Kids today are growing up in a world that has significantly evolved over the past decades due to modern technology. Teaching and learning are now fully technology-based and much more interactive than it used to be before. Teachers and students are using the internet-based collaborative learning tools to share their knowledge and ideas.
The advent of the internet has changed the teaching and learning method. Libraries now a day have no other option but to upgrade their collection and services depending on user need and evolving technology. Libraries are the heart of educational institutions.They now need to be transformed into learning commos.
In school libraries, collections need to be updated frequently depending on the students’ need and demand and topics are taught in the classes on the other side budget is always limited. This is the reason why collection management has always been a challenging job for the school librarians.
I am privileged to be able to attend a seminar arranged by ALIA (Australian Library and Information Association) on what does the 21st-century school library collection look like. The speakers shared their knowledge, idea, and experience on how they manage their collection to keep pace with the 21st-century learning needs.
Here is my effort to reflect on the event and jot down the ideas together.
Resource collection: building collection or purchasing resources seems like a challenging task for the librarians as the budget is always limited on the other side there is a huge push from the teachers and students for new resources, relevant to their curriculum. To balance between demand and budget libraries should have their own collection development plan. The collection development plan needs to be prepared based on the institutional set-up and types of library users. A well-developed collection plan can significantly contribute to building a useful collection at a lower cost.
It is always a good idea to collaborate with the teachers as they have the idea of the recent curriculum changes and topics are taught in the classroom. Sound knowledge about students’ needs and their demand is on the top of the list to prepare a collection development plan. On this occasion, it is sensible to team up with the stakeholders as well.
source: "Collection Development Plan" flickr photo by LibraryGirlCC https://flickr.com/photos/librarygirlcc/8649458861 shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license
Curation: in terms of online resources, curation is a great way for collection development. It is great to curate study related digital resources and put them at the same place. Many schools have their own library website and the website has a page for popular subject topics like copyright, online research, ancient Rome etc. Some popular curation tools are:
- Pearltrees
- Diigo education
- Evernote
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These tools are great for collaborative teaching and learning.
Here is a list of some great school library websites:
Now a day modern school libraries subscribe various research and study related databases for students. There are many paid and free databases for school kids. Many school libraries put the list of databases on their website. Some popular databases for students are.
- Britennica Image Quest
- Proquest Research Companion
- Core Concept Biology Chemistry
- Scholastic Scienceflix
- Spartical
- ClickView
- Gale Resources
- Flipster (for magazines)
Most of these are paid databases.
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Donation:
In terms of accepting donations consider the associated pros and cons. Libraries need to have a donation policy with a clear articulation of the features and condition of the resources to be accepted as donations.
Weeding: weeding is an unavoidable and ongoing part of collection management process. There are costs associated with resource maintenance. So weeding needs to be done carefully and on regular basis on the items which are not worth to keep in. especially in school libraries weeding is mandatory because of limited space and curriculum change.
There are some graphical presentation of weeding policy below
Image: Heather Bailey
Lastly, I would like to thanks ALIA School for arranging such a great instructive session.
For more information search #ALIAschool on Twitter.
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