It’s essential that the Teacher Librarian (TL) has an excellent understanding of the finances that are used for resources both in the school library and the rest of the school community (Lamb & Johnson, 2012). The TL has this task in the back of their mind, particularly when accessing or providing new opportunities to resources that are utilised both in the school library and other classrooms.
However the question: What’s involved in managing a budget? is very important as it tests what that the TL is able to maintain across the school environment. The TL also takes on three key roles when managing a budget which are the collaborator, the steward and the thinker. Each role provides a different trait which focuses on:
Collaborator: building and continually discussing with the community of people that use the library is vital in this role. This role allows the TL to gain further understanding of the types of resources that each individual or group will use. For example, IT groups within the school may want to access laptops or computers during research lessons. Managing the budget as the collaborator ensures that staff, school executives, parents and most of all students are encouraged to use the resources that are provided in the school library.
Steward: the TL takes into account the wide variety of resources that are on offer for students and staff to use as well as lead each group through quality learning programs. These programs encourage each group to effectively understand how new programs can be implemented, accessed or communicated during learning activities that take place in the school library or the classroom environment. This also means that the TL needs to consider as part of the library budget, both how much a particular resource is going to cost vs the need for it during learning activities. For example the TL, given the opportunity, could look to all the other faculties within the school and contribute an amount of money that could go towards resources such as laptops or other ICT equipment that could be lent to the variety of areas around the school (Lamb & Johnson, 2012). However this may be a poor decision if the equipment is not readily used throughout the school.
Thinker: the role the TL has on the school budget can be quite small or rather large when involving in the overall input placed throughout the school. This means that the TL can be continually discussing with the school principal or executive members of staff in order to determine how beneficial new resources are to the school environment. New resources can make quite an impact especially if they are physical as textbooks take up a significant amount of space in the library environment and the TL needs to consider whether this is the best option for the school library. However with the increase of technology into the school library much of these new texts can be viewed through subscriptions that may cost less to start with but add on over time (Lamb & Johnson, 2012).
Therefore the budget of the school library and the entire school should be constantly managed and adjusted accordingly when introducing a form of change to each learning environment.
Reference:
Lamb, A. & Johnson, H.L. (2012). Program administration: Budget management. The School Library Media Specialist. Retrieved from http://eduscapes.com/sms/administration/budget.html.
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