I was thinking about the collection evaluation section of a Collection Development Policy and it finally dawned on me why it is so important and can be of real value to have a good evaluation section and how it can be beneficial as a strategic document. I have just started in my first role as a Teacher Librarian this year so I am only a term and a half into the role. Last year, I worked at this same school as an English teacher and so I had a lot to do with the library – I became friendly with the TL as I am studying the degree and was interested in applying for the position for this year. We talked about collection development and management.
She explained that when she started, there had not been a TL in the library for a few years and there were other teachers on and off before that, not all of them trained as TLs.
She had done a significant amount of weeding as the collection had a lot of out of date resources, particularly in the non-fiction section. I told her that this was something I was interested in continuing to build and develop as I like reading non-fiction books and I know many students prefer general interest kinds of non-fiction texts over novels.
She admitted that she advertised this collection less, as she was less interested in reading those herself and she was focusing on developing the fiction section for the premier’s reading challenge.
Now, in my ‘evaluation’ of the non-fiction section, I’ve noticed that many of the resources aren’t getting used – despite being high quality resources. I’ve also noticed that we have a huge 900 section – covering the histories and geography topics, especially when compared to some of the other sections – for example – the ‘music’ section in the 700s has less than 10 items. Now, I know I need to consider the whole ‘quality over quantity’ idea, but I also know a few of the previous librarians were also trained HSIE teachers which would likely explain the discrepancy.
I want to continue to build and develop the non-fiction section. I started looking for resources that would tie in to the Australian Curriculum and came across a number of challenges:
- When chatting with teachers about what units they are currently teaching, the teachers were able to give me the topic overviews but did not know what other resources would be of benefit to students and what students would actually like to read
- Teachers believe that students will just do all their research online
- There actually aren’t a lot of resources available to buy. This is also a bigger factor considering that I work in a selective high school and the resources that meet the students’ level of challenge and ability are often designed for adults or for university level study and are therefore ‘not interesting’. The other side of things is that often the materials that students would find ‘interesting’ e.g. through engaging formatting, use of images, diagrams, colour etc. are not at the appropriate difficulty level of the students and so the students do not borrow them
- There is a school-wide mentality that research is done online only and so students don’t use the library non-fiction resources for study, they primarily use them for general interest reading
Last week, I spoke to a colleague from another Sydney selective high school and she admitted that she had found the same difficulties in selecting resources for her school. I told her that I was happy that I was not alone in this issue and that it was good to talk to someone with more experience – this alone highlights the importance of building professional connections.
I had bought two book packs recently – they were appropriate materials to address the Australian Curriculum – the first was going to be used for a HSIE topic and the second pack was around a subject suggested to me by the Science staff as related materials the students would find interesting. However, when they arrived, the Assistant Librarian and I realised they were way too simple for the ability level of our students. When faced with what to do with them, I contacted the supplier to try to organise a refund but it proved impossible. I asked my colleague during our phone call and she said that she had, of course, made similar ordering mistakes. She said she ended up putting them on the shelf anyway instead of weeding them – as it seems a waste to dispose of brand new items.
The first pack:
The second pack:
(note: these were sold as a pack when I was looking to buy them but now I can only find them sold as individual items).
https://www.booksdirect.com.au/series/stem-body
When I looked into the professional and academic literature surrounding this kind of ‘selection mistake’ I noticed a dearth on this topic completely which was confirmed when I asked our uni librarians for help. I made a mental note that this could be a potential topic for future research, however (if I decide to do my PhD perhaps?)
I think there are several key issues that led me to this problem.
The first issue is my lack of experience – this is unavoidable and it will naturally resolve itself as I gain more experience over time.
Secondly, probably the biggest issue, was not adhering to the selection criteria outlined in our library’s collection development policy – we do have a strong policy document – however, I wonder if I should have that open with me whilst I am making purchases, so that I can more closely adhere to it, rather than just ‘mentally’ applying its principles. I also wonder if I should have a specific section addressing Non-Fiction resources and our students’ needs as a selective school. Perhaps I could create specific selection criteria and selection tools addressing this?
Finally, I need to do much more thorough selection evaluations than I am now. (This was meant to be the original topic of this reflection but I seem to have got carried away talking about selection criteria – which is also important). To be honest, I have not even looked at the collection development policy to see what our collection evaluation principles and methods are – or if it is even included in the policy. It did not even occur to me before today (shameful though I am to admit) to do a proper evaluation. This would enable me to much more thoroughly assess the scope and depth of our non-fiction collection and therefore better enable me to address the task of filling those gaps more effectively. I have ‘evaluated’ in the sense that I am really trying to familiarise myself with the collection and take note of what is currently on the shelf and what is circulating and the areas most in need as well as areas where there are large gaps. But I have mostly done this through observation alone. I have looked at some of the data surrounding circulation stats of the non-fiction collection but it is apparent to me now, that I need to be much more specific and methodical in how I conduct these evaluations. I can start by looking at our current policy and procedural documents and go from there.