Siana Einfeld – Page 2 – Siana’s Teacher Librarian Musings

Budgets: The Role of TL as Collaborator, Steward and Thinker

The Lamb and Johnson (2012) article made me think about Library budgets through a different lens.

Collaborator: To manage the budget it is important to collaborate with students and staff, as the library must serve the teaching and learning needs of the school community. In order to build and maintain a culture of reading, it is important that students have a voice in their library’s collection, and must create opportunities to collaborate with students to build the collection. We must also actively create opportunities to speak with fellow teachers about their curriculum resource needs to ensure that students have access to the best quality resources with which to research and complete their assessments. We have teachers and heads of department often requesting books and digital subscriptions so that must be factored into the budget as well. We also have staff members from all departments (including accounts) requesting fiction books for our ‘adult’ collection. This is an important collection as it encourages a culture of reading.

Steward: In my previous context I managed the Library budget, which was new to me. Thankfully I had the incredible support of the previous Library Manager who showed me how she accounted for every cent. The budget was incredibly tight so we needed to be extremely organised and ensure that all monies were spent by the term 4. We also had to raise more money through Book Fairs and Scholastic Book Club. Every purchase had to be thoroughly researched beforehand, as we could not to afford to purchase any ‘duds’. As a team, we needed to show that we were competent budget managers by ensuring that we did not go over budget, spent our budget down to the last dollar, and were able to provide excellent and useful resources for year levels P-12. This was a major challenge!

Thinker: This is an interesting one! In my previous context, I was initially given a budget that was woefully insufficient. I wrote a Three Year Plan for a budget that I would expect for the size of the school and how the budget would be spent, including on digital resources. This was successful as the budget was increased significantly. In my current context, the library is a priority so the budget is sufficient. It can be crucial to show the Senior Leadership Team the research demonstrating the correlation between library budgets and learning outcomes, NAPLAN results etc.

Sometimes we need to think outside the box to channel more monies. In my previous context, just before budgets closed I contacted heads of departments and asked if they had money left over that they could channel towards the Library. We could easily justify the expenditure – for example the English budget had leftover money so we purchased fiction books for the Wide Reading Program. The Academic Support team had money left over in their budget so we purchased Dyslexic font texts. In this way we were collaborators, stewards and thinkers all rolled into one!

Reference:

Lamb, A. & Johnson, H.L. (2012). Program administration: Budget management. The School Library Media Specialist. http://eduscapes.com/sms/administration/budget.html.

What are the possible implications of internet filtering?

The Batch (2014) report Fencing out knowledge: Impacts of the Children’s Internet Protection Act 10 years later, is a very interesting read and brings up relevant and critical issues for our Australian context about internet filtering. The report begins by describing the origins of the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) that was passed in 2000 in the USA as a means to block internet users from accessing child pornography and for minors accessing images that are deemed “harmful to minors” by installing internet filters in public libraries and schools. Schools and public libraries that did not abide by these rules would lose their public funding. While this sounds reasonable in theory, actually the ramifications of the internet filtering have caused much damage and widened the opportunity gap between those who have access to mobile data/broadband internet at home and those who rely on schools and public libraries for internet access.

I am unaware of similar laws or acts in Australia, and am keen to find out as soon as time allows. However I do have a reference point: in my previous context, we had quite severe internet filtering. At the time I thought it was a little strange that I had to ask for permission to unblock sites including Kids Lit Quiz and other educationally relevant websites. This is a perfect example of over-filtering – if these sites are blocked then many sites students would need to find out more about themselves (e.g. LGBTQI support networks, mental health, physical health) would also most likely be blocked. I had no qualms in requesting the sites I needed be unblocked and I am embarrassed to admit that I did not consider that there would be many students who would not feel comfortable asking for sites about the aforementioned topics to be unblocked. I did not think consider that this type of extreme filtering would widen the class divide between the “haves” and the “have nots”.

What a complex world we live in with the rise of the internet. While I do sincerely wish to protect children from viewing inappropriate images and shudder to think how early our children are exposed to such images, libraries must provide free and open access to information and with algorithm-generated filters, library users can lose access to information including safe sex, health, and genocide. It is widely recognised that if we do not learn about the events that have led to genocide, we are doomed to repeat these harrowing mistakes. The overreach of filtering negatively affects access to learning opportunities and of course this disproportionally impacts those already living with economic disadvantage.

Another vitally important skill students and library-users (who do not have mobile data/home broadband) will miss out on with the over-implementation of filtering is the acquisition of information literacy skills. Teacher Librarians play a vitally important role in ensuring students acquire information literacy skills – a set of skills that underpins not only the entire educational frame, but is also widely recognised as fundamental to participate fully in our globally competitive democratic 21st-century society.

