Collecting the Dust Collectors: Reimagining and putting to use materials your school is not using.

 

Cullinane, A. (2018, January 11). School library incorporates reading with exercise. 10 WJAR. 

https://turnto10.com/news/local/school-library-incorporates-reading-with-exercise

           

Summary: This article was interesting in this work because it talked about the often forgotten task of simply rummaging through your school storage areas and putting to use what is not being used. Then, simply putting clip boards over the handlebars, the students are now able to use equipment the school paid for and read at the same time, effectively building a life skill of associating reading with physical and mental health. The librarian in this story also works at the high school in the district, so this is a habit she could potentially build on going forward for students. This was free!

 

Evaluation: You never know what you can find in the depths of your school’s, and even district’s, storage areas. I once found old LeapPads-with the cartridges-in the library of a highly disadvantaged, 100% free reduced lunch school and they weren’t being used. They should have been in classrooms and in the library but they were in storage. I was so mad. The school was build in 1921 so my classroom legit had five outlets with two plugs and a few plugs didn’t work. Another outlet was our SmartBoard and another the class phone. So, with what was left, I plugged in four LeapPads for the kids. They loved them. They were bulky enough to survive being on the floor incase of accidental kicking. What I enjoyed with this article was the implementation of the bikes and ellipticals in the library. This allows rambunctious students to burn some energy in a calm atmosphere. To begin connecting exercise and reading with physical and mental health. I would love to see public libraries do this for all ages but specifically school libraries as obesity rates rise and literacy rates lower. Let’s fight both battles at once!

Collection Assessment and Management

Gilley, Morgan 

APA Citation:

Kachel, D. E. (1997). Collection assessment and management for school libraries: preparing for cooperative collection development. Greenwood Press.

Summary:

Inside this book, it goes into detail about the stages of collection development. Ms. Kachel goes through the stages of a collection and how to keep the collection circulating. Several appendices cover in more detail collection codes and when to weed out a collection. This is a highly informative book, which is nice because it covers the steps of a collection and how to maintain it. I thought the coolest in this book was how Kachel took the reader through the steps of a collection in order. It was nice to have a book that details a collection and how to get the most out of it.

Evaluation:

This book has so much information about collections and the assessment of them. It shares information about managing a collection specifically for school libraries, but it can also be used to an extent for public or private collections. The author also has an evaluation survey at the end for the librarian to use to see what they should weed out or not. There is so much information inside this that it could also be used as a desk reference book for any library.

2.5 Million Teens

Rickman, W. (2015). 2.5 Million Teens. Knowledge Quest, 43(5), 22–27. Retrieved from http://libaccess.sjlibrary.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=102556292&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Rickman surveyed Arkansas school librarians about LGBTQQ issues in collection development. Although her response level was very low (37 out of 700), Rickman concluded that there is a "lack of resources available for the LGBTQQ student population in the state and an acknowledgment of the need for resources."

Although there are a few major limitations to the study, I agree with Rickman's assessment and also appreciated the list of resources for finding quality material for LGBTQQ students. 

Learning From Rising Sixth Grade Readers: How Nooks Shaped Students’ Reading Behaviors During a Summer Independent Reading Initiative

Chapman, Sherry

Mitchell, C. (2015). Learning from rising sixth grade readers: How nooks shaped students’ reading behaviors during a summer independent reading initiative. Literacy Research and Instruction, 1-24.

https://www-tandfonline-com.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/doi/pdf/10.1080/19388071.2015.1061623?needAccess=true

Summary: This article is on a small study using Nooks loaded with 75 titles in a summer reading program for struggling sixth grade readers. The implications suggest that although this is a limited study, there is a perception that the electronic device providing access to a variety of ebook titles promotes reading for pleasure and has the potential to support and even promote literacy. Evaluation: I am struggling to get ebook access for my middle school students, and this article makes a good argument for student access to ebooks in spite of cost. Although it focuses on a project to prevent summer slide, the outcome can apply to all digital forms of reading and particularly access to ebooks all year. The responses from students show that a student will take a Nook loaded with 75 books everywhere with them all summer. They would not carry around 75 hard copy books. When they finish a book, they can easily access the next. Since they don’t know how long each book is, the result is sometimes reading a 400 page book they would not otherwise have read. I like the idea of this project and wish that my school district would let students keep their devices over the summer or create a reader device checkout system with an array of titles for those who want to read. This will be one of my quests in the coming year. I would love to develop a program like this

Do School Libraries Need to Have Books?

