ETL 503 – smigi’s reflections

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

Role of TL in collection development and management

Collection development policy is a complex and daunting task. After reading Module 1, I realised the beginning of collection development starts with the knowledge of stakeholders—students, teachers, parents, and the school’s mission and goals( Johnson, 2018).

When I get a position in the school library, I will start the collection based on the school’s needs, reading level, and vision. For that purpose, the part about development policy is significant. It determines the long- and short-term goals of a school library (Fieldhouse et al., 2012) to make the learners competent for the 21st-century workforce and have a love for reading. Unfortunately, most of the schools where I worked as a relief teacher don’t have a collection development policy or a teacher librarian (TL). So, my attempt to read a policy from a school library was desperate. The module readings gave me deeper knowledge of collection development and collection management, and I will add one more thing in Oddone’s cycle, the evaluation, because it includes a lot of evaluation criteria( Johnson, 2018) for print and e-resources, which helps the librarian compare and contrast the resources’ benefits and drawbacks and hence make the right decision for the school community.

As Oddone mentioned, the role of TL is to successfully create and maintain a school library collection, which is a very difficult task. It’s an ongoing process, and a qualified TL’s professional experience, knowledge about the school environment, community, library policy, and selection criteria are all crucial and have a great impact on the collection of library resources that satisfy user needs and institutional priorities.

References

Fieldhouse, M., & Marshall, A. (Eds.). (2012). Collection development in the digital age. Facet.

Johnson, P. (2018). Fundamentals of collection development and management (Fourth edition.). ALA Editions.