Students with the advantage of unfiltered access at home have the opportunity to practice their information literacy skills while students who only have filtered access at school become further disadvantaged and do not have a chance to truly build this vital set of skills. Information literacy is complex and not only involves literacy, but also critical thinking and ethical understanding. By limiting exposure to complex and challenging websites, we hinder their opportunities to develop the skills they need to function in our rapidly changing world. Through missing these critical opportunities, students can finish school and be unprepared when faced with unfiltered internet. How can we then expect them to be responsible users, consumers and producers of online content?

I am not sure if my previous context was aware of the negative impacts of over-filtering. If I was still there, I would definitely create awareness as to the harmful flow-on effects of over-filtering. I am unaware of the filtering status of my current school but have not come upon any sites that have been blocked.

The water safety analogy described in the report was very appropriate in the case of internet safety: we can give our children floaties, pool gates and lifeguards, but actually the best way to protect them is to teach them how to swim. Savvy students can work out how to bypass the filters, and filters may create even more curiosity around topics that are harmful and inappropriate for them. We need to have the opportunity to teach students digital safety and creating a wholesome digital footprint in an environment where they can practice their skills to reinforce their learning.

Public libraries in Australia are a place where digital skills are taught to migrants and those living with disadvantage, so over filtering poses major challenges to intellectual freedom. Filtering can constitute censorship as those creating the filters are not aware of the values that librarians are committed to uphold to protect democracy. Filter based decisions may be created by algorithms but those algorithms are created by humans who may not be aware or committed to the professional standards librarians must uphold during the selection process.

If I am in a situation again where I sense that over-filtering is a concern, I definitely feel much more well-equipped and knowledgable about how to approach this with leadership. The negative impacts are far too great to ignore.

Reference:

Batch, K. R. (2014). Fencing out knowledge: Impacts of the Children’s Internet Protection Act 10 years later. Office for Information Technology Policy, American Library Association.

How can schools manage the copyright status of content being loaded into the learning management system?

Copyright laws are intricate, nuanced and in many cases come down to personal and professional judgement. All staff need to be informed of these laws. Staff can be informed through professional development sessions, bite-size presentations at staff briefings, and through electronic communication. TLs have an important role to play in informing staff of the copyright laws, but (thankfully) are not expected to monitor staff adherence to these laws. Therefore it is in the school and staff’s interest to be regularly informed about our obligations.

There are many misconceptions held by the public and especially teachers in regards to copyright, which need to be corrected to ensure that staff are not infringing on these laws and essentially stealing intellectual property.

Teachers should be made aware that they must always attribute work they copy and communicate. Examples can be given as to best practice attributions, and that internet materials no longer required should be removed.

Teachers should also be made aware that the old rule of copying 10% or one chapter is now more of a guide rather than a hard-and-fast rule. Examples can be given with teachers discussing in groups as to whether copying a certain amount would “unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests” of the copyright owner.

It is possible to have one person assigned to ensuring all materials on the LMS adhere to copyright rules, however it is far smarter to educate the entire staff body and give everyone ownership and responsibility over acting according to our legal obligations.

Key Issues for Digital Resources

As these articles are a decade old, so much has changed since their publication. Much of the processes outlined have been streamlined and refined. There is still much (much) course material to get to, but when time allows I will look to see if there is an updated version.

In the ALIA (2013) report on elending issues, the context sets out that the demand for ebooks is growing fast. Now in 2022, we know that ebooks already have a reliable and growing market. As “Libraries have always been about equity of access to information and stories, whatever the format,” (ALIA, 2013), we must ensure ebooks are available to our school communities in our collections.

The ALIA article outlined the struggle publishers face to ensure the e-lending model is economically viable and their concerns with DRM. I am sure that in 2013, publishers would have been still strategising how they can make e-lending economically viable. However, with Wheelers, BorrowBox and StoryBox, this is not a concern in 2022.

However all of the subscription resources have been requested by various departments so support the teaching and learning goals of our school. Issues of access, authentication, compatibility, functionality and reliability and interface, search and retrieval and search strategies are smooth as the vendors have refined their process to make it so for libraries. Public, academic and school libraries make up a fair slice of the market, so vendors have had to adapt and adjust to ensure that all these processes are streamlined to accomodate their clients.