TVOParents Your Voice (May 23, 2010). Do school libraries need to have books?. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/ULqg9qsbg7o?t=8m41s

A panel interview with Toronto librarians discusses whether books are still necessary in the age of digitization.  Are school libraries full of books an old fashioned notion?  These librarians say definitely no!  Variety of materials and library spaces that encourage imagination, ideas, creativity and most of all a love of reading is purported as the foundation of a strong school library.  Start watching at 8:39 to see the interviewees delve deeper into this topic.  While this video was hosted in 2010, nearly six years later I see the same pressures affecting school librarians and school library programs.  It is important to weigh the pros and cons of each type of format, whether print or digital, ideally having both to build an information/idea rich environment.  The other important aspect is taking stock in what patrons need and want when considering digital vs. print materials.

J. Hasselberger
Spring 2016

Dewey Lite: Flippant or Forward Thinking?

Gattullo Marracolla, E. & Parrot, K. Dewey-lite: a solution to the nonfiction problem (PDF document). Retrieved from Institution Handouts: http://www.ala.org/alsc/sites/ala.org.alsc/files/content/NI14Handouts/Dewey-Lite_Handout1.pdf

From a collection development standpoint, is reorganizing the school library using a system other than Dewey Decimal a good plan?  The 2014 ASLA Institute presentation, Dewey-lite: A Solution to the Nonfiction Problem, explains some of the potential benefits of this method, such as a significant rise in nonfiction circulation, better visibility of a wider variety of titles, and ultimately a patron-focused collection.  This presentation may be an oversimplification of these benefits, although this has become a trend across US children's libraries, as well as in Canada and others.  So what would one of these library collections look like?

First, nonfiction sections are broken up into, what is considered more intuitive categories such as these mentioned in the presentation from Darien Library,

• Create: which includes music, arts, gardening, dance, and cooking
• Then & Now: which includes geography, history, and current events
• Animals: which includes all living things prehistoric and currently living

Or these from the Metis system as mentioned in a School Library Journal 2012 article,

• Languages
• Humor
• Community
• Countries
• Machines
• Ourselves

When the reorganizing first takes place, sorting, organizing and weeding will likely take place too.  These new categories may bring unidentified collection needs to light and/or may help to address some needs that had been previously identified.  

Here is a look at this process in action, and the reaction afterward of two elementary school librarians in Ontario, Canada.  

J. Hasselberger

Spring 2016

Bringing Mental Illness & YA Literature to the Forefront

Laudato, Maricar

Scrofano, D. (2015). Not as crazy as it seems: Discussing the new YA literature of mental illness in your classroom or library. Young Adult Library Services.

Summary

Diane Scrofano underlines the importance of including literature that focus on the topic of mental illness into your classroom or library’s collection if your patrons are young adults. The reason for this, she argues, is because the age of onset, for a majority of the lifetime cases of mental illness, are those from 14-24 years old. She writes how, unfortunately, having a mental illness continues to have a stigma attached to it. Because of this, many teens affected by mental illness have no source of literature that they can see themselves (or their family/friends) on the written page and have their experience be validated.

Evaluation

Diane Scrofano makes a compelling case for including literature on mental illness into our libraries’ collections. I recently attended the YALLWEST book festival in Santa Monica this past April and one of the author panels was “I’m a Basketcase.” It was an awesome panel in which these best-selling authors that you would think have their ducks all in order shared their fears and personal experiences with mental illness. I thought it was really brave of them to do that, especially with all of the stigma associated with being mentally ill. I feel that the more that mental illness becomes part of the dialogue in regards to human rights, in the same vein that cultural diversity is, it will only help us to serve the developmental needs of our teens better.