February 2024 – smigi’s reflections

Part B: Reflective practice

When I embarked on ETL 503, I never realised the complexities of CDP and management. I have never seen any before as a teacher or student, and the study gave me a deep knowledge of its significance and the role of TL in creating a collection development policy based on the school context.

Learning resources are essential to teaching and learning in a nurturing school setting; hence, all schools must create an inclusive resource selection process. A well-developed school library collection can be attained if the TL, important staff members, students, and parents collaborate in the selection process (Queensland Department of Education and Training, 2012).

Over the course of the topic, the modules gave me deeper knowledge of Collection Development Policy (Siju, 2024), it’s purpose, inclusion and how it supports TL to deal with contentious issues. I now realise that a library’s collection has to be diversified and well balanced in order to meet the needs and expectations of students in the 21st century; the significance of digital collections (Siju, 2024), the role of TL in expanding the development of transliteracies (Newsum, 2016) and the role of TL in collection development and management (Siju, 2023).

Every school library has a mission to ensure that students and staff are effective users of ideas and information. In the media-rich information world of today, effective users create their own knowledge in addition to consuming ideas and information. In addition to providing material and tools, today’s collections must also facilitate a variety of creative endeavours by giving students the means to effectively share their work with the school and community at large (Kimmel, 2014).

To support a 21st-century learning environment, I would highly prioritise adding diversity to the library materials at my school. I would consult with school leaders about the issues and the need to create a CDP and provide future actions for the library to promote its significance and get sufficient funding. My library will provide a variety of digital materials, audio devices, special services for the disabled, networked resources that provide quick access to online encyclopaedias, a school library cataloguing system, and other print resources for fiction and nonfiction. I will ensure that the collection is balanced, relevant, and made available to users of all ages, skill levels, learning preferences and backgrounds (Oberg & Schultz-Jones, 2015). I’ll also promote online resources to the school community through library web pages, research learning units, and library orientation (Newsum, 2016). I’ll collaborate with teachers in selecting and purchasing relevant digital and print resources to enhance curricular objectives and subject matter. Beyond maker spaces, I will provide doing spaces (Loh, 2018) for students to engage in learning. That activity place should be used for guest speeches, story telling, collaborative group work (Kimmel, 2014), movie screenings, and book clubs. There will be some supplementary activities for students with English as a second language. Additionally, I will make sure digital resources are easily accessible by linking them to the school technology systems.

Libraries might become obsolete if they do not adapt to the needs of the evolving digital landscape. They can be a rising phoenix or a slow, outdated dodo (Wade, 2005), and TL should aim to make the library a phoenix, so CDP is a pivotal strategic document that provides a framework for the future (State Library of Queensland, 2018).

References

Department of Education and Training. (2012). Collection development and management. Queensland Government https://web.archive.org/web/20190326043500/http:/education.qld.gov.au/library/support/collection-dev.html

Kimmel, S.C. (2014). Developing collections to empower learners. American Association of School Librarians.

Loh, C. E. (2018). Envisioning the school library of the future: A 21^st century framework. Singapore, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.32524.36489

Newsum, J. M. (2016). School collection development and resource management in digitally rich environments: An initial literature review. School Libraries

Oberg, D., & Schultz-Jones, B. (Eds.). (2015). IFLA School Library Guidelines (2nd ed.). Den Haag, Netherlands: IFLA.

The State of Queensland (State Library of Queensland). (2020). Strategic Planning. Public Libraries Connect. https://plconnect.slq.qld.gov.au/managing-my-library/operating-library/strategic-planning

Wade, C. (2005). The school library: phoenix or dodo bird? Educational Horizons, 8(5), 12-

Collection Development Policy

Collection development is the skill of choosing, ordering, processing, and keeping up with all the resources available to users of the school library, such as print, audio-visual material, visual aids, websites, blogs, and e-books. A meaningful learning environment with materials that fulfil the demands of all users is made possible by the collection, which draws in students as well as teachers (Stevens et al., 2012).

A well-defined school library’s policies represent the school’s goals, objectives, ethos, mission, and realities. The policies outline the responsibilities of the school’s curriculum, teacher’s needs, the development of inquiry skills, reading promotion and motivation, the unique requirements and preferences of the school community, and the variety of society beyond the school( Oberg & Schultz, 2015).

Collection development policy should include the mission and purpose of the school, short- and long-term objectives of resources, and responsibilities for collection management decisions. Collection procedures serve as a guide for resource acquisition, cataloguing, shelving, and deselection (Oberg & Schultz, 2015).

While I analysed the collection development policy of St. Andrew’s Cathedral School, it had common collection items of philosophy, purpose, selection criteria, procedure for challenging material, weeding policy, and disaster plan. It has no collection evaluation, which is highly needed in a collection development policy, because the teacher librarian can make sure the library management policy meets the demands of the curriculum, the teachers, and the students by regularly assessing the collection and checking whether the funds are appropriately allocated to the most important subjects and collections (Johnson, 2014).

References

Johnson, P. (2014). Fundamentals of Collection Development and Management (3rd ed.). American Library Association.

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.

Stephens, C. Gatrell., & Franklin, P. (2012). School library collection development just the basics. Libraries Unlimited.

Digital Collections

School libraries nowadays are essential for fostering critical appraisal of information, information supply, and broader digital literacy (Tait et al., 2019).
Library media centres have changed a lot in their collections, supplemented books with multimedia collections, and are currently gathering digital collections that are available seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. The print collection gets more vivid and smaller as the digital collection increases in size. The time that was previously spent on maintaining, reshelving, cataloguing, and rotating the print collection will now be directed towards keeping the digital collection up to date and available seven days a week. The expansion of digital collection is leading to a shift in roles towards Chief Information Officer and Information Coach (Loertscher, 2002).

Digital resources provide the opportunity to use critical thinking skills and provide information for a variety of inquiry-based learning tasks. Today’s libraries use new technologies such as 3D printing, robotics, marker spaces, gaming, and recording suites to enhance learning and creativity (Tait et al., 2019).

There are some pros and cons for digital collections that need to be analysed by a TL before including them in the collection. Digital libraries respond quickly to curriculum changes. It reduces the need for staff time spent following up on returns. Moreover, it has more affordable options for users and more freedom for members to access off-site collections. On the flipside, digital collections have less visibility and complicated licencing and negotiation (Mitchel, 2016).

As social media and “fake news” have grown in popularity, libraries and school librarians have an even greater responsibility to give students access to actual, reliable data and to educate them on how to find, identify, and present that data’s supporting evidence. Knowledge of research on digital learning and reading will assist TL in reshaping the library in order to compete with online technology and stay relevant in the 21st century (Pawlowsky & Ryan, 2016)

References

Loertscher, D. V. (2002). Digital and elastic collections in school libraries: A challenge for school library media centres. School Libraries in Canada, 21(4), 3–4.

Mitchell, P. (2016). Digital collections.
https://www.slideshare.net/pru_mitchell/digital-collections

Pawlowsky, S., & Ryan, T. G. (2016). The 21st-Century School Library: Perpetual Change or Evolution? International Journal of Educational Reform, 25(1), 38–55. https://doi.org/10.1177/105678791602500103

Tait, E., Vo-Tran, H., Mercieca, P., & Reynolds, S. (2019). Don’t worry; a school library with fewer books and more technology is good for today’s students.April2, The Conversation: http://theconversation.com/dont-worry-a-school-library-with-fewer-books-and-more-technology-is-good-for-todays-students-114356