When purchasing new subscriptions, I would check with our IT department that the resource could be integrated into our system seamlessly. When we purchased LearnPath, for example, we received some basic training as part of the package. For the more sophisticated techniques, we had to pay for an advanced course. It is a good idea to check that quality and timely customer support is available.

Concerns around e-lending may have, in 2013, involved fair pricing. From what I understand, this is not an issue anymore. The exception to this is audiobooks, which is understandable given the additional production costs. Ownership also may have been a concern in 2013, however now there is currently the opportunity to retain permanent ownership of e-materials. I do wonder how this permanency may be affected when a supplier ceases trading and will ask my Head of Libraries plus my friends working in publishing about this.

There is a range of pricing models between Wheelers and our online subscriptions and these pricing models are considered carefully by the Head of Library before purchasing. Certainly e-resources bring new layers of complexity. When considering new subscriptions, it is definitely important to think about the size of the actual user group and not the total user population. It is also important to read the licensing agreement carefully before signing up, to ensure that expectations between the TL/Head of Department and the vendor are aligned. The license agreement should include, for example, a guaranteed up time of more than 99%, provide bibliographic data, and provide online help screens. Considering the data leaks and hacks that are occurring regularly with major organisations, it would definitely be a good idea to check that the license ensures “the privacy and confidentiality of the users’ information when accessing the e-resource” (Johnson et al, 2012).

Our school currently does not have a selection policy, so when I create one I will have a separate one for e-resources, taking into account the above concerns plus any updated issues from 2022 that we should also factor in.

References

Johnson, S., Evensen, O.G., Gelfand, J., Lammers, G., Sipe, L., & Zilper, N. (2012). Key issues for e-resource collection development: a guide for libraries, IFLA Acquisition and Collection Development Committee.

ALIA. (2013). eBooks and elending issues paper. Australian Library and Information Association Think Tank, 15 February 2013.

Acquiring E-books

This blogpost is a response to chapter 6 from in Sue Polanka’s No Shelf Required: E-Books Libraries. In many ways this chapter seemed irrelevant in my current context as it was written in 2002, and in the last 20 years there has been much change: the processes of acquiring e-books has been streamlined and refined.

In my current context, we have a subscription through Wheelers Books which gives our school community access to the consortium. Additionally, we purchase titles that are requested by patrons (patron driven acquisition—PDA). We purchase additional licenses for titles that are on the school curriculum, particularly for English. This hybrid approach seems to work really well for our students and staff.

However for future contexts, there are some important things I can keep in mind, such as ensuring that E-reference and E-text books are available to ensure school-wide accessibility. E-literature is a must: students must have access to literature day and night, from wherever they are. At my previous context with a tighter budget, I encouraged students to sign up to be a member of their local library so that they could have access to BorrowBox and thus thousands of E-books and audio books. In my current context, we are encouraging our students to make use of our well-resourced library as much as possible, so providing an option for students to have their book requests fulfilled is ideal.

I wonder which vendors provide pay-per-view, as this is not a process I am familiar with in the school library context but in some ways makes a lot of sense. In my previous context we received standing orders from Scholastic, which yielded very mixed quality so I do generally prefer to hand-select, however sometimes that is not humanly possible with time constraints.

Reference:

Jenkinson, D. (2002). Selection and censorship: It’s simple arithmetic. School libraries in Canada, 2(4), 22.

Book Challenges, Censorship and Democracy

It was interesting to read about other TLs experiences of censorship in schools and how they handle book challenges. As librarians, we are defenders of democracy by ensuring that the spectrum of opinions and experiences are available for our students.

Like freedom of speech, sometimes it is hard to know where the line is and everyone will have a different opinion on this. I would not want to include any hate speech in my library. I also would like to read more about “Cancel Culture” as when I understand that an author is inherently racist, I no longer wish to read their books or financially support them by purchasing their work (i.e. Sally Rooney refusing to have her books translated into Hebrew is an act of racism).

It is impossible to read all of the fiction titles before we purchase. In my context, we try to spread out our reading of fiction titles between the TLs, and the expectation is that we read at least one book per week from the Library’s YA collection (preferably in different genres).

Although I work in a faith-based school, the staff, students and parents are open-minded. Parents are just happy if their children are reading … if there is a lot of swearing or references to unsavoury behaviour in the book, I’m guessing the students would not tell their parents. We do not have a formal challenge procedure. I have asked my Library manager and she has said it has never come up. We are happy to make those decisions in-house, and the community appears to respect our professional judgment.

