but I am unaware of this issue. Perhaps in a larger or public library this would be a useful to ensure every dollar is spent wisely. In my context, surveys would be useful to gain a deeper understanding of where there are gaps in the collection. Definitely we would need to incentivise the engagement with the surveys to avoid skewing the data. Amongst the students, we have many library devotees, and unfortunately we also have book-avoiders as well (sigh), however these students’ input into the library’s collection is invaluable – how can we engage these students with the collection?

Benchmarking is an interesting method that I had never thought to do previously. I am always interested in going into other school’s libraries and checking out what they do and the state of their collection. It would be fantastic to team up with schools of similar size and budget to compare catalogues, websites and specialised collections.

I had also not previously thought to conduct focus groups before this reading, but think this is also a really worthwhile idea. The data garnered from Focus Groups would complement user data as it would give the TL the chance to dig deep into how the collection could evolve to better serve the teaching and learning needs of the school community. Participants would have the chance to offer their ideas and give feedback on the collection – both strengths and weaknesses. Focus groups do provide helpful qualitative data but must be part many methodologies of the collection assessment project as there are several pitfalls to this method on its own.

I had never previously heard about the balanced scorecard. I am not sure how our Head of Libraries would feel about determining performance measures on the collection – are these measures relevant and realistic, or simply arbitrary?

The current priority area for collection evaluation in my school is to ensure that we have enough print and e:resources to support the research requirements for assessment tasks. I have run a number of library classes from topics such as “Modern Israel” to “Renaissance” where the resources are looking tired and tatty. In the case for Modern Israel, the resources need a much-needed update. Certainly a variety of research methods must be employed to successfully evaluate the collection, set powerful future goals and create greater impact. The excellent thing about many of these assessment methods is that they would promote the existing collection, and the whole purpose of the evaluation is to augment usage of the collection whilst attaining the most relevant titles.

Reference:

Grigg, K. (2012). Assessment and evaluation of e-book collections. In R. Kaplan (Ed.), Building and managing e-book collections (pp. 127-137). American Library Association.

Approach to collection mapping in the school library

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.

Developing Collections and Budgeting

In my previous context as Library Manager and TL, the budget I was given was woefully insufficient. The school had a tight budget, but also, I felt, misplaced priorities. I acquired a wonderful, experienced, generous and knowledgeable mentor through School Library Association Victoria (SLAV) and she suggested I put forward a three year plan, including what funds are needed to develop the collection. Through submitting this three-year plan to the principal, the library budget did double – which was still insufficient – but obviously an excellent start towards creating an effective collection that could support the teaching and learning needs of the school community.

The original budget really was unworkable, but before these readings, I had just assumed that the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) determines the budget according to funds available and the departments and TLs just had to work with what was given to them. Now I understand that it is a much better idea to submit a budget proposal based on a thorough analysis of the collection along with a plan as to how to develop the collection to best serve the needs of the school community. The SLT must know that the TL is evaluating the collection to support the school’s curriculum goals and this transparent analysis keeps the TL accountable to continuously improve the collection for the attainment of these goals. Principals are busy and are not always across the resource needs of the school and the budget that is required to provide a powerful collection that supports teaching and learning. That is why it is important that a TL creates a budget submission that is based on a sound analysis of the collection and a collection development plan.

Having a collection development plan showcases to key stakeholders, especially the SLT that the library is guided by the values of intellectual freedom, equity and access as well as the school’s mission statements. It is important that SLT see that a thorough and authentic evaluation of the budget allocation has been conducted from the previous year against the collection development goals; the stakeholders can then see how the areas of need have been strengthened with other areas identified to be further developed. In this way the TL will build more clout and the library will be further recognised as being professionally managed and directed. When the TL puts forward the next budget submission, the SLT may well be more inclined to channel required funds towards the library.

I have never been at a school where there is school library committee but I do like the idea. I imagine it would help to build the profile of the library and encourage richer collaboration between the library team and classroom teachers. I think TLs must write the budget proposal according to a collection development plan, but that this could be reviewed and then submitted by the library committee, if there is one available. In my current context, teachers are flat-out so I am unsure whether we would be able to garner a school library committee … especially as our library team is well-staffed. However, inviting staff members to be involved in the library and its collection in this way would encourage more staff to feel that they have a voice in the collection and therefore feel a stronger connection with the library at large. The collection development plan more definitely is a vital public relations tool.

The TL should know and understand the collection deeply and getting to know the collection is not just about ordering and checking circulation statistics; it can mean doing lots of shelving! The idea of mapping the collection according to curriculum areas and year levels is an excellent way to review and document the real needs of the collection requirements. Going through this process demonstrates to stakeholders that the TL has a sound understanding of the resource needs of the school community and would therefore have more faith in the TL’s plan for developing the collection.

From collaborating with students and staff and constantly evaluating which areas of the collection need attention and boosting, with the guiding principles and school’s goals in front of mind, the TL can develop a solid collection development plan that can garner the support of SLT and stakeholders.

References:

Kimmel, S. C. (2014). Developing collections to empower learners. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/lib/csuau/detail.action?docID=1687658

On the importance of annual budget reporting for school libraries and TLs

After reading several articles about creating an annual school library report, I am completely sold that this is an essential task at the end of the year. Starting off in 2023, I will be keeping a folder specifically for the annual report where I will pop in anything and everything I think will be important to highlight in the report. It probably will not all make it into the final document, however at least I will have plenty of items to choose from at the end of the year.

Our library is well-funded as it is a priority at the school, however I do not for a moment take this for granted as funds are consistently shifting. Financial situations are fluid, so the library team must be informing the leadership team and even the wider community of the value that we bring.

We are also under-utilised, so showcasing the work that we do in classrooms to support and develop the reading culture, academic honesty and information literacy goals of the school can inspire other teachers to take up our offerings and services. By focusing on the contributions the library has made to teaching and learning, setting SMART goals for the following year, the library can build a positive picture in the minds of school community. In this way, the annual report is also an advocacy document. So often staff and leadership do not understand what the library team does (aside from circulation and shelving!), so creating and presenting the annual report is the perfect opportunity to showcase how the collection has been managed, the details of how the library has worked to develop readers and a reading culture, and pinpointed exactly how the library has supported inquiry learning and digital literacy.

It is vital that the senior leadership team know exactly how the library budget is being spent, and the annual budget report makes the management of the library budget allocation transparent. It is here that we can connect the dots and show how the acquisitions have augmented student outcomes. The next time there is a budget cut, the library might not be first on the chopping block as leadership has been made aware of the direct positive correlation between the library’s budget and student outcomes.

Creating an annual report also ensures that we are accountable to ourselves. In creating an annual report, we can identify not only where we have succeeded, but also where we have fallen short and where we can put more focus and emphasis. This can help us identify goals for the following year and helps create a path to the successful attainment of these goals. Over the years, the documents can be put together to tell a longer-term story of the library’s impact.

I read some excellent (and some less excellent) examples up of annual reports provided through the module and which I can use to guide me when I create my annual report at the end of this year. The important thing is to be aware of this document all throughout the year so that come November, I will be armed and ready to create my own.

Reference:

McKenzie, D. (2009). Importance of creating an annual report. [blog]. Library Grits. http://librarygrits.blogspot.com.au/2009/06/importance-of-creating-annual-report.html.