In my previous school, book challenges occurred over a lot of material, especially over swearing, sexual content and violence. It did not make it easy that we had the primary and secondary library all together in the one spot. Inevitably primary students were trying to borrow secondary books that were not age appropriate. For the assistants who were on circulation, some books slipped through. I do believe though that books are not the problem when it comes to swearing, sex and violence. Really, the problems are TikTok, YouTube and freely available content on the deep dark web.

I also think freedom of access to information must be taught hand-in-hand with information literacy, as we can easily access all sorts of information and opinions, but our students must learn which ones to trust, and which ones are rubbish because they are not grounded in facts and truth.

Community standards is something that TLs working in faith-based schools must be aware of, to ensure that we are not censuring for fear of reproach. We must learn to defend our choices and this comes back to having a sound selection policy.

Also interesting to consider the fact that it’s not enough simply to purchase materials, but also to make sure that cataloguing makes the resources readily available.

I am relieved to read the IFLA and ALIA statements opposing censorship in libraries, and these statements can be referred to if/when books are challenged.

References:

Moody, K. (2005). Covert censorship in libraries: A discussion paper. Australian Library Journal, 54(2), 138-147.

Lukenbill, W.B. (2007). Censorship: What do school library specialists really know? School Library Media Research, 10. http://www.ala.org/aasl/sites/ala.org.aasl/files/content/aaslpubsandjournals/slr/vol10/SLMR_Censorship_V10.pdf

School Library Journal Research. (2016). Controversial books survey

Censorship in the School Library

When selecting or withdrawing a resource, the context must always be considered.

At my children’s local primary school, the leadership have employed a business “Talking the Talk” to teach the children from prep onwards about puberty and body parts, gender fluidity and identities, right up to sex and reproduction in the older years. Learning about sex early makes it less taboo and teenagers are more likely to make better, more informed choices. I believe this is appropriate and genitalia are indeed body parts that we all own! Also, we have prep students transitioning gender, so all students should be open minded about this to support all peers. Also there are many types of families and this should be normalised from the first day.

At my previous school, an Anglican school, the Library Manager made a rule that from the third Harry Potter onwards the students needed to be in Year 7. I personally found this strange as I taught for years in a public school and most of the students had read all the Harry Potters by year 5. I thought this was fantastic – that was a lot of reading mileage! The Library Manager said it was because Harry Potter was too violent. I didn’t agree but also understand the reasoning; I too do not wish to expose students to violence but who gets to draw this line?

Similarly this year we have many students (and staff) requesting Colleen Hoover’s It Ends with Us. I understand the choice to remove the book as the sex scenes were explicit. However, I know that many state secondary schools have chosen to keep the book, as it definitely gets kids reading! It is an important exploration of abusive relationships. Also, we know that many students are engaging in intimate activities and that this is not new to them! Again – who gets to draw this line? Students who have experienced abuse must be able to see their experiences reflected in the pages of a book – they must know that they are not alone.

Grey areas that do not exist is representation. LGBTQI fiction and non fiction (such as Nevo Levin’s The Pronoun Lowdown) is a must for school libraries. I did have to argue for this in my previous school, but my team came on board – especially when they saw how popular these books are.

Additional Selection Criteria for Resource Format Considerations

The use of additional specific selection criteria that relates to resource format considerations is very important to ensure that all students have access to the library collection. It is only through outlining specific selection criteria that the school library can ensure that access is carefully considered and implemented.

For example, a criteria would outline how fiction ebooks are selected. In my context, I know that we subscribe to Wheelers books but I don’t know how it is decided which ebooks and audiobooks we acquire. We definitely have more hard copy titles of fiction than ebooks. Perhaps selection of ebooks would be based on popularity (books sold, #BookTok), awards, teacher requests.

Another consideration would need to be that the ebooks must cover all levels of difficulty, with a quota of ebooks in dyslexic formats, be representative of diversity in all its forms (culture, ethnicity, language, religion, beliefs, community and family structure, sexual orientation, and more), and present a spectrum of points of view.

We would need a criteria on ensuring that curated electronic resources are provided in the form of Libguides for any assessment requested by teachers. There would need to be criteria around these eresources and websites to ensure that all TLs are scrupulous about their background checking … I know it is expected, but we can’t be too careful! Also the resources provided would need to provide a breadth and diversity of viewpoints to encourage students to form informed judgements through developing their critical thinking skills.

There would be a criteria that ensures that we have resources that are multimodal, that are audio, and video as well – and perhaps even outlining a quota for this. This would be an evolving document, if for example a student or staff member joined our school community with vision impairments and requiring books in braille, we would build this collection as well.

Building a Balanced Collection

In my current school context, I believe we do have a balanced collection. We have a healthy budget, so we can get all the latest fiction titles in every genre and we have got all the genres covered. We regularly evaluate the collection to ensure that titles are weeded as they become outdated and irrelevant. I do believe we need to revisit the genres, however, as who even says “Ooh my favourite genre is Social Issues, I better head to that section!” Same goes for “Person-to-person”.

In any case, we seem to have non-fiction fairly covered for each of the assignment tasks also. However again, I think we could have a thorough look at what needs to be updated. I work in a Zionist school, and some of the books on Israel are so old. I understand it is difficult to acquire titles that are age-appropriate and up-to-date on this topic, however we definitely must do some research in this area!

I enjoyed the Crowley (2015) article about Graphic Novels, and completely agree that they are a great medium and enticing stepping stone into the world of literature for our reluctant readers. Sometimes it can be difficult to encourage students to have a balanced literary diet once they have discovered graphic novels … but this collection must be prioritised in the school library. We have a good collection, but again it could be given some more love.

Crowley (2015) mentioned getting involved with the Stan Less Excelsior Award for developing the graphic novel collection and it sounds like a wonderful idea except that I am not aware of anything similar in Australia. Our school was involved this year in the inaugural CBCA shadow judging competition. If there was a Book of the Year category for graphic novels, that would be an excellent start; it would encourage more local publishers to publish local graphic novels creators as well! We have brought graphic novels into our wide reading program as well, as mentioned in the article.

I also enjoyed Fleishhacker’s (2017) article suggesting titles of science books in a number of formats including science-based fiction and graphic novels, science-based novels, illustrated science biographies, science-based nonfiction graphic novel series. Fleishhacker (2017) says “A well-rounded library collection provides plenty of choices that will intrigue individual readers, encourage them to discover books that speak to their unique interests and needs, and allow them to chart their own personalised course through the process of acquiring knowledge.” I love this quote because it is through applying this idea to our collections that we can ensure that all our students feel seen and heard. And when our students can discover books they love, they will be on course to be a self-motivated reader and lifelong learner!

Jacobson’s (2016) article about censorship was interesting, as this has come up recently in my school. Many students were asking for the #BookTok sensation – Colleen Hoover’s It Ends with Us. Staff members were also asking for this title. I work in a faith-based school and it was deemed inappropriate for our collection due to several explicit sex scenes. I can understand the decision, and the students at our school would be able to buy the book from a shop, borrow it from the local library, or borrow it from each other. In many ways I felt it was a shame as the book had important messages in it around domestic abuse that I felt was beneficial for a teenage audience.

I think there is more book challenging in the USA because it is a more conservative country than Australia. I have not heard of a single book being challenged at my school. We do not have a policy or procedure regarding this, so it’s entirely possible it has not come up. We do have books on a range of identities, spread right throughout the collection.

References:

Crowley, J. (2015). Graphic novels in the school library: Using graphic novels to encourage reluctant readers and improve literacy. The School Librarian, 63(3), 140-142.

Fleishhacker, J. (2017). Collection development. Knowledge Quest, 45(4), 24–31.

Jacobson, L. (2016). Unnatural selection. School Library Journal, 62(10), 20–24.

McEwen, I. (2018). Trending now. Teacher Librarian, 45(3), 50–52.

Sekeres, D. C. (2009). The market child and branded fiction: A synergism of children’s literature, consumer culture, and new literacies. Reading Research Quarterly, 44(4), 399-414.

Stephens, W. (2014). Checking out tomorrow’s school library collections. Young Adult Library Services, 12(3), 18–20.

Responsibility for Resource Selection

While secondary school classroom teachers specialise according to their subjects, Teacher Librarians must resource the curriculum to be relevant and useful across the entire education frame. TLs must also be across the YA literary landscape. Teachers often do not have the time to develop expertise in this area and I have seen many teachers have knowledge of the books they themselves loved as teenagers, which may or may not be so relevant to the contemporary teenager!

There are dangers that TLs will select recreational reading resources that fall within their own genre interests, so students must have the opportunity to suggest and select books. Aside from having a suggestion box or giving opportunity in Wide Reading programs for students to suggest books, I love the idea of having selection excursions to book shops where students can hear from book sellers, pick up books and read blurbs to have a meaningful say in their school library’s collection.

While it’s vital that students and staff have input into the collection, the TL must have final say of acquisitions. This is because the TL is aware of the collection management policies that have been developed with the school ethos in mind. We had many students requesting a book that I understand is popular on #BookTok and is in many government school libraries, but as a faith-based school we could not include this book. The students were very welcome to borrow the book from a public library or purchase from a book shop!